Flow chart Completion Skill Building Exercise 1
Answer questions 1-8 which are based on the reading passage below.
Doll Restoration
This is a good example of how the average doll collector receives a doll. They will find a
beautiful antique doll that does not look as beautiful as it should, but with proper
restoration, she can be as beautiful as the day she was created. Here, there are two main
problems, the eye mechanism has lost its original look, and it has a loose head. We
removed the mohair wig and removed the eye system. Then we separated the head from
the composition body and chemically cleaned the head, removing old dirt, and wax, but not
harming the original artwork. We repaired the missing porcelain teeth by making duplicate
porcelain teeth to match and reinserted them. Then we took the original eye system and
reconditioned it. We then did the waxing of the eye mechanism and reset the eyebar so
the eyebar would open and close as it originally did. What a wonderful difference to
chemically clean and restyle the original mohair wig. Our seamstress took over point with
suggestions from the owner on likes and dislikes using original period designs. She now
looked, I'm sure, very much as she would have originally looked when the little child fell in
love with her for the first time.
Questions 1 - 8
Complete the flow chart below
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer
Flow chart Completion Skill Building Exercise 2
Answer questions 1-4 which are based on the reading passage below.
A Brief (and Tasty) History of Chocolate
The first records that chronicle the manufacture and consumption of chocolate originate
from about 200-950 A.D., during the Classic Period of Mayan culture Glyphs and ancient
Vessels provide the first evidence that the Theobroma cacao a tree that grows in the
tropical rainforest - was harvested for its cacao seeds. The Mayan culture was spread over
vast Mesoamerican territory, covering what is now southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala,
Honduras, and part of El Salvador.
Not only were cacao trees harvested in the wild, but Mayans also grew the trees near their
homes, in their own backyard gardens. After the cacao pods were picked, the seeds found
inside were fermented and dried. The seeds would then be roasted over a fire, followed by
grinding between two large stones. The resulting paste was mixed with water, chilli
peppers, cornmeal and other ingredients. This final concoction made the cacao paste
Ginto a spicy, frothy, and rather bitter drink. With sugar unknown to the Mayans, if
chocolate were sweetened at all, the sweetener would have been honey or flower nectar.
The Mayan culture reached its zenith during the Classic period, followed by centuries of
(decline. By 1400, the Aztec empire dominated much of the Mesoamerican landscape. The
Aztecs not only adopted the cacao seeds as a dietary staple but also as a form of
currency. (Cacao seeds were used to pay for items, and also given as tribute by
conquered peoples. While in the Mayan culture many people could drink chocolate, at
least occasionally, in Aztec culture the chocolate was reserved mostly for royalty, priests,
and upper echelons of society. The priests would also present cacao seeds as offerings to
the gods, serving chocolate drinks during sacred ceremonies, one reason for our calling
chocolate the 'elixir of the gods’.
During the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards in 1521, Europe became aware of
chocolate for the first time. Spaniards had observed the Aztec royalty and priesthood
making and drinking the dark concoction, and quickly came to like it as well. Cacao seeds
were shipped back to Spain in bulk, where the paste was mixed with spices like cinnamon
and sugar, thus {taking the edge off their bitterness. An expensive import, only the Spanish
elite could afford to purchase chocolate, and for the next 300 years, chocolate was treated
as a status symbol. Spain continued to import and manufacture its chocolate in secret for
at least a hundred years before the rest of Europe caught wind of the delicious brew. Once
out, chocolate became one of the greatest fads to hit the continent.
Production of both cacao beans and sugar were labour-intensive and time-consuming
processes. To keep up with demand for both items, many European countries set
plantations in the New World for the cultivation of these two crops. Wage labourers and
slaves were used to grow the crops, then process them, for export to and sale in Europe.
It was not until the 1800s that mechanisation speeded up the process of chocolate-making
making chocolate cheaper, more plentiful , and thus available to the public at large. With
the advent of the steam engine, cacao beans could be ground automatically. Bakers and
cheese seized the opportunity to work with this suddenly available medium, establishing
shops to the exclusive manufacture of chocolate, especially in countries like Belgium,
Switzerland, Germany, and France. Lindt & Sprungli, of Switzerland, showed up in 1845,
and Neuhaus Master Chocolate Makers, of Belgium, in 1857.
Different chocolate manufacturing processes were also invented along the way. One of the
three biggest processes to change the way in which chocolate was made and consumed
was the addition of milk, instead of water, to chocolate. This idea, credited to Sir Hans
Sloane, further reduced cacao bitterness and improved taste. Sir Sloane kept his
discovery trade secret for some time before selling the recipe to a London apothecary
(which later on became the property of the Cadbury brothers). Condensed and powdered
milk eventually replaced whole milk, allowing for a smoother and far sweeter product than
before; milk chocolate is by far the most popular chocolate item in America today.
Another improvement in manufacturing came with the making of liquid chocolate into semi-
solid edible bars, allowing the item to become much more portable and not as perishable
(solid chocolate has a shelf-life of about a year). The secret to bar-making comes from
cacao butter, the fatty part of the cacao bean. When the bean is ground up, about 55% of
the resulting paste is cacao butter. This fat percentage, though seemingly high, is still too
low to make soft (and edible) bar chocolate, yet way too high for powdered chocolate
(such as is used to make hot chocolate). Heavy-duty presses are used to remove about
half of the cacao butter from the paste, after which the purified butter is added into
"untouched” raw paste, making bar chocolate that is about 75% cacao butter, and semi-
solid at room temperature. The stripped paste, devoid of about half of its fat content,
solidifies into a hard cake that is pulverised into cacao powder.
A third, and major, improvement in chocolate manufacturing came with the discovery of the
conching method - the mixing of chocolate over a period of several days in order to allow
volatiles and moisture to evaporate, resulting in a more pleasing, smoother taste to the
final product. Conching is credited to Rudolph Lindt (of Lindt & Sprungli fame), who found
out that a batch of chocolate left mixing for several days became much smoother in texture
and taste than allowed to solidify immediately.
Despite modern improvements to the processing of chocolate, the actual harvesting of the
cacao bean has remained virtually unchanged since the days of the Mayans and Aztecs
and is still cultivated in tropical climates, within 10 to 20 degrees of the Equator.
Questions 1 - 4
Complete the flow chart below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Harvesting and Consumption of Cacao in Mayan Culture
Flow chart Completion Skill Building Exercise 3
Answer questions 1-7 which are based on the reading passage below.
LIBERATING THE GPS
On May 2, 2000, by the order of President Bill Clinton, the US government discontinued
the use of Selective Availability (SA) making the Global Positioning System (GPS) more
responsive towards commercial and civil users worldwide. Selective Availability was an
intentional limitation of GPS signals implemented for national security reasons. It limited
the precision of GPS signals for non-military users. The military reserved the highest
quality signal for their use, and deliberately blurred the signals for security purposes.
William Perry, US Secretary of Defence, proposed to remove the restriction owing to the
widespread growth of Global Positioning System services and intended to improve civilian
accuracy. The government made the switch over at midnight of 1st May 2000 and 2nd May
was the first day when the non-military system discovered an improved positioning
precision from 330 to 66 feet. Thus, GPS became available for both military and peaceful
purposes. Gradually, the GPS became more accurate and cheaper.
The GPS project was introduced in 1973 by the US Department of Defense for military
purposes only. It became fully functional in 1993 with 24 satellites. It was allowed for civil
use in the 1980s by the then President Ronald Regan, however, during the 1990s, the
GPS quality was degraded by applying Selective Availability. In September 2007, the US
government decided to obtain the future generation of GPS satellites (GPS III). These
satellites are without Selective Availability and this decision was taken to ensure reliability
in GPS performance which had been a concern to civil GPS users globally.
GPS has become indispensable today. It is an embedded technology in automobiles,
personal computers, military munitions, weather tracking systems, electronic receivers,
and other technical products. Started as a military project, it later emerged as an
awareness platform for a broader range of public and its further use has given birth to
other technologies which in turn benefited humanity. Activities related to commerce,
scientific purposes, surveillance and tracking can be accurately done using GPS as it has
turned into an extensively deployed and useful tool. The online tracking system determines
the location of a person, and it also enables a person to move from one place to another
with guidance. The facility of tracking is also done using the same so that one may get the
accurate location of the automobile being tracked. The system created by the US defence
has also made it possible to create a map of the world as well as it brought precision of
timings around the globe.
Questions 1-7
Complete the flow chart below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each
answer.
