IELTSwithJurabek

PASSAGE 2

Read the text and answer questions 14-26

VIOLINS AND VERY COLD WEATHER - A HYPOTHESIS

Lloyd Burckle and Henri D Grissino-Mayer suggest a link between the great Italian violin-makers and a mini ice-age 300 years ago.

14A There is considerable controversy surrounding reasons why instruments made by the artisans of Cremona in Italy in the late 17th and early 18th centuries sound superior compared to modern instruments. The famous violin-making families of Amati, Stradivari, and Guarneri certainly included many highly accomplished craftsmen, and the popular belief is that the skills of these Cremonese artisans, combined with either a secret ingredient or undocumented process, gave their instruments the rich sound so highly admired by professional musicians. The nature of that secret ingredient has been the subject of conjecture for many years and is still fuelling discussion. Theories have included the development and use of a specially formulated varnish applied to the wood to protect it, drying the wood in ovens, the re-use of old wood taken from castles, and soaking the wood in water to get rid of supposedly harmful chemicals before seasoning.

15B However, no basis has been found for these possible explanations. There is no documented evidence of wood being artificially dried by violin-makers, and this process was most likely unknown to these artisans. Nor can seasoning - the practice of leaving wood for the moisture to evaporate naturally - be invoked as a possible explanation, as considerable variability exists in the lengths of seasoning periods, even among individual makers. Instruments made by Antonio Stradivari have seasoning periods as short as seven years and as long as 31 years. A secret varnish has yet to be demonstrated, despite considerable scientific analyses that include ultraviolet photography, electron microscopy, ion backscattering and x-ray investigations. Finally, some have suggested that Stradivari used wood taken from castles. This theory has been discounted because analyses on numerous instruments attributed to Stradivari demonstrated ages for the wood that were contemporary with his lifetime.

16C Violin-makers have always known that the secret of a quality instrument lies in the selection of the wood. Maple wood is preferred for the back, ribs, and neck of the instrument while spruce is often used for the top. These woods have superior acoustical and mechanical properties, having the least loss of energy through internal friction compared to other woods. Spruce cells are light, physiologically simple, hollow, and rigid - ideal properties for enhanced acoustic quality. Only trees that have grown in thin, poor soils at higher elevations on north-facing slopes have the dense wood grain that helps instill a superior tone in violins. Long winters and cool summers produce wood that has the slow, even growth ideal for producing quality sounding boards.

17D Stradivari and other eminent Italian violin-makers of the 17th and early 18th centuries had neighbouring workshops in Cremona and would most probably have used the nearby high forest slopes of the southern Italian Alps for their supplies of spruce wood. A probable location is the famous Forest of the Violins in the Parco Naturale Paneveggio in the eastern part of Trentino, long familiar to violin-makers for its fir trees of resonance.

18E Wood with high density can, however, be found in trees growing in a variety of habitats and environmental settings in numerous higher-elevation locations throughout the world. Hence, an account of the Cremonese craftsmen's superior sound quality based solely on wood properties is insufficient. Instead, could the superior sound quality be explained by a combination of wood properties, environmental characteristics, and macroclimatic conditions? Could the wood used by the Cremonese makers have had particular physical characteristics that were perhaps time-specific? These were questions that required more thorough research.

19F The well-documented Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) was a period characterized by a scarcity of sunspots and a reduction in overall solar activity. It coincided with a sharp dip in temperatures and a period of extremely cold weather in western Europe. Analyses of high-elevation forest areas of the European Alps reveal a long period of reduced growth rates between approximately 1625 and 1720, identified by the narrow rings visible in the cross-sections of tree samples from that era.

20G It seems likely that the narrow tree rings that identify the Maunder Minimum in Europe played a significant role in the enhanced sound quality of instruments produced by the Cremonese craftsmen. Narrow rings would not only strengthen the violin, but lend the wood a high degree of density - the property so important for acoustic resonance. It is surely significant that Stradivari's working lifetime coincides exactly with this climatic period, and that to fashion the most prized and valued instruments of his Golden Period (1700-1720), he would have used the only wood available to him, from trees that grew during the Maunder Minimum. The onset of the Maunder Minimum at a time when the skills of the Cremonese violin-makers reached their peak perhaps made that crucial difference in the violin's tone and brilliance. Furthermore, the conjunction of elevation, topography, soil properties and a deterioration in climate was temporally unique - climate conditions with temperatures such as those that occurred during the Maunder Minimum simply cannot and do not occur today in areas where the Cremonese makers obtained their wood.

PASSAGE 3

Read the text and answer questions 27-40

WHAT SHOULD COMPANIES DO TO SURVIVE?

A. In the world of business, where today's fashionable management theory soon becomes a stale cliche or a quaint archaism, it is essential to have a clear idea about the enduring rules of good management. The company that follows these is the company that is in the strongest position amid the uncertainties and violent upheavals of the world as we know it.

B. A company is the sum of what its people understand and know how to do well. Value lies increasingly in creative ideas and knowledge. But ideas have value only if people share and develop them in ways that increase revenue; knowledge is useful only if people can find what they need to know. Getting intelligent people to share what is in their heads is vital, and takes more than mere money or clever software. Ideas must flow in every direction through a company - not merely from the top down. And knowledge is worth storing only if senior staff set careful rules to filter and structure it. What goes into a database determines the value of what comes out. So setting central rules and standards is key to good knowledge management.

C. Good judgement is a key skill. Managers constantly blitzed with new information need to build in the data that matters and set aside the rest. Big-bang decisions are generally best avoided or implemented in small incremental moves that leave room for flexibility and for altering course, if circumstances change.

D. Customers matter - but some matter more than others. Acquiring new customers often costs more than making extra sales to existing ones. So companies must build loyalty by providing reliability and good service. Given the welter of product information reaching customers, memorable brands will grow more important. Companies need not only to widen their reach by finding new markets, but also to deepen existing relationships. They have more information than ever before about their customers, and must use this to offer their most profitable customers special deals and to make them feel part of an elite club. Some companies even seek to fire unprofitable customers by charging them higher rates than others.

E. Like its customers, some of a company's people matter more than others, and not just at the top; managing talent is also about capturing innovative ideas from middle managers and those further down the line. At every level, managers must identify where most value lies. In some cases, a few stars will encapsulate much of a company's value; in others, teams of employees will matter more. Some companies will want to hire the talents of free agents as and when they are required; others, to employ directly their best brains.

F. Companies need to collaborate more, in alliances that allow them to outsource production or to spread risk or to enter new markets. Effective collaboration calls for trust and shared understanding, rather than the top-down, command-and-control approach of hierarchical structures. Successful collaboration also requires excellent communication, and incentives that reward sharing information and working for common goals. As costs of handling information in a company decline, new opportunities open for redefining corporate shape, and companies are becoming less hierarchical, with more ways to arrange and rearrange structure. Managers must think through from scratch which activities should be kept in-house and which outsourced, and normally a company should keep those activities it does better than its competitors.

G. Given the pace of change, bosses need more than ever to be able to communicate persuasively through many channels, with their staff and the outside world. They must also listen: the most valuable communications will frequently be bottom-up, and the people nearest to the customer are best placed to explain what they see and hear. Managers must listen to them.

H. Ironically, internet technologies, tools of freedom and decentralisation, call for discipline and standard processes. Only by setting standards and insisting that everyone abide by them will companies reap their potential savings. Companies need to insist on common practices in areas such as purchasing and information technology in order to harvest real productivity gains. As a result, some aspects of centralisation will increase: a key task of top managers is to provide structures and standards, and to insist that they are observed.

I. Once standards have been set, openness and freedom should reign. Centralisation of standards makes possible decentralisation of decision making. In addition, internet technologies increase the need for a culture of openness, to foster the sharing of knowledge and effective collaboration. Increasingly, companies will allow their suppliers and customers inside the machine, as it were, by giving them extraordinary access to their databases and inner workings in order to integrate their operations and to make collaboration effective.

J. The key to success lies much less in technical know-how than in excellent leadership to push through and build upon organisational change. At some points in a company's life, it will need a leader who can rally staff to push through the trauma of disruptive change. At other times, the right style will be the manager-as-coach, a selfless talent scout who specialises in assembling and motivating great teams. Always, the people at the top will set the tone in a firm. Their skills will determine whether it is a good company to work in and do business with.