General Reading 9.3

READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 29-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

The Panda’s Last Chance

Chinese authorities have devised an ambitious plan to save the giant panda from the ravages of deforestation. Martin Williams assesses the creature’s chances of avoiding extinction.

A. The giant panda, the creature that has become a symbol of conservation, is facing extinction. The major reason is the loss of habitat, which has continued despite the establishment, since 1963, of 14 panda reserves. [Crack IELTS with Rob] Deforestation, mainly earned out by farmers clearing land to make way for fields as they move higher into the mountains, has drastically contracted the mammal’s range. The panda has disappeared from much of central and eastern China, and is now restricted to the eastern flank of the Himalayas in Sichuan and Gansu provinces, and the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi province. Fewer than 1400 of the animals are believed to remain in the wild.

B. Satellite imagery has shown the seriousness of the situation; almost half of the panda’s habitat has been cut or degraded since 1975. [Crack IELTS with Rob] Worse, the surviving panda population has also become fragmented; a combination of satellite imagery and ground surveys reveals panda ’islands* in patches of forest separated by cleared land. The population of these islands, ranging from fewer than ten to more than 50 pandas, has become isolated because the animals are bathing to cross open areas. Just putting a road through the panda habitat may be enough to split a population in two.

C. The minuscule size of the panda populations worries conservationists. The smallest groups have too few animals to be viable, and will inevitably die out. The larger populations may be viable in the short term, but will be susceptible to genetic defects as a result of inbreeding.

D. In these circumstances, a more traditional threat to pandas—the cycle of flowering and subsequent withering of the bamboo that is their staple food—can become literally species-threatening. [Crack IELTS with Rob] The flowerings prompt pandas to move from one area to another, thus preventing inbreeding in otherwise sedentary populations. In panda islands, however, bamboo flowering could prove catastrophic because the pandas are unable to emigrate.

E. The latest conservation management plan for the panda, prepared by China’s Ministry of Forestry and the World Wide Fund for Nature, aims primarily to maintain panda habitats and to ensure that populations are linked wherever possible. [Crack IELTS with Rob] The plan will change some existing reserve boundaries, establish 14 new reserves and protect or replant corridors of forest between panda islands. Other measures include better control of poaching, which remains a problem despite strict laws, as panda skins fetch high prices; reducing the degradation of habitats outside reserves; and reforestation.

F. The plan is ambitious. Implementation will be expensive—Yuan 56.6 million (US$ 12.5 million) will be needed for the development of the panda reserves— and will require participation by individuals ranging from villagers to government officials.

Questions 29 - 32

Reading Passage 3 has six paragraphs, A-F.

Which paragraphs contain the following information?

Write the correct letters, A-F, in boxes 29-32 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use each letter more than once.

29. The separation of panda groups.
B
30. The panda’s diet.
D
31. The illegal killing of pandas.
E
32. Why pandas’ living areas have been reduced.
F

Questions 33 - 34

Choose TWO correct letters, A-E.

Which TWO of the following problems are mentioned in the reading passage?

Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 33-34 on your answer sheet.

pandas prefer to inbreed
panda groups are getting too small

34-hide

pandas move to other countries
more bamboo is withering
panda groups are isolated

Questions 35 - 40

Complete the summary below.

Choose the correct words from the list for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 34-40 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any word more than once.

List of words

reserves	disconnected	growth
decreased	dominated	problems
cooperate	join	food

The survival of the giant panda is being seriously threatened. Panda numbers have already seriously (35)
decreased
This is large because the overall size of their habitat has been reduced and habitable areas are now (36) from each other.
disconnected
Two results are that pandas are more prone to genetic (37)
problems
and are unable to move around freely to follow the (38) cycles of the bamboo that they call.
growth
A new plan is aiming to protect the existing panda habitats and to (39) many of them
join
This plan also includes reforestation and the creation of new (40)
reserves