Reading02-mini-p01 – TFNG – AC

Answers to Questions 1-4
The key words in each statement have been underlined.
1 TRUE: Few people recognise nowadays that human beings are designed to function best in daylight: ‘This is a basic evolutionary fact, even though most of us don’t think of ourselves [= few people recognise] as diurnal beings [= beings designed to function best in daylight] …’.
2 TRUE: Most light pollution is caused by the direction of artificial lights rather than their intensity: ‘Light pollution is largely the result of bad lighting design, which allows artificial light to shine outward and upward into the sky [= direction] …’ (there is no mention of the intensity of artificial lights being a problem).
3 FALSE: By 1800 the city of London had such a large population, it was already causing light pollution: The third paragraph says that in London in 1800 the nights were either moonlit or people used ‘candles and lanterns’, ‘as they always had’.
4 NOT GIVEN: The fishermen of the South Atlantic are unaware of the light pollution they are causing: The fourth paragraph explains what the fishermen do and says that ‘the glow from a single fishing fleet … can be seen from space’ but it doesn’t say if the fishermen are aware or unaware of this.

Answers to Questions 5-7

5 NOT GIVEN: Shadows from the planet Venus are more difficult to see at certain times of year: Although the fifth paragraph says that an ‘unlit night’ is required to see the shadows of Venus and that this is ‘beyond memory almost’, there is no mention of it being connected to ‘certain times of year’.
6 FALSE: In some Swiss valleys, the total number of bats declined rapidly after the introduction of streetlights: The seventh paragraph is about bats in the Swiss valleys. It says one species of bat ‘began to vanish’ but the valleys ‘were suddenly filled’ with a different species of bat. The number of bats didn’t therefore decline (but the species of bats changed).
7 TRUE: The first attempts to limit light pollution were carried out to help those studying the stars: The last paragraph mentions light pollution’ affecting astronomers. ‘In fact’ links the next sentence to the astronomers and the text says ‘some of the earliest civic efforts [= first attempts] to control [= limit]light pollution were made … to protect the view from Lowell Observatory [= to help those studying the stars- an observatoryis where astronomers work]