PTE Fill in the blanks -1-

1. Genetically modified foods provide no direct benefit to consumers; the food is not noticeably better or cheaper. The greater benefit, proponents argue, is that genetic engineering will play a crucial role in feeding the world’s burgeoning population. Opponents disagree, asserting that the world already grows more food per person than ever before – more, even than we can consume.

2. In the last years of the wheat boom, Bennett had become increasingly frustrated at how the government seemed to be encouraging an exploitative farming binge. He went directly after the Department of Agriculture for misleading people. Farmers on the Great Plains were working against nature, he thundered in speeches.

3. The principal recommendation of the world conferences was that countries must take full responsibility for their own development. National responsibility for national development is the necessary consequence of sovereignty. The Monterrey Consensus states that ‘Each country has primary responsibility for its own economic and social development, and the role of national policies and development strategies cannot be over-emphasized.’ The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation called for all governments to begin implementing national sustainable development strategies (NSDS) by 2005 and the 2005 Summit agreed on a target of 2006 for all developing countries to adopt and start implementation of these strategies to achieve the internationally agreed goals. The automatic corollary of that principle is that each country must be free to determine its own development strategy. It is essential that all donors and lenders accept the principle of country ownership of national development strategies. This implies the acceptance of the principle that development strategies should not only be attuned to country circumstances, but also be prepared and implemented under the leadership of the governments of the countries themselves. The 2005 World Summit also acknowledged, in this regard, that all countries must recognize the need for developing countries to strike a balance between their national policy priorities and their international commitments.

4. Over the past ten years Australian overseas departures have grown from 1.7 million to 3.2 million. This represents strong average, annual growth of 6.5 per cent. This paper analyses outbound travel demand to each destination country using the travel demand models of short-term resident departures. The models are specified in terms of a double logarithmic linear functional form, with overseas departures as the dependent variable and real household disposable income prices of travel and accommodation in Australia, and overseas and the exchange rate as independent variables.

The models were estimated using historical time series data from 1973 to 1998. The data were obtained from several sources such as the World Tourism Organisation, Australian Bureau of Statistics, World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The results suggest that the estimated elasticity parameters are consistent with standard economic theory. The number of short-term resident departures is positively influenced by per capita real household disposable income; and the price of domestic travel and accommodation, and negatively influenced by the price of travel and accommodation overseas. The estimated demand models were used to develop the Tourism Forecasting Council’s long run forecasts. The forecasts suggest that the number of short-term resident departures will increase strongly over the next ten years, largely due to the strength of the Australian economy, competitive travel prices, and Australians’ interest in experiencing different cultures and lifestyles.

5. Thea Proctor was just sixteen when her entry at the Bowral Art Competition caught the eye of the judge, Arthur Streeton. It was the first of many associations with art world recruits. The next year saw her at the Julian Ashton Art School in the illustrious company of Elioth Gruner, Sydney Long and George Lambert, for whom she often posed and remained her great friend until his death in 1930.

Lambert’s paintings and sketches of Proctor emphasise the elegance of her dress. A keen interest in fashion was just one aspect of her fascination with design, and she saw herself as an early style guru on a quest to rid Australian art of “its lack of imagination and inventive design”. Skilled in watercolours and drawings, Proctor did not limit herself to paper, canvases or to her popular magazine illustrations; she designed theatre sets and a restaurant interior and wrote on a range of subjects from flower arranging to the colours of cars. It made for a busy and varied life but, as she said, she was not the sort of person “who could sit at home and knit socks.”