Pretest-TextResponse

Section 1 – Summarize written text Read the passage below and summarise it using one sentence. Type your response in the box at the bottom of the screen. You have 15 minutes to finish this task. Your response will be judged on the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the key points in the passage. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released a new report on anthropogenic climate change. The findings of the report include the following: • The world’s average surface temperature has increased by around 0.74°C over the past 100 years (1906-2005). A warming of about 0.2°C is projected for each of the next two decades. • The best estimates for sea-level rise due to ocean expansion and glacier melt by the end of the century (compared to 1989-1999 levels) have narrowed to 28-58 cm, versus 9-88 cm in the 2001 report, due to improved understanding. However, large values of up to 1 m by 2100 cannot be ruled out if ice sheets continue to melts as temperature rises. • Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Large areas of the Arctic Ocean could lose year-round ice cover by the end of the 21st century if human emissions reach the higher and end of current estimates. The extent of Arctic sea ice has already shrunk by about 2.7 percent per decade since 1978, with the summer minimum declining by about 7.1 percent per decade. • Snow soccer has decreased in most regions, especially in spring. The maximum extent of frozen ground in the winter/spring season decrease about 7 percent in the Northern Hemisphere over the latter half of the 20th century. The average freezing date for rivers and lakes in the Northern Hemisphere over the past 150 years has arrived later by some 5.8 days per century, while the average break-up date has arrived earlier by 6.5 days per century. • It is “very likely” that precipitation will increase at high latitudes and “likely” it will decrease over most subtropical land regions. The pattern of these changes is similar to what has been observed during the 20th century. Write your answer below (50-75 words):

Section 2 – Summarize written text Read the passage below and summarise it using one sentence. Type your response in the box at the bottom of the screen. You have 15 minutes to finish this task. Your response will be judged on the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the key points in the passage. For millions of years, Mediterranean sea turtles have been coming to the shore of southern Lebanon to lay their eggs. Every summer, their babies hatch and literally run for their lives on the strip of sand that separates their nests from the sea. An endangered species, they had been largely ignored in this apart of Lebanon until two women set out to protect them. Mona Khalil was inspired by a walk on the beach during a visit to her homeland, when she first saw the turtles. Upon learning that they were close to disappearing from her country, Khalil decided to “come back and do something about them.” The next year, 2000, she returned and teamed up with Habiba Fayed, who shares her passion for the environment. They opened a bed-and-breakfast in the Khalil family home to finance their efforts. Guests could simply vacation or, in the spirit of ecotourism, they could help the owners protect the turtles’ nests and keep the beach clean. Female turtles travel to the exact spot where they were born to dig their nests in the sand, laying an average of 70 to 100 eggs. This is the moment when the women intervene. They protect the nests from predators by burying an iron grid in the sand above the eggs. The spaces on the grid are large enough to allow the baby turtles to emerge after a month and find their way to the sea… and to a chance at life. Write your answer below (5-75 words):

Section 3 – Write essay You will have 20 minutes to plan, write and revise an essay about the topic below. Your response will be judged on how well you develop a position, organise your ideas, present supporting details, and control the elements of standard written English. You should write 200-300 words. Tobacco, mainly in the form of cigarettes, is one of the most widely-used drugs in the world. Over a billion adults legally smoke tobacco every day. The long-term health costs are high – for smokers themselves, and for the wider community in terms of health care costs and lost productivity. Do governments have a legitimate role to legislate to protect citizens from the harmful effects of their own decisions to smoke or are such a decision up to the individual. Write your answer below (200-300 words):