1. Once you have identified which section of the text will give you the answer to a multiple-choice question, it can be useful to rephrase what it says in that section in your own words: it may help you identify the correct answer more quickly.

2. When deciding between the answers to multiple choice questions, do not be misled by answers that look similar to what you have read in the text. For example, there is a difference between ‘experts agree’ (= all experts agree) and ‘some experts say’(= not all experts agree, just some).

Educating psyche

Educating psyche by Bernie Neville is a book which looks at radical new approaches to learning, describing the effects of emotion and imagination and the unconscious on learning. One theory are discussed in the book is that proposed by George Lozanov, which focuses on the power of suggestion.

Lozanov's instructional techniques is based on the evidence that the connections made in the brain through unconscious processing (which he calls non-specific mental creativity) are more durable than those made through conscious processing. Beside the laboratory evidence for this, we know from our experience that we often remember what we have perceived peripherally, long after we have forgotten what you set out to learn. If we think of a book we studied months or years ago, we will find it easier to recall peripheral details – the color, the binding, the typeface, the table at the library where we sat while studying it – than the content on which we were concentrating. If we think of a lecture will listened to with greater concentration, we will recall the lecture’s appearance and mannerism, our place in auditorium, the failure of the air-conditioning, much more easily than the ideas we went to learn. Even if these peripheral details are a bit elusive, they come back really in hypnosis or when we relive the event imaginatively, as in psychodrama. The details of the content of the lecture, on the other hand seem to have gone forever.

This phenomenon can be partly attributed to the common counterproductive approach to study (making extreme efforts to memories, tensing muscles, including fatigue), but it also simply reflects the way the brain functions. Lozanov therefore made indirect instruction (suggestion) central to his teaching system. In suggestopedia, as he called his method, consciousness is shifted away from the curriculum to focus on something peripheral. The curriculum then becomes peripheral and is dealt with by the reserve capacity of the brain.

A. the power of suggestion in learning

B. a particular technique for learning based on emotions

C. the effects of emotion on the imagination and the unconscious

D. ways of learning which are not traditional

A. unimportant details are the easiest to recall

B. concentrating hard produces the best results

C. the most significant facts are most easily recalled

D. peripheral vision is not important

A. both of these are important for developing concentration

B. this theory about methods of learning is valid

C. reading is a better technique for learning than listening

D. we can remember things more easily under hypnosis.

A. memorize details of the curriculum

B. develop their own sets of indirect instructions

C. think about something other than the curriculum content

D. avoid overloading the capacity of the brain.

A Very Special Dog

It is 8.15 a.m. A flight lands at Melbourne International Airport. Several hundred pieces of baggage are rushed from the plane onto the conveyor belt in the baggage reclaim annexe. Over the sound of roaring engines, rushing air vents and grinding generators, a dog barks. Florence, a sleek black labrador, wags her tail.

Among the cavalcade of luggage passing beneath Florence’s all-smelling nose, is a nondescript hardback suitcase. Inside the case, within styrofoam casing, packed in loose pepper and coffee, wrapped in freezer paper and heat-sealed in plastic, are 18 kilometer of hashish.

The cleverly concealed drugs do not fool super-sniffer Florence, and her persistent scratching at the case alerts her handler. Florence is one of a truly new breed: the product of what is perhaps the only project in the world dedicated to breeding dogs solely to detect drugs. Ordinary dogs have a 0.1% chance of making it in drug detection. The new braiding program, run by the Australian Customs, is so successful that more than 50% of its dogs make the grade.

And what began a wholly practical exercise in keeping illegal drugs out of Australia may end up playing a role in an entirely different sphere - the comparatively  esoteric world of neurobiology. It turns out that it's not Florence's nose that makes her a top drug dog, but her unswerving concentration, plus a few other essential traits. Florence could help neurobiologist to understand both  what they call ‘attention processing’, the brain mechanism that determine what a person pays attention to and for how long, and its flip sides, problems such as Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). As many as 3 to 5% of children are taught to suffer from the condition in the US, where the incidence is highest, although diagnosis is often controversial.

The Australian Customs has used dogs to find drugs since 1969. Traditionally, the animals came from pounds and private breeders. But, in 1993, fed up with the poor success rate of finding good dogs this way, John Vandeloo, senior instructor with the Detector Dog Unit, joined forces with Kath Champness, then the doctoral  student at the University of Melbourne, and set up a breeding program.

A. were hidden inside the lining

B. had pepper and coffee around them

C. had previously been frozen

D.  had a  special smell to repel dogs

A. they don't work well with a handler

B.  they lack the right training

C.  the drugs are usually very well hidden

D. they lack certain genetic qualities

A. has a better sense of smell than other dogs

B. is not easily distracted

C. has been especially trained to work as are airports

D. enjoys what she is doing

A. how human and dog brains differ

B. how people can use both sides of their brain

C. why some people have difficulty paying attention

D.  the best way for people to maintain their focus

A. decided to use its own dogs again

B. was successful in finding detector dogs

C. changed the way it obtained dogs

D. asked private breeders to provide more dogs.

The Brain Drain

Human capital flight, sometimes called “brain drain”, refers to the emigration of intelligent, well-educated individuals to another country for better pay or conditions, causing the home country to lose those skilled people, or “brains”.

The term "brain drain" was coined by the Royal Society in the 1950s to describe the emigration of scientists and technologists to North America from post-war Europe. Albert Einstein was an earlier, and perhaps the most famous, example of this form of emigration. Einstein was visiting the United States when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 and, being Jewish, did not go back to Germany, where he had been a professor at the Berlin Academy of Sciences. He settled in the U.S., becoming an American citizen in 1940. Although the term originally referred to science and technology workers leaving a nation, the meaning has broadened to describe "the departure of educated or professional people from one country, economic sector, or field for another, usually for better pay or living conditions”.

As with other human migration, the social environment is considered to be a key reason for this population shift. In source countries, lack of opportunities, political instability or oppression, economic depression, and health risks contribute to brain drain. Host countries, on the other hand, may offer employment opportunities, political stability and freedom, a developed economy, and better living conditions. At the individual level, family influences (relatives living overseas, for example), as well as personal preferences, career ambitions and other motivating factors can be considered.

In spite of its negative connotation, “brain drain” migration can be seen in a positive light. There is obviously a benefit to the migrating individuals, in terms of career progression, quality of life and earning power. These professionals often send remittances home to family members, and they may at some point return to their home countries with enhanced knowledge and skills. The home country may also experience an increase in demand for higher level education as people see the opportunities for educated workers overseas.

On the other hand, it is almost certainly more beneficial for a country to gain educated professionals than to lose them. It can be argued that the brain drain leads to an uneven distribution of knowledge, promoting innovation and development in destination countries, while stripping ‘source’ countries of their best workers, and therefore hindering their progress.

Some governments have policies to retain skilled workers. In Germany,

Switzerland, Austria and France, for example, government-funded initiatives have been established to assist professionals working abroad to return to their home countries. By contrast, the Indian government has not adopted such policies, believing that the lost talent will eventually contribute to the nation in the future.

A)   during the Second World War

B)   when Albert Einstein decided to settle in the USA

C)   to refer to the emigration of skilled Europeans after the Second World War

D)   to describe immigration in North America

A)    social and environmental factors in developing countries

B)    the problems people face in source countries, and the allure of a better life

C)    families living in different parts of the world

D)    workers becoming more ambitious

A)    they may help their families by sending money home

B)    they usually return home to visit family members

C)    they benefit from better education systems in the destination countries

D)    their home countries receive money for higher education

A)    most countries promote innovation

B)    all governments have policies to stop skilled workers leaving

C)    Indian migrants are expected to send financial contributions home

D)    schemes have been implemented in some countries to bring migrants home