PTE Summarize Written Text Practice

The evolution of the RAS (Royal Agricultural Society) fits into the wider Western trend of promoting nationalism, progress, and technology through exhibitory venues, which first became popular in the 1850s. Various types of fairs, from local agricultural shows to Worlds Fairs, were used as instruments of hegemony to support imperialism, promote burgeoning capitalist endeavors, and shape class identities, social spaces, and public spaces. Visual culture and the art of display became essential in defining aspects of national distinction. Colonial nations in particular, such as Canada and Australia, we're attempting to develop distinct national identities to differentiate themselves from British imperial power. Agricultural fairs in North America originated at the beginning of the nineteenth century and were devoted to educating practicing framers in ways of improving their cultivation of livestock and crops through the use of various technologies. In 1822, the RAS was created on the premise that was a dire need in Australia for the development of improved farming skills to better support growing urban populations and export markets. Organizations based on agricultural improvement, which were popular in Britain, provided camaraderie as well as political and financial support for their members. Once transferred to the colonies, in this case, Australia, they played an integral part in converting and organizing land for colonial purposes.

As a family therapist, I often have the impulse to tell families to go home and have dinner together rather than spending an hour with me. And 20 years of research in North America, Europe, and Australia back up my enthusiasm for family dinners. It turns out that sitting down for a nightly meal is great for the brain, the body, and the spirit. And that nightly dinner doesn’t have to be a gourmet meal that took three hours to cook, nor does it need to be made with organic arugula and heirloom parsnips. For starters, researchers found that for young children, dinnertime conversation boosts vocabulary even more than being read aloud. The researchers counted the number of rare words – those not found on a list of 3,000 most common words – that the families used during dinner conversations. Young kids learned 1,000 rare words at the dinner table, compared to only 143 from parents reading storybooks aloud. Kids who have a large vocabulary read earlier and more easily. Older children also reap intellectual benefits from family dinners. For school-age youngsters, regular mealtime is an even more powerful predictor of high achievement scores than time spent in school, doing homework, playing sports, or doing art. Other researchers reported a consistent association between family dinner frequency and teen academic performance. Adolescents who ate family meals 5 to 7 times a week were twice as likely to get A’s in school as those who ate dinner with their families fewer than two times a week.

In addition to this lack of information about protein families, there is a lack of information about those from the species of most interest to researchers: Homo sapiens. Only a quarter of known protein structures are human. A majority of the rest comes from bacteria. This paucity is a problem, for in proteins form and function are intimately related. A protein is a chain of smaller molecules, called amino acids, that is often hundreds or thousands of links long. By a process not well understood, this chain folds up, after it has been made, into a specific and complex three-dimensional shape. That shape determines what the protein does: acting as a channel, say, to admit a chemical into a cell; or as an enzyme to accelerate a chemical reaction; or as a receptor, to receive chemical signals and pass them on to a cell's molecular machinery.

In such an environment, warfare is no longer purely directed against the military potential of adversarial states. It is rather directed at infiltrating all areas of their societies and threatening their existence. The comparatively easy access to weapons of mass destruction, in particular relatively low-cost biological agents, is of key concern. Both governmental and non-governmental actors prefer to use force in a way that can be characterized as unconventional or also as small wars. War waged according to conventions is an interstate phenomenon, The small war is the archetype of war, in which the protagonists acknowledge no rules and permanently try to violate what conventions do exist, The protagonists of the small war observe neither international standards nor arms control agreements, They make use of territories where they do not have to fear any sanctions because there is no functioning state to assume charge of such sanctions or because the state in questions is too weak to impose such sanctions, This type of war does not provide for any warning time. It challenges not only the external security of the nation-states and international community but also their internal safety.

The worldwide population of wild giant pandas increased by 268 over the last decade according to a new survey conducted by the government of China. The increase in population brings the total number of wild giant pandas to 1864. The population increase represents a 16.8% rise compared to the last panda survey in 2003. Wild giant pandas, a global symbol of wildlife conservation, are found only in China’s Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces. According to the report, formally known as the Fourth National Giant Panda Survey, the geographic range of pandas throughout China also increased. The total area inhabited by wild giant pandas in China now equals 2,577,000 hectares, an expansion of 11.8% since 2003. "These results are a testament to the conservation achievements of the Chinese government," said Xiaohai Liu, executive director of programs, WWF- China. "A lot of good work is being done around wild giant panda conservation, and the government has done well to integrate these efforts and partner with conservation organizations including WWF. The report, the fourth in a series of decadal (10- year) surveys conducted by the State Forestry Administration of China, began in 2011 with financial and technical support from WWF. Much of the success in increasing the panda population comes as a result of conservation policies implemented by the Chinese government, including the Natural Forest Protection Project and Grain for Green. The report found that 1,246 wild giant pandas live within nature reserves, accounting for 66.8% of the total wild population, and the habitat within nature reserves accounts for 53.8% of the total habitat area. There are currently 67 panda nature reserves in China, an increase of 27 since the last report.