PTE Writing Practice Paper 1

PTE Writing Practice Paper 1

 Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence. Type your response in the box at the bottom of the screen. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. Your response will be judged on the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the key points in the passage.


1.
Here’s a term you’re going to hear much more often: plugin vehicle, and the acronym PEV. It’s
what you and many other people will drive to work in, ten years and more from now. At that

time, before you drive off in the morning you will first unplug your car
your plugin vehicle. Its
big onboard batteries wil
l have been fully charged overnight, with enough power for you to drive
50
100 kilometres through city traffic. When you arrive at work you’ll plug in your car once
again, this time into a socket that allows power to flow from your car’s batteries to the e
lectricity
grid. One of the things you did when you bought your car was to sign a contract with your

favourite electricity supplier, allowing them to draw a limited amount of power from your car’s

batteries should they need to, perhaps because of a blackou
t, or very high wholesale spot power
prices. The price you get for the power the distributor buys form your car would not only be most

attractive to you, but it would also be a good deal for them too, their alternative being very

expensive power form peaki
ng stations. If driving home or for some other reason your batteries
looked like running flat, a relatively small, but quiet and efficient engine running on petrol, diesel

or compressed natural gas, even bio
fuel, would automatically cut in, driving a generator that
supplied the batteries so you could complete your journey. Concerns over ‘peak oil’, increasing

greenhouse gas emissions, and the likelihood that by the middle of this century there could be

five times as many motor vehicles registered worldwide
as there are now, mean that the world’s
almost total dependence on petroleum
based fuels for transport is, in every sense of the word,
unsustainable
.


2.
UCLA neurology professor Paul Thompson and his colleagues scanned the brains of 23 sets of
identical twi
ns and 23 sets of fraternal twins. Since identical twins share the same genes while
fraternal twins share about half their genes, the researchers were able to compare each group to

show that myelin integrity was determined genetically in many parts of the
brain that are key for
intelligence. These include the parietal lobes, which are responsible for spatial reasoning, visual

processing and logic, and the corpus callosum, which pulls together information from both sides

of the body. The researchers used a f
aster version of a type of scanner called a HARDI (high
angular resolution diffusion imaging)
think of an MRI machine on steroids that takes scans
of the brain at a much higher resolution than a standard MRI. While an MRI scan shows the

volume of diffe
rent tissues in the brain by measuring the amount of water present, HARDI tracks
how water diffuses through the brain’s white matter
a way to measure the quality of its myelin.
“HARDI measures water diffusion,” said Thompson, who is also a member of the
UCLA
Laboratory of Neuro
Imaging. “If the water diffuses rapidly in a specific direction, it tells us that
the brain has very fast connections. If it diffuses more broadly, that’s an indication of slower

signalling and lower intelligence.

3. As warmer winter temperatures become more common, one way for some animals to adjust is to
shift their ranges northward. But a new study of 59 North American bird species indicates that

doing so is not easy or quick
it took about 35 years for many birds to move far enough north for
winter temperatures to match where they historically lived. For example, black vultures have

spread northward in the last 35 years and now winter as far north as Massachusetts, where the

minimum winter temperature is similar to what it was i
n Maryland in 1975. On the other hand,
the endangered red
cockaded woodpecker did not alter its range at all despite the warming trend,
possibly because it’s very specific habitat requirements precluded a range shift. Both of these

scenarios could represen
t problems for birds, La Sorte said. Species that do not track changes in
climate may wind up at the limits of their physiological tolerance, or they may lose important

habitat qualities, such as favored food types, as those species pass them by. But they
also can’t
move their ranges too fast if the habitat conditions they depend on also tend to lag behind climate
.


4.
Scientists believe they may have found a way to prevent complications that can arise following
cataract surgery, the world’s leading cause of b
lindness. Detailing why complications can occur
after surgery, researchers from the University of East Anglia (UEA) explained that while cataract

surgery works well to restore vision, a few natural lens cells always remain after the procedure.

Over time, t
he eye’s woundhealing response leads these cells to spread across the underside of
the artificial lens, which interferes with vision, causing what’s known as ‘posterior capsule

opacification’ or secondary cataract. UEA’s School of Biological Sciences acad
emic, Dr Michael
Wormstone, who led the study, said: “Secondary visual loss responds well to treatment with laser

surgery. But as life expectancy increases, the problems of cataract and posterior capsule

opacification will become even greater in terms of b
oth patients well being and economic burden.
We must find better ways to manage the condition in future.” As a result, researchers are

designing new artificial lenses that can be placed into a capsular bag that stays open, instead of

shrink
wrapping closed, which currently occurs. It is believed that, through the new approach,
fluid in the eye can flow around the artificial lens, therefore diluting and washing away the cell

signalling molecules that encourage cell re
growth.


5.
When Christopher Columbus arrived at Hispaniola during his first transatlantic voyage in the year A.D. 1492, the island had already been settled by Native Americans for about 5,000 years. The occupants in Columbus’s time were a group of Arawak Indians called Tainos who lived by farming, were organized into five chiefdoms, and numbered around half a million (the estimates range from 100,000 to 2,000,000).Columbus initially found them peaceful and friendly, until he and his Spaniards began mistreating them.Unfortunately for the Tain os, they had gold, which the Spanish coveted but didn’t want to go to the work of mining themselves. Hence the conquerors divided up the island and its Indian population among individual Spaniards, who put the Indians to work as virtual slaves, accidentally infected them with Eurasian diseases and murdered them. By the year 1519, 27 years after Columbus’s arrival, that original population of half a million had been reduced to about 11,000, most of whom died that year of smallpox to bring the population down to 3,000.

You will have 20 minutes to plan, write and revise an essay about the topic below. Your response will be judged on how well you develop a position, organize your ideas, present supporting details, and control the elements of standard written English. You should write 200300 words.

1. Belching and unauthorised behaviour is unacceptable in modern offices. How far you support this view? Give your response with justification.
2.
University only requires to apply digital media rather than continuously upgrading textbook. Agree or
disagree.

3.
Government should reduce their investment in arts, music and painting. Agree or disagree.
4.
Which should require more financial support from the government? Health or education? To what extent do you agree or not. Use your experience.
5.
Do you think cardless society is realistic and why? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

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