Questions 1-4

　　Complete each of the following statements with One or Two names of the scientists from the box below.

　　Write the appropriate letters A-E in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.

　　A. Attila Grandpierre

　　B. Gábor ágoston

　　C. Neil Edwards

　　D. Nigel Weiss

　　E. Robert Ehrlich

　　1. ...claims there a dimmer switch inside the sun that causes its brightness to rise and fall in periods as long as those between ice ages on Earth.

　　2. ...calculated that the internal solar magnetic fields could produce instabilities in the solar plasma.

　　3. ...holds that Milankovitch cycles can induce changes in solar heating on Earth and the changes are amplified on Earth.

　　4. ...doesn't believe in Ehrlich's viewpoints at all.

　　Questions 5-9

　　Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage?

　　In boxes 5-9 on your answer sheet write

　　TRUE if the statement is true according to the passage

　　FALSE if the statement is false according to the passage

　　NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage

　　5. The ice ages changed frequency from 100,000 to 41,000 years a million years ago.

　　6. The sole problem that the Milankovitch theory can not solve is to explain why the ice age frequency should shift from one to another.

　　7. Carbon dioxide can be locked artificially into sea ice to eliminate the greenhouse effect.

　　8. Some scientists are not ready to give up the Milankovitch theory though they haven't figured out which mechanisms amplify the changes in solar heating.

　　9. Both Edwards and Ehrlich believe that there is no practical way to test when the solar temperature oscillation begins and when ends.

　　Questions 10-14

　　Complete the notes below.

　　Choose one suitable word from the Reading Passage above for each answer.

　　Write your answers in boxes 10-14 on your answer sheet.

　　The standard view assumes that the opposing pressures of gravity and nuclear fusions hold the temperature ...10...in the sun's interior, but the slight changes in the earth's ...11... alter the temperature on the earth and cause ice ages every 100,000 years. A British scientist, however, challenges this view by claiming that the internal solar magnetic ...12... can induce the temperature oscillations in the sun's interior. The sun's core temperature oscillates around its average temperature in ...13... lasting either 100,000 or 41,000 years. And the ...14... interactions within the sun's magnetic field could flip the fluctuations from one cycle length to the other, which explains why the ice ages changed frequency a million years ago.

　　Answer keys and explanations:

　　1. E

　　See the sentences in paragraph 1(There's a dimmer switch inside the sun that causes its brightness to rise and fall on timescales of around 100,000 years - exactly the same period as between ice ages on Earth. So says a physicist who has created a computer model of our star's core.) and para.2 (Robert Ehrlich of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, modelled the effect of temperature fluctuations in the sun's interior.)

　　2. A B

　　See para.3: Grandpierre and a collaborator, Gábor ágoston, calculated that magnetic fields in the sun's core could produce small instabilities in the solar plasma.

　　3. C

　　See para.8: Edwards believes the small changes in solar heating produced by Milankovitch cycles are then amplified by feedback mechanisms on Earth.

　　4. D

　　See para.11: Nigel Weiss, a solar physicist at the University of Cambridge, is far from convinced. He describes Ehrlich's claims as "utterly implausible".

　　5. False

　　See para.5: for the past million years, ice ages have occurred roughly every 100,000 years. Before that, they occurred roughly every 41,000 years.

　　6. False

　　See para.7: "In Milankovitch, there is certainly no good idea why the frequency should change from one to another," ... Nor is the transition problem the only one the Milankovitch theory faces.

　　7. Not Given

　　See para.8: if sea ice begins to form because of a slight cooling, carbon dioxide?is locked into the ice. That weakens the greenhouse effect. (The passage doesn抰 mention anything about locking Co2 into ice artificially.)

　　8. True

　　See para.9: there is no lack of such mechanisms. "If you add their effects together, there is more than enough feedback to make Milankovitch work,"?"The problem now is identifying which mechanisms are at work." This is why scientists like Edwards are not yet ready to give up on the current theory.

　　9. True

　　See the sentences in para.9 (According to Edwards, he says. "I can't see any way of testing [Ehrlich's] idea to see where we are in the temperature oscillation.") and para.10 (Ehrlich concedes this. "If there is a way to test this theory on the sun, I can't think of one that is practical).

　　10. constant

　　See para.2: According to the standard view, the temperature of the sun's core is held constant by the opposing pressures of gravity and nuclear fusion.

　　11. orbit

　　See para.6: Most scientists believe that the ice ages are the result of subtle changes in Earth's orbit, Earth's orbit gradually changes shape from a circle to a slight ellipse and back again roughly every 100,000 years.

　　12. instabilities

　　See para.3: magnetic fields in the sun's core could produce small instabilities in the solar plasma. These instabilities would induce localised oscillations in temperature.

　　13. cycles

　　See para.4: …allow the sun's core temperature to oscillate around its average temperature of 13.6 million kelvin in cycles lasting either 100,000 or 41,000 years.

　　14. random

　　See para.4: Ehrlich says that random interactions within the sun's magnetic field could flip the fluctuations from one cycle length to the other.