EST I – Literacy Test I – practice I

Questions 23-33 are based on the following passage.

Florida’s Everglades, the largest national park in the eastern USA, is in serious danger. One of the most significant areas of wetland in the world, and classified by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, the park has suffered dramatically over the last sixty years on account of the [23] promotion of agricultural land and the vast increase of Florida’s population. If the accelerated growth [24] did not stop, the entire ecosystem of southern Florida could be [25] irreparably damaged – and the sunshine state, one of the fastest growing states in the USA, could become less hospitable.
In the year 2000, in order to prevent such a catastrophe and ensure the survival of America’s most distinctive National Park, Congress approved [26] a 30-year 8.2-billion-dollars Everglades rescue plan, the largest concerted environmental project the world had ever known.
Estimated at 10,700 square miles (27,700 km²), the original Everglades area was home to a fantastically rich and diverse range of wildlife. In recent decades, this wildlife has been [27] abounding. It is estimated that the water bird population of the Everglades, for example, [28] fell by 93% in the last forty years. Scientists conducted a survey on 39,000 miles along the Everglades area roads from 2003 through 2011, counting wildlife spotted along the way and comparing the results with surveys conducted on the same routes in 1993 and 1999.
[29] The researchers found a staggering decline in animal sightings, with only 5 opossums spotted as compared to 24 white-tailed deer.

As a wetland region, the whole environment of the Everglades depends on the flow of water into and out of its vast area of natural swampland. Before modern agriculture and drainage schemes began to change the hydrology of the whole of southern Florida, water that fell on the central part of the Florida Peninsula used to flow regularly and naturally into [30] the great Lake Okeechobee, the large lake at the northern end of the Everglades region. From there, it would flow out slowly and regularly in a southerly direction through the Everglades and into the Gulf of Mexico.
Since the 1940’s, this natural system has been radically modified. Over 1,700 miles of canals have been built [31] in order to control the risk of flooding and provide water for Florida’s growing population and drain land for agriculture and construction. Today a large amount of the water that flows into Lake Okeechobee is rapidly evacuated through man-made canals, out into the Atlantic Ocean.
The Everglades restoration program [32] is attempting to reverse the recent course of events and undo some of the damage. It calls for the restoration, protection, and preservation of water resources [33] because of the loss of water that flows to the Atlantic Ocean. The recaptured water will be used for environmental restoration, reviving the ecosystem, and improving water supplies in Southern Florida.

Questions 34-44 are based on the following passage.
The Most Easily Automated Activities

Almost one-fifth of the time spent in US workplaces involves performing physical activities or operating machinery in a predictable environment: workers [34] are carrying out specific actions in wellknown settings where changes are relatively easy to anticipate. [35] Scientists have adapted and adopted currently available technologies. They have estimated that the feasibility of automating such activities is 78 percent, the highest of seven top-level categories. Since predictable physical activities figure prominently in sectors such as manufacturing, food service and accommodations, and retailing, these are the most susceptible to automation.
[36] Consequently, in manufacturing, performing physical activities or operating machinery in a predictable environment represents one-third of the workers’ overall time.
[37] There are many activities that can be automated: such as packaging products, loading materials on production equipment, welding, and maintaining equipment. [38] Just because an activity can be automated doesn’t mean that it will be—broader economic factors are at play. Because of the [39] acceptance of such predictable physical work, some 59 percent of all manufacturing activities could be automated, given technical considerations.
The overall technical feasibility, however, masks considerable variance. Within manufacturing, 90 percent of what welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers do, for example, has the technical potential for automation, but for customer-service representatives that feasibility is [40] above 90 percent.
Manufacturing, for all its technical potential, is only the second most readily automated sector in the US economy. A service sector occupies the top spot: accommodations and food service, where almost half of all labor involves predictable physical activities and the operation of machinery. Automats have long been in use. Now restaurants are testing new, more sophisticated concepts, like self-service ordering or even robotic servers. [41] Solutions, such as one company’s burger-cooking robot, which can reportedly assemble and cook 360 burgers an hour, could automate a number of cooking and foodpreparation activities.
But while the technical potential for automating them might be high, the business case must take into account both the benefits and the costs of automation, as well as the labor-supply dynamics discussed earlier. [42] Since restaurant employees who cook earn an average of about $10 an hour, a business case based solely on reducing labor costs may be unconvincing.
Retailing is another sector with a high technical potential for automation. Retailers can take advantage of [43] efficient, technology-driven stock management and logistics, for example.
Packaging objects for shipping and stocking merchandise has a high technical potential for automation. So do maintaining records of sales, gathering customer or product information, and other data-collection activities. But retailing also requires cognitive and social skills. [44]