ZHAW Proficiency XII

Rafflesia is a rare ............ plant species found in Southeast Asia.

PARASITE

Rafflesia has been .......... to a fungus because it lacks chlorophyll and is incapable of phontosynthesis.

LIKE

Many ____ have been keen to discover why the flower is so large, so they recently conducted ____ analysis on the plant.

BOTANY, MOLECULE

This resulted in the ____ that it has evolved almost 80 times from its origin as a tiny bud to today's seven-kilo mega-bloom. REVEAL

Although this ____ transformation took tens of millions of years, such an evolutionary spurt is still one of the most dramatic size changes ever reported.

ORDINARY

Such growth rates in humans would be ____ to us being 146 metres tall today.

COMPARE

The plant is also unusual in another way. Its smell is extremely ____ but this
horrible .trait attracts such pollinators as flies.

PLEASE

It is thought that Rafflesia’s huge flower helps radiate the smell over long ____.

DISTANT

Extreme Weather is packed with facts about the great forces of nature
and is a ____ illustrated science book by the meteorologist, H. Michael Mogil.

BEAUTY

The aim of the book is to present enough knowledge to understand the many ____ of the debate about climate change.

COMPLEX

Mogil is alarmed about the way the public has been ____ on this issue, being pushed towards certain positions on climate change by the campaigning of ____ and the news media's need tor a good story.

LEAD, POLITICS

He wants to demonstrate that climate change is an ____ complicated issue, and that making overly simplistic ____ will inevitably ____ our understanding.

CREDIBLE, ASSUME, PAIR

He therefore ____ emphasises that weather records are short, often incomplete and tricky
to compare.

REPEAT

Mogil suggests that, in the distant past, changes in climate occurred in magnitudes far greater than in recent times. it is the ____ detail with which these recent events have been
recorded that differentiates them from the past.

FINITE

Many people will work from home, electric cars will be the typical form of transport, and goods and services paid for by mobile phone. The most advanced smart homes will be ____ friendly, equipped with their own ____  units which will be able to make ____ waste water completely safe and palatable.

ENVIRONS, CYCLE,  DRlNK

Advances in medical science will also have far-reaching ____; people born today can have a life ____ of 100 years.

SEQUENCE, EXPECT

The development of so-called smart medicine research suggests that people will carry out their own digital health checks, enabling online analysts to reach an immediate ____ of any condition requiring treatment.

DIAGNOSE

Scientists predict with reasonable ____ that some of these technological advances will be in place for many people worldwide, whereas the nature of other changes remains ____ for the time being.

CERTAIN, SPECULATE

Windfarms are hailed as powedul weapons in the battle against ____ warming; it is considered by many to be politically incorrect to criticise them.

GLOBE

They are clean, green and therefore ___  and viewed as such throughout the world.

VIRTUE

There is a ____ to wind turbines, of course. They are enormous and dominate the landscape;
 they make a noise that condemns people to ____ nights.

SIDE, SLEEP

One turbine standing alone in a windswept setting could be described as beautiful, but can the same description be applied to a whole host of them? But all these drawbacks pale into ____ , we are told, compared to the great benefits that will result from this renewable energy

SIGNIFY

However, there is as yet no economic way of storing electricity; turbines generate it only when the wind blows, not ____ when demand is high;

NECESSARY

____ of carbon from the plants manufacturing turbines are considerable.

EMIT

____  the environmental pollution caused by the extraction
of a metal crucial to their construction is potentially ____

ADD, DISASTER

Charles Darwin thought that the human ____ to cry had no obvious ____ purpose.

TEND,  EVOLVE

More recently scientists have pointed to its social ____, with psychiatrist John Bowlby highlighting the role of crying in developing the ____ between mother and child.

ATTACH, HELP

However, the persistence of crying becomes considerably less important than the visual signal it conveys. It may have been ___ to early human communities as a means of promoting trust and social connectedness.

ADVANTAGE

Tears can undoubtedly  have other causes too. We may cry to express sympathy for those suffeung terrible ___.

JUST

Furthermore, tears can be shed ____,  rather to our embarrassment, when we hear inspiring music or moving speeches.
 

VOLUNTARY

We may cry when watching a sentimental film, but interestingly, this is more likely to occur in company than we are alone. The social function of crying would seem to be ___, but research continues.

DENY

Food miles in Britain, what is described as ‘food miles’, the distance which food is transported from the place where it is grown to its point of sale, continues to rise.
This has major ____, social and environmental consequences, given the traffic congestion and pollution which ____ follow.

ECONOMY, VARIABLE

According to ____ groups, the same amount of food is travelling 50 per cent further than twenty years ago.
Whats more, the rise in the demand tor road haulage over this period has mostly been due to the trans» port of tood and drink.

PRESS

The groups assert that the increase in the number of lorry journeys is ____
and that many ot these are far from ____

EXCEED, ESSENCE

In the distribution systems employed by British food ____  fleets of lorries bring all goods into more ____ located warehouses for redistribution across the country.

RETAIL, CENTRE

 ____ as this might appear, the situation whereby some goods get sent back to the same areas from which they came is ____ .

LOGIC, AVOID

In response to scathing ____ from environmentalists, some food distributors now aim to minimise the impact of food miles by routing vehicles, wherever possible, on motorways after dark.

CRITIC

This encourages greater energy ____ whilst also reducing the impact on the residential areas through which they would othenivise pass.

EFFICIENT

They are everywhere, ____, curving shapes whose incredible ____ contrasts so sharply with the random world around them.

GRACE, REGULAR

We call  them spirals and helices but that hardly does ____ to their diversity or  their significance.

JUST