Admission test for the degree course in Medicine and Surgery

Elenco domande

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. The lawn area is to be reseeded. Seed must be applied at the rate of 50 grams per square metre. Appropriate grass seed is available only in the following quantities: --- What is the least amount of money that needs to be spent to buy sufficient seed to reseed the lawn?
8. Five girls competed in five events at their sports day. The following scoring system was used for each event: Before the events started, each girl nominated the event in which they wished to play their joker card – this doubled the number of points gained in that event. The table below shows the results of each event and the athletes’ final points scores: --- How many of the girls won the event in which they had elected to play their joker?
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?
10. Which one of the following literary works does NOT originate in the corresponding country?
11. Which one of the following composed the opera Madama Butterfly?
12. Which one of the following plays by William Shakespeare is NOT set in Italy?
13. Which one of the following writers is the author of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird?
14. The 'prisoner’s dilemma' is a common example analysed in the field of
15. Who was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize?
16. Which one of these events in world history happened most recently?
17. Which one of the following religions is NOT considered to have been revealed to or founded by an individual?
18. The governance of modern states is often based on the separation of which three powers?
19. The Constitution of the Italian Republic was enacted on 22 December 1947 by
20. Which one of the following is NOT a stated purpose of the United Nations?
21. Which one of the following countries did NOT adopt the coins and banknotes of the Euro as its currency on 1 January 2002?
22. Which of the following rows are correct about these naturally occurring biological molecules?
23. Which of the following is/are tissues? 1 cartilage 2 skin 3 endothelium
24. Which of the following statements about the metabolism of plants is/are correct? 1 CO2 is produced during the day. 2 CO2 is produced at night. 3 The CO2 produced can be used by the plant.
25. Which one of the following occurs during anaphase of mitosis in a healthy human liver cell?
26. Which row shows a correct component of each of the three structures listed?
27. 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. 1 cm3 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?
28. If a cell divides by mitosis ten times, what is the number of cells at the end of the process? [Assume that all cells remain alive.]
29. 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. Which row shows the number of individuals in the family tree with each genotype?
30. 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?