Reading Passage 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.

The Davies Sisters

Between 1908 and 1924, Gwendoline and Margaret Davies amassed one of the largest collections of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century French paintings in Britain

Gwendoline (1882-1951) and Margaret (1884-1963) Davies were the granddaughters of David Davies, a Welshman who amassed a fortune in the shipping and mining industries. In 1907, when Gwendoline came into her inheritance (Margaret would follow in 1909), the sisters were said to be the wealthiest unmarried women in Britain. Their religious upbringing in rural Wales gave them a deep sense of social responsibility and they chose to use their inheritance for cultural and philanthropic* purposes.

While there was no real family history of art collecting, the sisters' education was rigorously geared toward such pursuits. Their London school focused on cultural rather than academic study, and they travelled extensively with their governess, Jane Blaker, visiting art galleries and making extensive notes on the collections there.

The sisters began to make regular art purchases from 1908, which roughly coincided with the dates of their inheritance. They took advice from various people, including the art dealer Hugh Blaker (the brother of Jane Blaker) and David Croal Thompson, who was also an art dealer. While it was long assumed that these men were largely responsible for the nature of the sisters' collection, it has recently been accepted that Gwendoline and Margaret retained a far more active role in the process.

The sisters' journals reveal their preference for Old Master** paintings. Yet they initially made very few attempts to secure any such works. While the sisters were wealthy in relative terms, their income was nothing compared to the fortunes of American art collectors of this period, such as J. Pierpont Morgan. Quite simply, high quality Old Master works were, if not beyond their means, then beyond what they were willing to pay for them. Instead, their early purchases were of the fashionable, safe variety, and included, for example, paintings by the French artist Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.

However, it was only a few years before their collecting took a new direction and they turned to the work of the French Impressionists***. We know that Hugh Blaker, as a champion of contemporary French art had a hand in the decision, and we know also that they would have seen examples on their various trips to Paris. Whatever the precise reason for this change, their first purchases of Impressionist art, made in October 1912, were scenes of Venice by the French artist Claude Monet. Over the next 12 years, the sisters amassed the bulk of their Impressionist collection, including six further works by Monet, two more by Manet, and three by Renoir, including his well-known painting La Parisienne.

The First World War (1914-1918) played a part in the development of the sisters' collection. Their initial response to the war effort was to finance the safe passage of artists from occupied Belgium to Wales, as a humanitarian act, but also with the hope of establishing a vibrant artists' community in the area. Later in the conflict, both sisters decided to volunteer at a canteen for troops at Troyes, in northern France; Gwendoline in 1916, followed by Margaret in 1917.

It was tedious and distressing work, which would have a permanent effect on Gwendoline's health. Yet on one of numerous trips to nearby Paris, she visited the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery. Here she acquired two works by Cézanne – Provençal Landscape and The François Zola Dam. The paintings were shipped directly to Bath, England, where they became the first works by Cézanne to go on display in a public gallery in Britain.

Commentators have often described the sisters as unlikely pioneer collectors. Much is made of their isolation in rural Wales and the fact that they didn't make friends with artists or gallery owners. Yet they didn't feel obliged to follow fashionable tastes and were free to pursue their own preferences. Although they relied on a trusted circle of advisers, they made frequent trips to London and Paris, and also regularly had paintings sent to their home for consideration.

By the early 1920s, Gwendoline felt increasingly uncomfortable buying art works when faced with the poverty and social upheaval created by the First World War. Her philanthropic pursuits then became focused almost exclusively on social causes and the development of the sisters' home at Gregynog Hall into a conference center and venue for the Gregynog Festival of Music and Poetry. Gwendoline made her final art purchase in March 1926. Margaret also stopped collecting around this time, but started again in the 1930s acquiring, on a relatively small scale, work by contemporary British artists.

The sisters collected French Impressionist paintings at a time when such art was routinely ignored by individuals and institutions alike. The Gwendoline and Margaret Davies collection, donated in 1951 and 1963 respectively to the National Museum Wales, contains major examples of work by leading French Impressionists. In collecting paintings that they loved, the sisters created a lasting and meaningful cultural legacy for the people of Wales and beyond.

Reading Passage 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14–26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.

Mapungubwe

Located in southern Africa just below the Limpopo River, the kingdom of Mapungubwe, flourished between the 11th and 13th century CE

A
Mapungubwe, which was one of the first states in southern Africa, was formed by Bantu-speaking peoples who were farmers. The area controlled by the rulers of Mapungubwe had at its heart a large sandstone plateau, which was easily defended due to its inaccessibility. As with other kingdoms in the region of southern Africa, cattle herding and other types of farming brought plenty of food and a surplus that could be traded for needed goods. Archaeology has revealed extensive layers of bones and manure, which indicate that from the 9th century CE there were large cattle herds, the traditional source of political power in southern African communities. The archaeological record for the 10th century shows a marked increase in the number of domesticated cattle in the area as well as cotton cultivation and weaving, as indicated by abundant finds of spindle whorls.

B
The total population of Mapungubwe at its peak in the mid-13th century was around 5,000 people. The chief or king of Mapungubwe was likely the wealthiest individual in the society, and would have owned more cattle and precious materials than anyone else. The king and his advisers dwelt in a stone enclosure composed of stone walls and housing built on the highest level of the community's territory, a natural sandstone hill which is some 30 metres high and 100 metres in length. Occupation on the hill dates from the 11 th century and the entire complex was surrounded by a wooden palisade*, as indicated by postholes made in the rock. The rest of the community lived in mud and thatch housing spread out below the hill, although there is one stone structure here. This settlement, known as Babandyanalo, covers around 5 hectares (12.3 acres) and predates the hilltop structures.

C
The kings of Mapungubwe were buried at the top of the hill site in a demarcated area away from the dwellings, while other members of the community were buried at the surrounding valley level. A wooden staircase connected the two levels, the sockets for the steps being clearly visible in the sandstone cliff face. There were some grander residences dotted around the outskirts of Babandyanalo, and these probably belonged to male relatives of the king. There are many other smaller but still impressive sites across the Mapungubwe plateau, which are located anywhere from 15 to 100 kilometres from the major hill site. Containing stone residences and walls, they likely belonged to local chiefs who acted as servants to the king.

D
The Mapungubwe plateau has a very high number of carnivore animal remains and ivory splinters, suggesting that the skins of these large animals and ivory elephant tusks were accumulated, probably for trade with coastal areas reached by the Limpopo River. The presence of glass beads, almost certainly from India, indicate there was trade of some sort with other states on the coast who, in turn, traded with merchants travelling from India by sea. Mapungubwe also benefitted from locally-sourced copper and the gold trade as it passed from the kingdom of Great Zimbabwe (12-15th century), situated to the north of Mapungubwe, to the coastal city of Kosala. It is likely that trade links led to a strengthening of political authority in order to control and even monopolise these lucrative interregional connections.

E
Archaeological discoveries reveal that pottery was produced on a scale large enough to suggest the presence of professional potters, and is another indicator of the prosperity of Mapungubwe society. Archaeological finds include spherical vessels with short necks, beakers, and bowls, many of which have decorative stamps. There are also ceramic discs, and whistles. In addition, cattle, sheep, and goat figurines, and small figures of highly stylised humans with elongated bodies and short limbs have been found. The figures may have been used in ceremonies as offerings to ancestors, but their precise function is not known. Other discoveries include small jewellery items made from locally sourced copper.

F
Beautifully decorated artefacts made of gold have also been found at Mapungubwe. A type of decoration, found nowhere else except Great Zimbabwe, involved the crafting of gold into small rectangular sheets and carving geometrical patterns into it. These sheets were then used to cover wooden objects (which have not survived) using small tacks, also made of gold. One such object that has been discovered may have been a sceptre, while additional evidence of local gold-working is a rhinoceros figurine made from small hammered sheets, and thousands of small gold beads. These objects were all found at the royal burial site and date to c. 1150. They are the first known indicators that gold had an intrinsic value of its own (as opposed to that of a currency) in southern Africa.

G
The kingdom of Mapungubwe was already in decline by the late 13th century, probably because overpopulation placed too much stress on local resources, a situation that may have been brought to a crisis point by a series of droughts. Trade routes may also have shifted northwards. Certainly, the areas that now prospered were to the north, such as Great Zimbabwe.

Reading Passage 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27–40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

Book review: The World of Sugar by Ulbe Bosma

Ulbe Bosma's The World of Sugar is a genuinely global history. Bosma discusses all the sugar-growing places of the world, beginning with Cuba and Java, the largest exporters of the early 20th century. But this is a history not just of cane sugar but also of beet sugar, an equally important form of traded sugar over the last hundred years. Beet sugar is grown mainly in Europe and the United States. It has also been massively subsidised and sold at artificially low prices on world markets, threatening the livelihood of producers of cane sugar.

Bosma's discussion of the sugar market in Britain gives a sense of the book's range. The sweet-toothed British first bought cane sugar from their own slavery-dependent colonial plantations. Following the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, cane sugar was imported to Britain from places which retained the practice, such as Cuba and Brazil. Towards the end of the 19th century, the British started to import beet sugar from continental Europe. Only in the 20th century was there a move to develop a national beet sugar industry.

The book provides a global labour history, investigating the wide range of labour regimes associated with growing sugar. Contrary to popular belief, cane sugar production was never just restricted to large, dedicated plantations owned by rich men. For example, in Java, a huge exporter of sugar in the early 20th century, sugar cane was grown together with rice in an extraordinarily labour-intensive way by small farmers.

The World of Sugar is also a story of similarity and continuity in sugar cultivation. For example, imported labour has been used for much large-scale production. German beet fields employed Polish workers; Mexicans and many others, including Sicilians, were vital to US sugar production. Cane cutting, Bosma shows, remains a poorly paid and brutal business to this day in many places in the world. But as well as this, the book is about the continuity of the use of traditional methods on small farms. In the mid 20th-century, this type of sugar production dominated in South Asia and Latin America.

This is also a history of capitalists and sugar dynasties, as well as corporations that in some cases have remained influential over very long periods. Great firms and great interests have had profound influence on the policies of states. In many places – not just the British Caribbean but Cuba and the Philippines too – a powerful sugar bourgeoisie played a major role in politics and their interests were consequently protected by trade barriers and subsidies. In the battle for control of the industry, it was inevitably the poor countries which came off worse. All this is explored by Bosma with wonderful subtlety and control.

But sugar production was never just a matter of agriculture. It also involved the extraction, close to the place of harvest, of sucrose from the sugar plant, a process which required machinery powered by humans, animals, wind or steam. Further processes involved boiling (from the 19th century, this often involved vacuum systems) and the separation of sugar from other materials in a process known as refinement. From very early on, sugar production was an energy-intensive industrial process, mostly taking place in the countryside and in refineries in centres of consumption, both small and large. The growth of the industry entailed a very rapid diffusion of ideas and techniques from one country to another. Cuba, for example, developed an extraordinarily dense system of railways to transport workers and cane, as well as steam-powered sugar factories. Particular varieties of cane sugar and beet sugar spread very rapidly across the world, in accordance with local needs and demands.

Where once only tiny quantities of sugar could be produced, now new techniques, varieties, fertilisers, irrigation systems and much more have turned gleaming white sugar into a ubiquitous chemical. Over the same time, there has been a massive increase in consumption. Once regarded as a luxury, sugar came to be promoted as a valuable source of energy. But as the consumption of sugar has increased, so has the harm it does, whether to people's teeth or weight. In the face of appalling obstruction from the sugar industry to attempts to reduce consumption, some countries have been forced to tax sugar in order to bring that about. The sugar industry has a history of attacking its critics and, when it comes to obesity, of trying to blame fats, and lack of exercise and self-control. And the recent past has seen worrying new developments in mass sweetening. High-fructose corn syrup made from maize using an enzymatic process invented in Japan in the 1960s has a similar number of calories to table sugar but is far cheaper to produce. It is now widely consumed, having been adopted in the making of soft drinks and a large number of processed foods, and is regarded as a leading cause of obesity.

This is a wonderfully rich book, a model of global history, the history of production and the history of capitalism. Bosma avoids outbursts of emotion, celebratory or critical, even if they might have made his analysis of the multiple tragedies involving sugar all the more powerful. He shows that we could always have done without sugar and that today we have many alternative sources of sweetness. Yet many of the poorest people in the world still depend on it to make a living.