PAU Anglès 2000 · Setembre · Sèrie 6 · Part 1 · Reading comprehension

HOW DO YOU BUILD A PYRAMID? Kneeling before a 180-kg concrete obelisk in the hills northwest of Los Angeles, Maureen Clemmons murmurs a prayer to the ancient Egyptian god of wind. An hour passes. Then a strong air-current straightens the strings that connect the obelisk to two nylon kites1, shaped like the ones used in parasailing2. Very soon the kites start pulling the obelisk and drag it across a green grassy field. Clemmons and her 12 assistants cheer vigorously. For three years, Clemmons, 42, who runs a hair-care-products company and has no formal scientific training, has spent all her spare time and more than $10.000 of her own money trying to solve everyone’s favourite engineering enigma: how the Egyptian pyramids were built. Over the years, researchers have experimented with everything from ramps to levers3 in failed attempts to move duplicates of the three-ton pyramid stones. Inspired by winds that hit her home in Reseda, Calif., each November, Clemmons recalled4 that even stronger winds blow in Egypt from February through June. Then she remembered that the Egyptians mass-produced linen5for their boat sails, and that some hieroglyphs suggest that the pyramids were raised by “invisible gods in the sky.” Clemmons concluded that the ancient Egyptians could have used a system of large kites to lift the pyramid stones into place. Does it sound ludicrous? That’s what most of her friends said. So Clemmons did some research and talked to Mory Gharib, an aeronautics engineer at the California Institute of Technology, who surprised everyone by supporting her concept. “It needs more study,” Gharib says, “but all of the mathematics works”. Others were persuaded by what they saw. “I thought it was bullshit,” admits Lynn Velazquez, an administrator at Pepperdine University. “Then I saw Maureen use a kite to lift up a heavy log, and I started to believe.” The kite theory evokes a rolling of eyes, however, from professional Egyptologists, most of whom believe the pyramid builders used ramps. Many of these experts are fed up with so many amateurs pushing bizarre theories that often involve space aliens. Mark Lehner, a Harvard archaeologist widely regarded as the leading U.S. expert on the pyramids, was so shocked at the kite theory that he declined comment. Zawi Hawass, Under Secretary of State for Egypt’s Giza plateau, explained that “Egyptologists call people with these kinds of theories ‘pyramidiots.’” To carry out further tests in California’s Mojave desert a $100.000 research fund is needed. To that end, Clemmons has persuaded several companies to collaborate on a new perfume labelled Ala (Latin for “wing”) that will sell in pyramid-shaped bottles. The profits will go to the kite-research project. If these additional tests are successful, Clemmons wants to demonstrate her theory on a much grander stage in the shadow of the Giza pyramids outside Cairo. “Other research expeditions had a bunch of men pushing and pulling,” she says. “Mine will be me and my girlfriends with kits and a pack of beer, sitting in lawn chairs, waiting for the wind to kick up.” 1 kite: estel / cometa 2 parasailing: parasailing (paracaigudisme aquàtic / paracaidismo acuático) 3 lever: palanca / palanca 4 recall: recordar / recordar 5 linen: lli, roba de fil / lino, tejido de lino PART ONE: READING COMPREHENSION Answer the following questions according to the information in the text “How Do You Build a Pyramid?”. [1 point each correct answer] 1. What are the reactions towards Maureen’s kite theory? 2. What factors support or contradict her theory? 3. What is unusual about Maureen’s team of researchers? 4. Which of the following sentences summarises the text best? a) Maureen spends her own time and money to prove her kite-theory about pyramid building. Reactions go from shock to convinced support. The theory seems mathematically right and the experiments in the desert work. She is collecting money to continue them in the USA and then in Africa. b) Maureen says