1. A study involving a brain-training exercise was carried out on more than a thousand adults aged 65 and over, some of whom later developed dementia. Results showed that the benefits of the five-week mental agility course undertaken by some of the adults lasted for at least five years. This led to an improvement in everyday activities such as money management and the ability to do housework. If those with trained brains developed dementia, they did so later than those in the control group. The results also showed that, for those people in the study who developed dementia, after the diagnosis their mental decline occurred faster than for those who had not undertaken the training. Which one of the following can be drawn as a conclusion from the above passage?
2. Once again it has become fashionable for householders to replace their carpets with wooden floors. Sales of laminate and solid floors, such as oak, have seen a massive increase in the last ten years. This trend seems more in tune with our eco-friendly aspirations: carpets are often plastic-based and use vast quantities of underlying material, or underlay, made from petrochemicals. For this reason, it seems unlikely that wooden floors will go out of fashion in the near future. Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the above argument?
3. According to the current mainstream scientific view, Near Death Experiences (NDEs) are explicable in purely physiological terms. Specifically, they are caused by cerebral anoxia (oxygen deficiency in brain tissue), which occurs in a dying brain. On the other hand, recent research on hundreds of successfully resuscitated cardiac patients found that only twenty per cent reported NDEs. If NDEs had purely medical causes then most of the patients should have experienced them, since they had all been clinically dead and experienced cerebral anoxia. NDEs therefore do not have purely physiological causes. Which one of the following best expresses the main conclusion of the above passage?
4. Increasingly, the quality of a teacher, and of his or her lessons, is to be judged by feedback from their pupils. This is dangerous, as pupils have a tendency to focus too much on whether or not they enjoyed the lesson, in other words, on how much ‘fun’ they found it. The purpose of education, however, is not to keep children entertained; it is not to make their lives more fun. Arguably, it is not even to make them happier, per se. The purpose of schools is to make their pupils better, more educated people. This is all that matters, and therefore it is whether the teacher succeeds at this – not at being a children’s entertainer – that counts. Which one of the following is a flaw in the above argument?
5. Researchers have tried to establish reasons for a recent drop in the catch of marlin near the Madeira coast. This drop cannot be explained by environmental conditions; there was no significant change in the temperature or composition of the region’s water. Nor could one blame the human factor, because the size of the fishing fleet, catch quotas and pollution levels have been strictly observed. The environmentalists then analysed the records of the fishing catch of marlin over the last six centuries. This research identified that regular five-year periods of significant decrease in the catch alternated with fifteen-year periods of gradual growth of the catch. In view of this, the study concluded that the current drop in the marlin catch is part of a long-term cycle related to fish migration and food-chain balance. Which one of the following is an underlying assumption of the above argument?
6. A student packs books into a box which is 20 cm high, 30 cm wide, and 40 cm long. She ties string around the box in the pattern shown. A further 20 cm of string is needed for a knot. What length of string is needed to tie up her box?
7. The plan of a domestic lawn with dimensions in metres is shown below.
Non rispondere
8. Five girls competed in five events at their sports day. The following scoring system was used for each event:
Non rispondere
9. At the Shawilde Theatre, tickets are priced as follows:
Front stalls €35 Centre stalls €28 Rear stalls €20 Every row in the theatre contains 30 seats.
Last night’s performance was a sell-out and the ticket sales were €21 000. Exactly 60% of this income came from tickets for the centre stalls, and the rest was split equally between the front stalls and the rear stalls.
How many rows of seats make up the centre stalls at the Shawilde Theatre?
Non rispondere 10. Four of the following five pieces can be fitted together to make the above pattern.
11. Which one of the following literary works does NOT originate in the corresponding country?
12. Which one of the following composed the opera Madama Butterfly?
13. Which one of the following plays by William Shakespeare is NOT set in Italy?
14. Which one of the following writers is the author of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird?
15. The 'prisoner’s dilemma' is a common example analysed in the field of
16. Who was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize?
17. Which one of these events in world history happened most recently?
18. Which one of the following religions is NOT considered to have been revealed to or founded by an individual?
19. The governance of modern states is often based on the separation of which three powers?
20. The Constitution of the Italian Republic was enacted on 22 December 1947 by
21. Which one of the following is NOT a stated purpose of the United Nations?
22. Which one of the following countries did NOT adopt the coins and banknotes of the Euro as its currency on 1 January 2002?
1 di 4 23. Which of the following rows are correct about these naturally occurring biological molecules?
24. Which of the following is/are tissues?
25. Which of the following statements about the metabolism of plants is/are correct?
CO₂ is produced during the day. CO₂ is produced at night. The CO₂ produced can be used by the plant. Non rispondere 26. Which one of the following occurs during anaphase of mitosis in a healthy human liver cell?
27. Which row shows a correct component of each of the three structures listed?
28. Beetroot is a root vegetable with cells that contain a red pigment. Normally the pigment cannot pass out of the cells because it cannot diffuse through their cell surface membranes. An investigation was carried out into the effect of various chemicals on the permeability of the cell surface membranes of beetroot cells. 1cm3 samples were cut from the beetroot and washed in running water for 20 minutes to remove any pigment that was released from the damaged cells. Five experiments were carried out. In each experiment, one cube of beetroot was placed in liquid P and one cube placed in liquid Q, and the results were observed. Which row shows the correct results and conclusions?
29. If a cell divides by mitosis ten times, what is the number of cells at the end of the process?
30. Familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) is an inherited disease caused by a dominant allele. People with FH have high concentrations of cholesterol in the blood, which can lead to an increased risk of coronary heart disease. The family tree shows the inheritance of this disease in one family.
Non rispondere
31. The diagrams show some pathways between the central nervous system and effector organs in a healthy human. Which pathway is a possible route for impulses passing along a parasympathetic neuron?
32. An electron microscope (EM) was used to view a cell. The maximum dimension of the cell was observed at a magnification ×30 000. The image on the EM screen showed a maximum length of 30 mm. Which of the following mature healthy cells was being magnified?
33. Which statement about an enzyme involved in genetic modification is correct?
34. Which statement is correct in healthy humans?
35. Which of the following regions within a sarcomere remain UNCHANGED in length when a healthy human muscle cell contracts?
36. Which row is correct for the three given features of typical human B lymphocytes?
37. Which of the following processes involve ions?
Contraction of a muscle Transmission of a nerve impulse across a synapse Transfer of light energy into chemical energy in photosynthesis Oxidative phosphorylation in a mitochondrion Non rispondere 38. An animal has a coat that has some patches of white hair and some patches of black hair. Cells that make up a hair follicle form a single hair, which is either white or black. Assume that there are no mutations following formation of the zygote. A student wrote the following statements:
The cells in all the hair follicles contain the same genes. The alleles in a hair follicle forming a white hair are different from the alleles in the hair follicle forming a black hair. Each white hair follicle cell contains two recessive alleles. Which statement(s) is/are correct?
Non rispondere 39. The diagram shows a nephron with collecting duct from a healthy human. Which of the regions (1-4) contain a liquid with no urea?
40. The same section of an allele coding for five amino acids from two different individuals, P and Q, is shown.
Addition Deletion Substitution Non rispondere 2 di 4 41. Which statement about a positive ion explains why it is positively charged?
42. A few drops of universal indicator solution were added to exactly 50 mL of sodium hydroxide solution, NaOH, of concentration 1 mol / L. Exactly 50 mL of hydrochloric acid, HCl, of concentration 1 mol / L, was added drop by drop to the sodium hydroxide solution containing the universal indicator solution. What colour changes would be observed as the hydrochloric acid was added?
43. A student observed that when powdered sugar at –1°C was added to ice at –1°C all of the ice melted. Which of the following statements explain this observation?
Sugar has given the water molecules energy. The melting point of the mixture is higher. The melting point of the mixture is lower. Non rispondere 44. Which of the following pairs of structural formulae represent structural isomers?
CH₃CH₂OH and CH₃OCH₃ CH₃CH(CH₃)CH₂CH₂CH₃ and CH₃CH₂CH₂CH(CH₃)CH₃ CH(OH)=CHCH₂OH and CH₃CH₂COOH Non rispondere 45. Element Z reacts with water at room temperature and hydrogen gas is released. The oxide of element Z is a solid at room temperature and does not conduct electricity. The oxide reacts with acids and has the formula ZO. To which group/part of the Periodic Table does element Z belong?
46. Which of the following equations represent(s) a redox reaction?
4LiH + AlCl₃ → 3LiCl + LiAl H₄ N₂O₃3 + 3H₂O → 2H₃O⁺ + 2NO₂⁻ NH₄NO₃ → 2H₂O + N₂O Non rispondere 47. Which of the following molecules have an overall permanent dipole moment?
CO₂ H₂O NH₃ [C is in Group IV, N is in Group V, O is in Group VI]
Non rispondere 48. Why does hydrogen iodide (HI) have a higher boiling point than hydrogen bromide (HBr)? [Atomic numbers: bromine = 35; iodine = 53]
49. What is the minimum mass of sulfur dioxide needed to make 500 mL of a solution of concentration 3.0 mol / L? [Ar values: O = 16; S = 32]
50. A compound consists of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen only. 8 g of this compound contains 3 g of carbon and 1 g of hydrogen. Which one of the following could be the molecular formula of the compound? [Ar values: C = 12; H = 1; O = 16]
51. Hydrogen has a radioactive isotope called tritium. Tritium atoms have two neutrons. The most abundant naturally occurring isotope of hydrogen has a relative atomic mass of 1.0. What is the value for the relative atomic mass of a sample of hydrogen gas that has an equal amount of these two isotopes of hydrogen?
52. Consider the following reversible reaction at temperature T.
A + 2B ⇌ 2C + DNon rispondere
3 di 4 53. Which of the following expressions is equal to (8²ⁿ x 4ⁿ)/2ⁿ for all integers n?
54. The mean mass of three babies is 2.1 kg. The range of their masses is 0.7 kg. The lightest baby has a mass of 1.8 kg. What is the median mass of the three babies?
55. What is the highest common factor of 360, 500 and 700, given as the product of powers of its prime factors?
56. What is the sum of the solutions to the equation 3/x + 2/(x-2) = 1, where x is a real number and x ≠ 0 and x ≠ 2?
57. A car, which is initially stationary, accelerates for 5.0 seconds at 4.0 m/s² along a straight road. It then continues in the same direction for 20 seconds at a constant speed. What is the maximum speed of the car, and what is the distance travelled by the car in the final 20 seconds of its motion?
58. A stone of density 5.20 g/ cm³ and volume 200 cm³ is completely submerged in a liquid of density 1.20 g/cm³. What is the magnitude of the upthrust acting on the stone?
59. Two charged particles P and Q are 0.10 m apart. The charge on P is 1.50 × 10⁻⁷ C and the charge on Q is 1.50 × 10⁻⁷ C. Particle P experiences an electrostatic force of magnitude F because it is near to the charge on particle Q. The distance between the two particles is increased to 0.20 m. The charge on P is increased to 4.50 × 10⁻⁷ C and the charge on Q is increased to 6.00 × 10⁻⁷ C. What is the magnitude of the force that particle P experiences now?
60. A fixed mass of an ideal gas is compressed at constant temperature. The pressure is recorded continuously as the volume decreases. The pressure (y-axis) and volume (x-axis) are plotted on a linearly scaled graph. Which statement describes the plotted line?
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