Questions 11—15

All living cells on earth require moisture for their metabolism. Cereal grains when brought in from the field, although they may appear to be dry, may contain 20 per cent of moisture or more. If they are stored in a bin thus, there is sufficient moisture in them to support several varieties of insects. These insects will, therefore, live and breed and, as they grow and eat the grain, it provides them with biological energy for their life processes. This energy will, just as in man, become manifest as heat. Since the bulk of the grain acts as an insulator, the temperature surrounding the colony of insects will rise so that, not only is part of the grain spoiled by the direct attack of the insects but more may be damaged by the heat. Sometimes, the temperature may even rise to the point where the stored grain catches fire. For safe storage, grain must be dried until its moisture content is 13 per cent or less.
Traditional arts of food preservation took advantage of this principle in a number of ways. The plant seeds, wheat, rye, rice, barley millet, maize, are themselves structures evolved by nature to provide stored food. The starch of their endosperm is used for the nourishment of the embryo during the time it over-winters (if it is a plant of the Temperate Zone) and until its new leaves have grown and their chlorophyll can trap energy from the sunlight to nourish the new-grown plant. The separation by threshing and winnowing is, therefore, to some degree part of a technique of food preservation.
The direct drying of other foods has also been used. Fish has been dried in many parts of the world besides Africa. Slices of dried meat are prepared by numerous races. Biltong, a form of dried meat, was a customary food for travelers. The drying of meat or fish, either in the sun or over a fire, quite apart from the degree to which it exposes the food to infection by bacteria and infestation by insects, tends also to harm its quality. Proteins are complex molecular structures which are readily disrupted. This is the reason why dried meat becomes tough and can, with some scientific justification, by likened to leather.
The technical process of drying foods indirectly by pickling them in the strong salt solutions commonly called ‘brine’ does less harm to the protein than straightforward drying, particularly if this is carried out at high temperatures. It is for this reason that many of the typical drying processes are not taken to completion. That is to say, the outer parts may be dried leaving a moist inner section. Under these circumstances, preservation is only partial. The dried food keeps longer than it would have undried but it cannot be kept indefinitely. For this reason, traditional processes are to be found in many parts of the world in which a combination of partial drying and pickling in brine is used. Quite often the drying involves exposure to smoke. Foods treated in this way are, besides fish of various sorts, bacon, hams and numerous types of sausages.

11. According to the passage, insects spoil stored cereals by ________.
(A) consuming all the grain themselves
(B) generating heat and raising the surrounding temperature
(C) increasing the moisture content in the grain
(D) attacking each other for more grain
12. In speaking of the traditional methods of food preservation, the writer ________.
(A) expresses doubts about direct smoking
(B) describes salting and pickling as ineffective
(C) condemns direct drying
(D) mentions threshing and winnowing
13. Direct drying affects the quality of meat or fish because ________.
(A) it exposes them to insects
(B) it makes them hard
(C) it damages the protein
(D) it develops bacteria
14. We can learn from the passage that salting preserves food by ________.
(A) destroying the protein
(B) drawing away moisture from the food
(C) drying the food in the sun
(D) dressing the food
15. According to the passage, partial drying is useful because ________.
(A) it damages the protein less
(B) it can be combined with pickling
(C) it leaves the inside moist
(D) it makes the food soft

Questions 16—20

We are moving inexorably into the age of automation. Our aim is not to devise a mechanism which can perform a thousand different actions of any individual man but, on the contrary, one which could by a single action replace a thousand men.
Industrial automation has moved along three lines. First there is the conveyor belt system of continuous production whereby separate operations are linked into a single sequence. The goods produced by this well-established method are untouched by the worker, and the machine replaces both unskilled and semiskilled. Secondly, there is automation with feedback control of the quality of the product: here mechanisms are built into the system which can compare the output with a norm, that is, the actual product with what it is supposed to be, and then correct any shortcomings. The entire cycle of operations dispenses with human control except in so far as monitors are concerned. One or two examples of this type of automation will illustrate its immense possibilities. There is a factory in the U.S.A. which makes 1,000 million electric light bulbs a year, and the factory employs three hundred people. If the preautomation techniques were to be employed, the labour force required would leap to 25,000. A motor manufacturing company with 45,000 spare parts regulates their entire supply entirely by computer. Computers can be entrusted with most of the supervision of industrial installations, such as chemical plants or oil refineries. Thirdly, there is computer automation, for banks, accounting departments, insurance companies and the like. Here the essential features are the recording, storing, sorting and retrieval of information.
The principal merit of modern computing machines is the achievement of their vastly greater speed of operation by comparison with unaided human effort; a task which otherwise might take years, if attempted at all, now takes days or hours.
One of the most urgent problems of industrial societies rapidly introducing automation is how to fill the time that will be made free by the machines which will take over the tasks of the workers. The question is not simply of filling empty time but also of utilizing the surplus human energy that will be released. We are already seeing straws in the wind: destructive outbursts on the part of youth whose work no longer demands muscular strength. While automation will undoubtedly do away with a large number of tedious jobs, are we sure that it will not put others which are equally tedious in their place? For an enormous amount of sheer monitoring will be required. A man in an automated plant may have to sit for hours on and watching dials and taking decisive action when some signal informs him that all is not well. What meaning will his occupation bear for the worker? How will he devote his free time after a four or five hour stint of labour? Moreover, what, indeed, will be the significance for him of his leisure? If industry of the future could be purged of its monotony and meaninglessness, man would then be better equipped to use his leisure time constructively.

16. The main purpose of automation is _________.
(A) to devise the machine which could replace the semi-skilled
(B) to process information as fast as possible
(C) to develop an efficient labor-saving mechanism
(D) to make an individual man perform many different actions
17. The chief benefit of computing machines is ________.
(A) their greater speed of operation
(B) their control of the product quality
(C) their conveyor belt system of continuous production
(D) their supervision of industrial installations
18. One of the problems brought about by automation in industrial societies is _________.
(A) plenty of information
(B) surplus human energy
(C) destructive outbursts
(D) less leisure time
19. Which of the following best explains the use of ‘stint’ (para.4)?
(A) Effort.
(B) Force.
(C) Excess.
(D) Period.
20. According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?
(A) There is no automation with feedback control of the quality of the product.
(B) Computers are reliable in any supervision of industrial installations.
(C) The essential features for banks are the recording and sorting of information.
(D) Automation will undoubtedly eliminate numerous tedious jobs.