IELTSwithJurabek

PASSAGE 2

Read the text and answer questions 14-26

Roller coaster: the great fairground attraction

How they move

A Like a passenger train, a roller coaster consists of a series of connected cars that move on a track. But unlike a passenger train, it has no engine or power source of its own. For most of the ride, it is moved only by the forces of inertia and gravity. The only exertion of energy occurs at the very beginning of the ride when the coaster train is pulled up the lift hill.

B The traditional lifting mechanism is a long length of chain running up the hill under the track. The chain is fastened in a loop, which is wound around a gear at the top of the hill and another one at the bottom of the hill. The gear at the bottom of the hill is turned by a motor. This turns the chain so that it continually moves up the hill like a long conveyor belt. The coaster cars grip onto the chain, which simply pulls them to the top of the hill. At the summit, the train is released and starts its descent.

C The purpose of this initial ascent is to build up a sort of reservoir of potential energy, which simply means that as the coaster gets higher in the air, there is a greater distance gravity can pull it down.

D As the train starts coasting down the hill, this potential energy is converted into kinetic energy (energy of motion), and the train speeds up. At the bottom of the hill, this has reached its maximum, and this propels the train up the second hill, again building up the potential energy level.

E In this way, the course of the track is constantly converting energy from kinetic to potential and back again. This fluctuation in acceleration is what makes roller coasters so much fun. At its most basic level, this is all a roller coaster is – a machine that uses gravity and inertia to send a train along a winding track.

Coasting through history

F Roller coasters have a long, fascinating history. Their direct ancestors were ice slides, popular in Russia in the 16th and 17th centuries. They consisted of a long, steep, wooden slide covered in ice. Riders walked up a ladder or set of stairs to the top of the slide, as high as 21 meters up. At the top, they climbed into sleds made out of wood or blocks of ice and shot down the slope. At the base of the slide, the sleds would crash-land in a sand pile.

G It seems that the idea was then imported into France. For most of the year, the warmer climate would melt the ice, so the French started building waxed slides instead. To help the sleds move down these slides, they added wheels, and in 1817, for the first time, a train was attached to the track. The French continued to expand on this idea, coming up with more complex track layouts, with multiple cars and all sorts of twists and turns.

H The first American roller coaster was built in the mountains of Pennsylvania in the mid-1800s originally to provide an easy way to send coal to the railway 29 km down the mountain. When the track was first built, a crew at the bottom of the mountain would attach the cart to a team of mules after emptying the load, and the mules would drag it back up to the top. They were eventually replaced with steam engines, to make the system more efficient.

I Soon after these improvements were made, the railway company built a new tunnel that brought the freight trains much closer to the coal mine. Now no longer required for its original purpose, the roller coaster was configured as a 'scenic tour'. For one dollar, tourists got a leisurely ride up to the top of the mountain, followed by a wild, bumpy ride straight down. This was soon a resounding success, attracting thousands of tourists every year.

J Scenic rides like this continued to thrive and were joined by wooden roller coasters similar to the ones we know today. These coasters were the main attraction at popular amusement parks throughout the United States, such as the many parks of Coney Island in New York. By the 1920s, roller coasters were in full swing, with some 2,000 rides in operation around the country. Following the Great Depression, a decline in roller coaster production began in the early 1930s but a second roller-coaster boom in the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s revitalized the amusement park industry, and introduced a slew of innovative tubular steel coasters.

K This was followed by a decline in interest for the rest of the decade, but since the early 1990s the amusement-park industry has experienced another coaster boom of sorts. New launching techniques and other technological developments have opened up a world of options for designers so in some rides you feel as if you are flying. In the next few years we can expect to see many faster, taller and more twisted rides popping up in amusement parks around the world.

READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

Tasmania's Museum of Old and New Art

A As an eighteen-year-old living in the small Australian island state of Tasmania, moving to the 'mainland' could not happen soon enough. Now, ten years later, I look forward to going home. This is probably because I've grown up, but also perhaps because the cultural landscape of Tasmania has matured. The latest addition to Tasmania's cultural scene is David Walsh's Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), a museum that has established Hobart, the capital city of Tasmania, on the global art circuit.

B This building is an example of how art and architecture can have an instant impact on the social and cultural reputation of a place. Andrew Bain of The Sydney Morning Herald wrote, 'In a virtual blink, Hobart's cultural landscape has been transformed, with art, wine, fine food and stylish accommodation becoming integral features of the city.... If Hobart's makeover has an origin, it's the opening of MONA - the Museum of Old and New Art.' MONA is said to have been solely instrumental in the reinvention of Hobart as a cultural hub.

C MONA made the national press and international blogs before it opened. After that, Tourism Industry Council of Tasmania's chief executive, Luke Martin, claimed that MONA was proving so popular it was underpinning the tourism industry in Tasmania. However, MONA's effect on Hobart has broader ramifications for Tasmania's tourism industry. As reported in Hobart's local paper, The Mercury, there is concern about how long people are staying in Tasmania. Rather than spending a week in the state and hiring a car to experience the beauty of the Tasmanian landscape, people are making short stays in Hobart only to visit the gallery. The next challenge for the state is how to entice holiday makers to stay longer, and to venture further afield. Tasmania is more than a one-hit wonder.

D According to Martin, possibilities for packaging up MONA with visits to other galleries around Tasmania are being investigated. Although not directly related to these investigations, the 1891 Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery at Royal Park in Launceston is currently being restored to its original condition; there are also plans to extensively redevelop the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart. In addition to this, there are up to twenty other existing quality galleries in the state. So there is more to see than just MONA.

E Although large, the building is rather nondescript, sitting heavily on the edge of the Derwent River. MONA's 'wow factor' comes from the notoriety of David Walsh, the museum's millionaire founder, and his choice of unusual artworks. The architecture has more depth of meaning and does exactly as it should: it supports the vision of the museum, essentially the vision of Walsh. It's a new building in the context of a maturing city. The dark, moody labyrinth of gallery spaces could be likened to the mind of the eccentric founder himself. Each artwork appears to be integrated into the dark materiality of the architecture - the interiors are far from light, bright and neutral, as might be seen in a more traditional gallery. The dim lighting and rough, rocky surfaces are a reminder that visitors are three levels underground.

F The warped, mirrored surface at the museum's entry could be seen as the start of a journey of reflecting on one's existence. Much of the art explores the human condition - there are uninhibited artistic descriptions of human relationships, death, and even the digestion process. Going to a gallery with such confronting artworks with your parents is an interesting experience; I was pleasantly surprised by my parents' openness to the exhibitions. My father, who normally whisks through a gallery while my mother likes to take her time, happily spent almost five hours at MONA; the urge to linger is a common feeling here. This is because the gallery engages all of the senses, and visitors often pause to experience the effect each artwork has on them. This raises the question of who is actually visiting MONA - and it's definitely not just the normal gallery-goers. People from all kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds are curious about what lies within the subterranean maze of MONA. Conservative minds are being opened, which is a good thing anywhere.

G Walsh's antiquities collection is superb, but he knew that old coins would compete for attention against new works that are more challenging in scale and subject matter, hence the device of setting antiquities among twentieth-and twenty-first century works. For me, one of the intriguing outcomes of this strategy was an intensified feeling that the makers of the coins and antiquities were the great contemporary artists of their time.

H The so-called Bilbao Effect has worked its magic on Hobart because, just as Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum has transformed the city of Bilbao in Spain, MONA has been a magnet for tourists in Hobart. However, the architectural 'wow factor' of the Guggenheim was the most famous component of that city's transformation, whereas Fender Katsalidis's MONA does not have the same spectacular impact as the shimmering metal surfaces of Gehry's building. Walsh himself abhors descriptions of MONA as the Bilbao of the south, saying that Fender Katsalidis solved a problem when he designed MONA, in executing a project of this scale in an underground location. Walsh contrasts this with what he describes as the 'architectural self-indulgence' of Gehry when designing the Guggenheim in Bilbao. Call it the Bilbao Effect, but this phenomenon has been around for thousands of years - good public architecture forms the centrepiece of a city. This is probably true, but like the Guggenheim, MONA has initiated something very important for Tasmania, and for Hobart in particular. Now the question is how Tasmania will build on David Walsh's input into its cultural setting.