Genetic fingerprinting - PAU Madrid inglés 2015 resuelto

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos C. Madrid

On September 10th 1984, Alec Jeffreys, a scientist at Leicester University, was using DNA in an experiment to analyse the inheritance element in illness. DNA is the molecule that carries our genetic information. Looking at an X-ray showing the DNA profiles of his assistant and her parents, he suddenly realised that he had, completely by accident, discovered a revolutionary new method of biological identification. He called it “Genetic Fingerprinting”.

The importance of the discovery was recognised immediately by both the UK police and immigration authorities. The technique is now used in forensic science to assist police detective work and to resolve paternity and immigration disputes. It has also helped convict thousands of murderers, rapists and burglars while freeing many innocent people already in prison.

Genetic fingerprinting also has a promising future in the battle against disease. Scientists are storing genetic information of people in a “biobank”, in the world’s largest study of the role of nature and nurture in health and disease.

Many of the worst illnesses, including heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s, are caused by complex interactions between genes, lifestyle and environment. However, it does have a negative side. Many people are worried that the discovery could badly affect our civil liberties. Jeffreys fears possible abuses of the system. He wants a global DNA database but without any information on race, health or physical appearance. As the technique becomes more sophisticated, all this information and more will be available.

The hardest language - PAU Andalucía 2012

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos Andalucía

People often ask which is the most difficult language to learn, and it is not easy to answer because there are many factors to take into consideration. Regarding first languages, the differences are unimportant, as people learn their mother tongue naturally. So the question of how hard a language is to learn is only relevant when learning a second language. Some people seem to learn languages without any effort, while others find it very difficult. Besides, people learn languages that they need to use professionally much faster than languages that have no direct use in their everyday life.

Many people answer that Chinese is the hardest language to learn, possibly influenced by the thought of learning the Chinese writing system and by the fact that the pronunciation of Chinese appears to be very difficult for many foreign learners. For example, Japanese speakers, who already use Chinese characters in their own language find learning Chinese writing less difficult than speakers of languages using the Roman alphabet. So, generally, people seem to think that languages which are related to our first language are easier because learning a completely different writing system is a huge challenge.

Cleopatra was not killed by a snake - PAU 2011 inglés Madrid

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos C. Madrid

The Queen of the Nile ended her life in 30 BC. According to legend, it was the bite of an Egyptian cobra which caused her death. After losing the Battle of Actium, her Roman lover, Mark Antony, is said to have committed suicide. Cleopatra did likewise, according to tradition, by killing herself. Her legacy survives in numerous works of art and the many dramatizations of her story in literature and other media. Cleopatra is usually portrayed as a great beauty and her successive conquests of the world's most powerful men are taken to be proof of her aesthetic and sexual appeal.
Now Christoph Schaefer, a German historian and professor at the University of Trier, has presented evidence on a television programme that drugs and not a snake were the cause of death. He said that the bite of a snake would have given her an agonizing death over several days. "Queen Cleopatra was famous for her beauty and was unlikely to have subjected herself to a long and disfiguring death," said Schaefer, the author of a best-selling book in Germany called Cleopatra.
"Cleopatra wanted to remain beautiful in her death to maintain her myth. The last female Pharaoh probably took a lethal cocktail, which, back then, was a well-known mixture that led to a painless death within just a few hours. We consulted eminent zoologists and toxicologists and they said that a snake bite would have been too uncertain and taken too long," Professor Schaefer added.

How racist is Britain? - PAU inglés C.Valenciana 2009

>Exámenes selectividad inglés Comunidad Valenciana resueltos

In Britain, social and ethnic division is a plain fact. Ethnic minority populations concentrate in particular areas. Although mixed-race marriages are on the rise, they still comprise only 2% of all marriages. For the most part, people mix and marry with people mainly of their own cultural background, as determined by a combination of country, family origin or religion. 

Britain is a patchwork of almost hermetically sealed sub-worlds, in which class as much as race is a crucial factor. We all like to feel that we are open-minded people who can be friends with anyone, and we can also probably find a few examples of friends who do not match our demographic profile to prove our lack of insularity. But if we are honest, the vast majority live, work and socialise overwhelmingly with people of a similar social type. And the opportunities to mix are limited because many areas remain deeply inhospitable to “outsiders”.

Besides, well-intentioned promotion of multiculturalism can actually exacerbate the paranoid feeling of Britishness being under threat. When people are informed by local and national governments that they ought to embrace minority cultures more than they do, they feel they are being told that their own way of life simply isn’t good enough.

This is all clearly bad news for optimistic multiculturalists, and some will think that it suggests a negative view of human nature. On this view, the best we can hope for is little tension between communities by means of mutual tolerance. But toleration implies putting up with something you don’t much like, not embracing difference.

Julian Baggini, The Guardian, 23-1-2007

Why thin doesn’t sell? - PAU inglés C.Valenciana 2006

>Exámenes selectividad inglés Comunidad Valenciana resueltos

They have been banned from the catwalk, blamed for devastating women’s self-esteem and suspected of suffering eating disorders. Now ultra-thin models face another accusation: that they’re not good at their job. New research has found that instead of being admired by women, excessively thin models are regarded as less truthful and appealing than “ordinary” women. ‘The advertising and fashion industries are reluctant to use larger models because they say that thinness sells’, said Dr Helga Dittmar, of the University of Sussex. ‘But our research has shown that thin models are less effective in selling products than average-size models’. Dittmar asked 800 women to rank the effectiveness of adverts featuring slim models. She expected women to find thin models more convincing and persuasive. ‘Instead, there was a strong message that models were evaluated more positively when they had a normal size’, she said.

These findings come after the controversy which erupted when Madrid said models at Pasarela Cibeles must have a weight in line with United Nations health guidelines. Dittmar said: ‘Only a small percentage of women can ever hope to have the bodies shown in most advertising. There are fears that images of ultra-thin models can have a number of significant consequences, including negative self-perception, depression and disordered eating. The conclusion is that thin models have a negative effect on the self-esteem of women, and this affects the effectiveness of the advertising message. ‘Compared with ultra-thin models, those who appear in ads with an average, healthy body size were viewed as more credible’.

Green energy industry asks for government help to meet targets

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos Andalucía

The renewable power industry has warned that it needs £500m from the government over the next two years in order to meet future energy demands. Half of this amount of money will be used for developing wind power generation by installing wind turbines in the sea, while the rest will go to making wind and tidal power generation commercially profitable, because up to now it has only seen an experimental development.

This call for a large injection of public money was made by RenewableUK, a group previously known as the British Wind Energy Association, in a presentation to the energy minister, David Kidney.

RenewableUK pointed to the example of Denmark as a country that had benefited from giving strong support to this new green industry for the development of wind energy generation projects. Denmark invested £1.3bn into this sector, and as a result of this investment, renewable energy industries in Denmark are now producing benefits of £2.3bn annually.

Beauty over youth- PAU Madrid 2002

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos C. Madrid

From the countless music videos portraying young healthy-looking beauties to a flourishing cosmetics industry that promises slow aging, women are led to believe that men primarily prefer youth to beauty. But a new study from Britain suggests that men go for older attractive women rather than younger plain-looking ones.
The new study by a psychologist of Chiterns University College shows that up to a certain age, men find attractiveness more important than youth when considering potential mates. The psychologist took a photo of a 36-year-old woman who was very attractive in the eyes of a group of men. They showed the picture to three other groups in their early 20s along with the same eight pictures of women aged 20-45 who had been considered less attractive. The researchers told the group the beautiful woman was either 36, 41 or 45 years old. When asked who they'd prefer as a long-term partner, all three groups of men chose her, regardless of how old they thought she was.

The study shows that beauty counts and that men are not concerned with the number of children they can have. The younger, plainer women will give them more children, but the fact that men are going for the "aging beauty" is indicative that beauty is more important at some level. But the psychologist also stressed that the study was based only on physical attractiveness and didn't take into account other characteristic traits like kindness, generosity, and caring, which were just as, if not more important, in determining long-term relationships.

Some people never forget a face - PAU inglés Madrid 2012 resuelto

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos C. Madrid

A new study finds some people can remember faces of people they met years ago and only in passing. Others of us, of course, aren't blessed with that ability. In fact about 2 percent of the population has prosopagnosia, a condition characterized by great difficulty in recognizing faces.

The "super-recognizers", as they are called, excel at recalling faces. The study suggests that there is — as with many things — a broad spectrum of ability in this realm. The research involved standardized face recognition tests, and the superrecognizers scored far above average on these tests. Often super-recognizers are able to recognize another person despite significant changes in appearance, such as aging or a different hair color. They also recognize other people far more often than they are recognized. In these cases, they often compensate by pretending not to recognize someone they met in passing, so as to avoid appearing to attribute too much importance to a brief encounter.

Super-recognizers, then, really stand out in terms of their ability to remember people. They have extreme stories of recognizing people; it doesn't have to be a significant interaction. They can recognize someone who was shopping in the same store with them two months ago, for example, even if they didn't speak to the person. One woman in the new study said she had identified another woman on the street who served her as a waitress five years earlier in a different city. This outstanding ability could be important in courts, where one person's eyewitness testimony might thus be more credible than another based on their varying abilities to recognize a face.

Immigrants - PAU Andalucía 2012

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos Andalucía

By Kerby Miller - Ed. Chronicle Books 

My great-grandfather was born in Ireland in 1842. His father was a fisherman who died at sea. That's all I know about this period of his life. When he was nineteen, he and his older brother made their way to the United States. I often think about what he left behind in Ireland during the country's worst famine; I am sure that there was poverty all around them. If his family survived, there is no historical record. It must have been a hard journey across the ocean leaving his mother, brothers and sisters, perhaps forever. It is the tears of the immigrants that made the green fields of the USA.
My Irish ancestor somehow managed to work long and hard enough to buy a small farm in rural Indiana. He married a girl in Illinois, eventually raising ten children. He became active in rural township politics and proudly became an American citizen.

Trick or treat! It's Halloween- PAU 2010 inglés Madrid resuelto

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos C. Madrid

Children celebrate Halloween around the world on the night of October 31st. They go out in macabre costumes of ghosts, witches or skeletons to knock on their neighbours' doors and shout "Trick or treat!" The neighbours must give them sweets; otherwise, the children will play tricks on them. Halloween is big business in the United States where people spend around seven billion dollars each year on Halloween products. Theme parks like Disneyland hold week-long festivals and many cities have parades. New York's Village Halloween Parade attracts two million people who celebrate in the streets, dressed in stunning costumes. The tradition is strongest in the United States, but interest is growing in Europe.

Actually, Halloween originated in Europe as a Celtic New Year celebration. For the Irish, in the Celtic calendar, October 3lst was Samhain, a pagan festival. The Celts believed that the dead returned to possess the living during that night, and so they opened their doors and provided food to the wandering good souls and wore costumes to scare off the evil ones.

Are mobile phones dangerous? - PAU inglés Andalucía 2013 resuelto

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos Andalucía

Photo: Reuters

Are mobile phones dangerous to your health? It is difficult to know for sure. Some researchers suggest that heavy users of mobile phones are at a greater risk of developing brain tumours. Nevertheless, many other studies suggest there are no links between cancer and mobile phone use. Over three billion people use mobile phones on a daily basis, and many talk for more than an hour a day. Mobile phone antennas are similar to microwave ovens. While both rely on electromagnetic radiation, the radio waves in mobile phones are lower in radio frequency (RE). Microwave ovens have enough RE to cook food and are known to be dangerous to human tissues. However, the concern is that the lower frequency radio waves that mobile phones rely on may also be dangerous. Some researchers believe that other types of wireless technology may also be dangerous to human health, including laptops, cordless phones, and gaming consoles. They say that many cordless phones emit dangerous levels of Electromagnetic Radiation (ER) even when they are not in use. They even suggest keeping electronic devices, such as computers and alarm clocks, out of bedrooms, or at least 1.8 metres from your pillow. Besides, a growing number of health professionals recommend that children and teens, whose brains are still developing, use mobile phones only for emergencies. Concerned medical experts use the example of tobacco to illustrate the potential risks. Many years ago, people smoked freely and were not aware of the effects of cigarettes on their health. Today, people know that cigarettes cause lung cancer, though it is still unknown exactly how or why. Some doctors fear that the same thing will happen with devices such as mobiles.

Facebook generation suffers from information withdrawal syndrome - PAU 2012 inglés Madrid

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos C. Madrid

In an experiment, called “Unplugged”, volunteers at 12 universities around the world spent 24 hours without access to computers, mobile phones, iPods, television, radio and even newspapers. They were allowed to use landline telephones or read books. Participants were asked to keep diaries about their experience. Entries in the diaries showed that many recorded feeling impatient, anxious or isolated.

Participants described feeling restless and reaching for their mobile phones even when they weren't there. There were also some good effects though, as people developed survival skills and went out for walks and visited friends rather than sitting in front of a computer.

“What was amazing for us was how dependent people now are on their technology. People often don't own watches or alarm clocks because they rely upon their mobile phones to wake themselves up," researchers commented. Most participants in the study struggled without their mobile phones and felt they were missing out by not using Facebook. However, it was abstinence from music that caused them the most difficulty. "A lot of them said they found the silence quite uncomfortable and awkward," he said. "But as they got used to it, they began to notice more things around them like birds singing or hearing what their neighbours were doing. In their reflections on what they had been through, people freely admitted that they were experiencing symptoms of withdrawal. The students compared the experience to going on a diet or giving up smoking radically. The word addiction kept recurring."
More info: The world unplugged

EXAMEN RESUELTO

               FACEBOOK GENERATION SUFFERS FROM INFORMATION WITHDRAWAL SYNDROME

Exams come to the bedroom - PAU inglés Andalucía 2011 resuelto

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos Andalucía

The US firm Software Secure Inc. has developed a new system that allows students to take tests from their bedrooms at any time of day or night. The University of Wales is already experimenting with this technology and dozens of others will be offered the service this summer. The system works through a unit that students plug into their computers and it incorporates software to prevent students from cheating.

Once a student feels ready to take the written exam, the technology takes a fingerprint to check his/her identity and a 360-degree webcam and microphone check that the student is not trying to cheat by receiving help from others. The computer also locks network access so that the student cannot search the internet for answers.

"The program acts in the same way as a normal invigilator. However, there are still some questions over whether a student would be able to cheat and how it would be possible, logistically, to use the system with thousands of students," said Mark Pelling, a senior administrator at the university.

Caffeine and alcohol potent mix for young - PAU inglés 2012 CyL

Mixing alcohol and caffeine is hardly a new concept, but a series of cases involving students and others who were taken to hospitals after drinking beverages that combine the two in a single large can has alarmed college and health officials around the country. The drinks are dangerous, doctors say, because the caffeine masks the effects of the alcohol, keeping consumers from realizing just how intoxicated they are.

A brand called Four Loko, a fruit-flavored malt beverage that has an alcohol content of 12 percent and as much caffeine as a cup of coffee, has been particularly criticized after students who drank it this fall at Ramapo College in New Jersey ended up in emergency rooms, some with high levels of alcohol poisoning.

‘This is one of the most dangerous new alcohol mixtures I have ever seen,’ said an emergency room doctor at Lancaster General Hospital, who said he had treated more than a dozen teenagers and adults over the last three months who had been brought there after drinking Four Loko. ‘It's a recipe for disaster because your body's natural defense is to ge sleepy and not want to drink, but in this case you're tricking the body with the caffeine.’

Elvis lives! - PAU Madrid 2003

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos C. Madrid

He was the rock legend known as The King, she was a school-girl who loved him tender and swooned at the mere mention of his name. Now, thirty-nine years after she wrote to Elvis Presley promising to marry him when she grew up, Karen Golz has learned that her idol did not have a wooden heart. In a message from beyond the grave, his reply finally arrived.

It was as her 11th birthday approached in 1960 that Karen wrote to Elvis, who was serving as an American GI(1) in Germany. In a letter posted to the house where he was staying, she wrote: “Dear Elvis, It’s my birthday soon and if you send me your autograph I promise I will marry you when I grow up.”

Anxious not to disappoint his young fan, he wrote a note back, scrawling her name and address in Germany, on the envelope. Inside, the note said: “Dear Karen, May you have a very happy 11th birthday —and a lot of Teddy Bears. Your friend, Elvis.”

He gave the stamped and addressed envelope to his landlady to post. But she mislaid it and the letter lay undiscovered until the woman died. It was only when her family was cleaning out the house that the memento was rediscovered. Even though they realised its value to collectors, they donated the letter to the local Elvis Presley society.

Solomon's real mine discovered? - PAU 2009 inglés Madrid resuelto

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos C. Madrid

In a discovery straight out of an Indiana Jones movie, archaeologists believe they have uncovered one of the lost mines of King Solomon. The vast copper mine lies in an arid valley and was created in the 10th century BC ―around the time Solomon is believed to have ruled over the ancient Hebrews. The mines are enormous and would have generated a huge income for the king, who is famed for bringing extraordinary wealth and stability to the newly-united kingdom of Israel and Judah.

According to the Bible, Solomon was the third king of Israel and ruled for 40 years, between 965 BC and 925 BC. The son of King David ―of the David and Goliath story― and Queen Bathsheba, Solomon was renowned for his wisdom, his writings and the size of his harem. During his reign, Israel was at the heart of a prosperous and stable empire. He rebuilt Jerusalem, creating magnificent palaces and fortresses. He is said to have accumulated a huge fortune from mining and trading, some of which was spent on building the grand temple and opulent palace of Jerusalem.

Archaeologists and treasure-hunters have searched for the mines in Africa since 1885. This is because the best-selling Victorian novel, King Solomon's Mines, was set in this continent. Besides, it claimed they could hold a treasure of gold and diamonds. But now, it seems the real mines could have been closer to Solomon’s kingdom, and, in fact, supplied the king with copper. The ancient mine was found in a desolate region south of the Dead Sea in modern-day Jordan in an area called Khirbat en-Nahas, which means 'ruins of copper' in Arabic.

Cable's big fear: Internet TV

Force of habit is a powerful thing. How else can I explain why I spend $200 per month for a package of Internet, TV and telephone –most of which I don’t really need? My wife and I make most calls on our cell phones. An even bigger waste of money is TV, which accounts for $125 of the $200 package. Nearly everything we want we could get online. So why not just pay for the Internet and forget the rest?
Nielsen recently reported that although online video viewing has risen, TV viewing is still done on a traditional TV. But that’s not the case for younger people, like my pal Dan Frommer. He gets shows from the Internet via a Macintosh computer hooked to his LCD television. He can’t get everything he’d like to see. The next generation will likely never sign up for cable TV at all.
Cable companies are faced with a dilemma: do they embrace the Internet and try to make money online, or do they fight the Internet and try to hold off the destruction? The answer is to do both –holding off the rising tide with one hand while racing to devise workable Internet business models with the other.

The key to choosing the right career - PAU 2014 inglés Madrid

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos C. Madrid

When I graduated from college, I liked lots of things. But love? Passion? That would have been an exaggeration. Choosing a career path is usually a confusing and stressing experience. Many will tell you to "follow your passion" or "do what you love", but this doesn't seem very useful advice.

We all want to choose a career that will make us happy, but how can we know what that will be? In fairness, how are you supposed to know if you will be happy as an investment banker or artist or a professor, if you haven't actually done any of these things yet? Who has ever, in the history of mankind, taken a job and had it turn out exactly as they imagined it would?

So if passion and expected happiness can't be your guides, what can be? Well, you can begin by choosing a career that fits well with your skills and values. Since you actually have some sense of what those are (hopefully), this is a good starting place. But a bit less obviously, you also want to choose an occupation that provides good motivation for you as well.

There are two ways you can be motivated to reach your goals. Some of us tend to see our goals as opportunities for advancement, success and rewards. The rest of us see our goals a being about security - about not losing everything we've worked so hard for. So, if you are starting a new venture, make sure that you've got a healthy balance of promotion and prevention.

Compulsive shopping - PAU inglés Madrid 2008

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos C. Madrid

A new illness, the Compulsive Buying Disorder, has been diagnosed. Its symptoms are frequent thoughts of shopping, experiencing senseless impulses to purchase unneeded items, and overspending to the extent that it harms relationships or job performance. A recent survey has found that one in twenty American adults buy things they may not even want or need. In today’s world of consumerism, where we are constantly bombarded by ads, this is perhaps not unusual. But more surprising is a further finding that runs counter to the conventional and rather stereotyped view that compulsive buying is very much a “woman's disease”: men are just as likely as women to suffer from compulsive buying. Gone seem to be the days when women dragged their bored men around shopping malls.

Researchers say that the number of men who indulge in unnecessary shopping has rocketed. Experts claim that past trends and figures may have been unfairly distorted as male obsessive shoppers used to be more reluctant than women to recognize that they have a problem, admit it, and seek help. While women buy more clothing and products that improve appearance, men tend to focus more on gadgets and technical items and can become compulsive collectors.

And help seems to be exactly what the doctor orders for any compulsive shopper who is usually not made any happier by his or her relentless buying. Doctors have concluded that this behaviour is a way for people to try to complete themselves. For some people, being complete is being impeccably dressed or having something new. Instead, medical practitioners encourage those seeking treatment to cultivate non-materialistic aspects of their lives.

Romeo and Juliet in Turkey- PAU 1996

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos C. Madrid

The story of 13-year-old schoolgirl Sarah Cook began as a typical holiday romance, two teenagers on a Mediterranean beach. The holiday came to an end, but the romance didn't. There were long, tearful telephone calls. There was desperate pestering, until Sarah's parents agreed to fly back to Turkey with her. Weeks later, Sarah and Musa, her Turkish boyfriend, were married in a Muslim ceremony attended by their parents.

Though it is illegal in Turkey, marriages of girls as young as 12 are common in rural areas, where families are large, and the dowry paid by a husband to his bride's relatives is desperately needed. Elsewhere in the world, child marriages are common. However, perhaps because of publicity, Musa is now in prison in Turkey facing a possible 5-year sentence for rape, and Sarah is threatening to go on hunger strike if she is sent to Britain.

Turkish papers have opposed the British government's demands for Sarah's return. For many people there, it is a Romeo-and-Juliet love affair, the youthful protagonists divided not by a family quarrel but by different cultures, East against West, Islam against Christianity. Turks cannot understand how a society which offers methods of contraception to teenagers can be outraged by a young couple who marry in a religious ceremony with their parents' agreement. Supporters of the couple have placed a bouquet of carnations at the British consulate in Istanbul with the message: "Tolerance for Love", urging that Sarah should be allowed to stay in Turkey.