BMAT 2016-S1

A school has 120 pupils, in five year groups. The following table gives some details about the numbers of boys and girls in each year group:

There is a probability of 1 in 12 that a boy selected at random is in Year 4.

Forest fires in Indonesia this year have emitted 1.6 gigatonnes of CO₂. To put that in perspective, it has been estimated that the entire world must emit less than 1000 gigatonnes of CO₂ every year from now on if we are to avoid dangerous global warming. When forest vegetation burns, the amount of CO₂ released into the atmosphere can be taken back up again by the plants as they regrow. But in Indonesia it is not only the plants that are burning. Peat that has accumulated over thousands of years is also on fire, releasing buried carbon. Forest fires in Indonesia burn most fiercely in years when the region is drier, as it is this year. Rain arrived in Indonesia recently, and the number of new fires has dropped.

Charges for Bed and Breakfast at the Donclair Hotel are as follows:

However, guests who stay for seven or more consecutive nights pay $40 per night for the whole of their stay.

Additionally, the bill for the hotel will include any charges incurred for the use of the car park. The charge for the car park is $5 per night or $25 for a seven-night permit.

John stayed at the hotel recently for five consecutive nights, keeping his car in the car park. He has now booked eight consecutive nights next month, and again he will keep his car in the car park. John never has any other charges added to his bill.

When we listen to music, electrical waves in our brains tend to synchronise to the tempo. In a recent study scientists recorded the brain waves of musicians and non-musicians as they listened to music. Although the brain waves of both groups synchronised to many rhythms, those of non-musicians did not synchronise to particularly slow music. The non-musicians reported that they could not keep track of the tempo in slow music. This shows that becoming a musician requires an innate tendency for the brain to synchronise to the tempo of any speed of music.

The students in a physics class took a practical test and a written test. Their results are shown in the following table.

Their teacher has drawn a scatter graph, shown below, but one student’s marks are missing.

Wide-ranging increases in the cost of bringing a civil court case recently announced by the UK government are an assault on citizens’ access to the law. It is tantamount to treating justice like a commodity. The latest proposals will increase fees by more than 1000% for claims of £200000 or more. They will deter individuals and small businesses from taking cases to court, for fear of the cost if they lose, crippling anyone trying to recover monies owed to them. All civil cases, from divorce to landlords trying to get their property back, are affected. If justice is not to be out of reach of the majority of ordinary people, the government must think again. The civil courts are the backbone of a fair society and a prosperous economy.

Citizens of Beematia pay tax on their incomes each calendar year, as follows:

In 2014, Paul paid a total of $5600 tax on his year’s income. In 2015, however, he paid $800 less than in 2014, despite earning $2000 more.

A new electronics company has released six new products this year, Product 1 at the start of January, Product 2 at the start of March, Product 3 at the start of May, Product 4 at the start of July, Product 5 at the start of September and Product 6 at the start of November. Sales from the factory are always in multiples of 50 units.

The charts below show the total number of each of the products sold in each quarter of the year and the income from sales of each product in December.

The prices at which the different products are sold are shown below:

A new electronics company has released six new products this year, Product 1 at the start of January, Product 2 at the start of March, Product 3 at the start of May, Product 4 at the start of July, Product 5 at the start of September and Product 6 at the start of November. Sales from the factory are always in multiples of 50 units.

The charts below show the total number of each of the products sold in each quarter of the year and the income from sales of each product in December.

The prices at which the different products are sold are shown below:

A new electronics company has released six new products this year, Product 1 at the start of January, Product 2 at the start of March, Product 3 at the start of May, Product 4 at the start of July, Product 5 at the start of September and Product 6 at the start of November. Sales from the factory are always in multiples of 50 units.

The charts below show the total number of each of the products sold in each quarter of the year and the income from sales of each product in December.

The prices at which the different products are sold are shown below:

A new electronics company has released six new products this year, Product 1 at the start of January, Product 2 at the start of March, Product 3 at the start of May, Product 4 at the start of July, Product 5 at the start of September and Product 6 at the start of November. Sales from the factory are always in multiples of 50 units.

The charts below show the total number of each of the products sold in each quarter of the year and the income from sales of each product in December.

The prices at which the different products are sold are shown below:

Time is represented in an unusual way in Bolandia. The format is mm:hh, where mm represents the number of minutes to the next hour (hh). For example, 17:03 represents 17 minutes before 3am. However, there are still 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day.

Helen is staying in a hotel in Bolandia, and the clocks in the hotel display time in this way.

When she goes to bed one evening, the clock in her room reads 21:23. She wakes up a while later and sees that the clock says 23:04.

Research has shown that parents with high incomes tend to have children who score highly in IQ tests. It is very unlikely that this is because having rich parents improves one’s IQ. Much more likely is that being intelligent tends to result in having a high income, since a high level of intelligence is required for entering well-paid professions such as medicine and law. The research did not examine whether the relationship between parental income and children’s IQ scores was dependent on the nature of the parents’ profession. If it were found that the children of high earners in sport and entertainment did not generally have high IQ scores, we could conclude that the intelligence level of children is largely genetically inherited from their parents.

At the beginning of last year, Sam had $1000 in her bank account.

The following graph shows the changes, in hundreds of dollars, in the balance of money in her account over that year.

A group of UK scientists have a rare opportunity to study human brains thanks to the promise of donations of brains after death by some  members of a study group. The dissection of these brains and the counting of the numbers of synapses in them may add evidence to the idea of ‘cognitive reserve’: when a person gets older, they start to lose some brain synapses, with a negative impact on cognitive function. Those elderly people who have led a ‘brain friendly ’ lifestyle when younger are thought to have created extra synapses, mitigating the naturally  occurring loss of synapses through age. Adopting a ‘brain friendly’ lifestyle when younger should make it possible to retain cognitive performance into old age. Such a lifestyle is thought to include reading books, being socially active and physically healthy.

Five friends are sitting at a round table playing the ‘LRC’ dice game.

There are five dice. Each face of each die has one letter, ‘L’, ‘R’ or ‘C’, written on it.
Going clockwise around the table the friends are seated in the following order: Alun, Carmen, Ian, Prem and Ruthie.

Each friend has five coins for the game.

Each player in turn rolls the five dice and distributes their coins according to the letters on the top of the rolled dice: an ‘L’ on a die requires passing one coin to the player on their left, an ‘R’ on a die requires passing one coin to the player on their right, and a ‘C’ on a die requires putting one coin in the centre of the table.

The table below shows the outcome of the dice rolling of the five players:

Over-prescription of antibiotics by doctors who respond to patients’ demands has raised the drug resistance of harmful bacteria. Drug resistant bacteria can make routine surgery and minor cuts fatal if infections take hold. We could introduce penalties for doctors who over-prescribe, but this would not be enough. Given the scale and escalation of antibiotic resistance, we need to discover a new class of antibiotics. In the past, pharmaceutical companies have not regarded research on antibiotics as potentially profitable. Governments should give financial incentives to the pharmaceutical industry to intensify work on finding new classes of antibiotics which could be kept in reserve for emergencies such as a global epidemic. This would make it more attractive for pharmaceutical companies to carry out the necessary research.

I have a deposit of £25000 that I want to use to help to buy a house. The purchase price of the house is £150 000, and the remainder of the cost of the house is to be financed using a mortgage.

My building society offers 5 mortgages, the details of which are published on its website as follows:

Fracking in the US 2005–2012

The oil and gas industry has increasingly turned to hydraulic fracturing – known as ‘fracking’ – in a highly polluting effort to unlock oil and gas in underground shale beds across the United States. Fracking is already underway in 17 states, with more than 100,000 wells drilled since 2005.

Water used
Since 2005, fracking has used nearly 250 billion gallons of water across the nation (see the Table below). The greatest total water consumption occurred in Texas, at the same time as the state was struggling with extreme drought. In Colorado the amount of water used for fracking was enough to meet the water needs of nearly 200,000 households in the state for a year.

Chemicals used
Fracking fluid consists of water mixed with chemicals such as benzene that is pumped underground to frack wells. Although in percentage terms chemicals are a small component of fracking fluid, the total volume of chemicals used is immense. According to the oil and gas industry, 99.2% (by volume) of fracking fluid is water and the other 0.8% is a mix of chemicals. These can enter drinking water supplies from the well, or in the wastewater disposal process.

Global warming (GW) pollution released
Completion of fracking wells from 2005 to 2012 produced global warming pollution equal to the CO2 emissions from 28 coal-fired power plants in a year.

Variation
Both water consumption and pollution levels varied sharply from state to state.

Table: Fracking states (ordered by quantity of water used)

Fracking in the US 2005–2012

The oil and gas industry has increasingly turned to hydraulic fracturing – known as ‘fracking’ – in a highly polluting effort to unlock oil and gas in underground shale beds across the United States. Fracking is already underway in 17 states, with more than 100,000 wells drilled since 2005.

Water used
Since 2005, fracking has used nearly 250 billion gallons of water across the nation (see the Table below). The greatest total water consumption occurred in Texas, at the same time as the state was struggling with extreme drought. In Colorado the amount of water used for fracking was enough to meet the water needs of nearly 200,000 households in the state for a year.

Chemicals used
Fracking fluid consists of water mixed with chemicals such as benzene that is pumped underground to frack wells. Although in percentage terms chemicals are a small component of fracking fluid, the total volume of chemicals used is immense. According to the oil and gas industry, 99.2% (by volume) of fracking fluid is water and the other 0.8% is a mix of chemicals. These can enter drinking water supplies from the well, or in the wastewater disposal process.

Global warming (GW) pollution released
Completion of fracking wells from 2005 to 2012 produced global warming pollution equal to the CO2 emissions from 28 coal-fired power plants in a year.

Variation
Both water consumption and pollution levels varied sharply from state to state.

Table: Fracking states (ordered by quantity of water used)

Fracking in the US 2005–2012

The oil and gas industry has increasingly turned to hydraulic fracturing – known as ‘fracking’ – in a highly polluting effort to unlock oil and gas in underground shale beds across the United States. Fracking is already underway in 17 states, with more than 100,000 wells drilled since 2005.

Water used
Since 2005, fracking has used nearly 250 billion gallons of water across the nation (see the Table below). The greatest total water consumption occurred in Texas, at the same time as the state was struggling with extreme drought. In Colorado the amount of water used for fracking was enough to meet the water needs of nearly 200,000 households in the state for a year.

Chemicals used
Fracking fluid consists of water mixed with chemicals such as benzene that is pumped underground to frack wells. Although in percentage terms chemicals are a small component of fracking fluid, the total volume of chemicals used is immense. According to the oil and gas industry, 99.2% (by volume) of fracking fluid is water and the other 0.8% is a mix of chemicals. These can enter drinking water supplies from the well, or in the wastewater disposal process.

Global warming (GW) pollution released
Completion of fracking wells from 2005 to 2012 produced global warming pollution equal to the CO2 emissions from 28 coal-fired power plants in a year.

Variation
Both water consumption and pollution levels varied sharply from state to state.

Table: Fracking states (ordered by quantity of water used)

Which of the following statements can be concluded from the information in the table and the text?

1 The fracking fluids used in Texas from 2005 to 2012 contained 880 million gallons of chemicals, with the risk of contaminating drinking water.

2 A typical coal-fired power station in the US emits approximately 36,000,000 tonnes of CO2 in one year.

3 A typical Colorado household needs around 130,000 gallons of water per year.

Fracking in the US 2005–2012

The oil and gas industry has increasingly turned to hydraulic fracturing – known as ‘fracking’ – in a highly polluting effort to unlock oil and gas in underground shale beds across the United States. Fracking is already underway in 17 states, with more than 100,000 wells drilled since 2005.

Water used
Since 2005, fracking has used nearly 250 billion gallons of water across the nation (see the Table below). The greatest total water consumption occurred in Texas, at the same time as the state was struggling with extreme drought. In Colorado the amount of water used for fracking was enough to meet the water needs of nearly 200,000 households in the state for a year.

Chemicals used
Fracking fluid consists of water mixed with chemicals such as benzene that is pumped underground to frack wells. Although in percentage terms chemicals are a small component of fracking fluid, the total volume of chemicals used is immense. According to the oil and gas industry, 99.2% (by volume) of fracking fluid is water and the other 0.8% is a mix of chemicals. These can enter drinking water supplies from the well, or in the wastewater disposal process.

Global warming (GW) pollution released
Completion of fracking wells from 2005 to 2012 produced global warming pollution equal to the CO2 emissions from 28 coal-fired power plants in a year.

Variation
Both water consumption and pollution levels varied sharply from state to state.

Table: Fracking states (ordered by quantity of water used)

Which of the following, if true, would offer a convincing explanation for the wide variation in water consumption per well in different states?

1 Water supplies are more plentiful in some states than others.

2 The technology for extracting shale gas has developed slowly in the lifetime of fracking.

3 Some states have drilled many more wells than others.

The drawing below shows the outlines of three pieces of card (one square and two right angled triangles) which all fit exactly around the same size circle.

The pieces of card are pinned together through the centres of the circles and each of the card shapes can be rotated about the pin so that together the three shapes make an interesting outline.

A brisk 30-minute walk five days a week is more effective than any other form of exercise for keeping weight down regardless of age, a major study has concluded. The effectiveness of ‘high impact’ walking in keeping weight down is greater than that from keep-fit activities including running, swimming and working out in the gym. Men who walked briskly for 30 minutes five days a week for four weeks had a BMI one unit lower than average; for women the difference was 1.8 units. For those who exercised or participated in sporting activities over similar periods, however, the results were less marked: men’s BMI was 0.3 units lower and women’s about one unit lower. The explanation for this is likely to be that calorie burning is optimised when walking because it is a constant, uninterrupted activity, unlike games such as tennis which are more stop-start.

To mark ‘Back to the Future’ day on October 21st 2015, the Galaxy Cinema screened all three of the Back to the Future films, in order, twice.

The running times of the films were as follows:

Back to the Future – 117 minutes
Back to the Future Part II – 109 minutes
Back to the Future Part III – 119 minutes

The performance times were arranged so that the first showing of the first film began at 10:15 and the second showing of the last film ended at 22:45. The interval between successive films was the same throughout the day.

The sale of self-help books that claim to reveal the secret of happiness generated $10 billion in 2009. But if you want to become more contented with life, you shouldn’t read these books, because reading them will have the opposite effect. Researchers at the University of Montreal found that those who had read such books were more likely to be anxious and depressed than those who had never read them.

The table below shows a record of my blood pressure and pulse readings over nine days.

Recent theories about the causes of cancer have held that most cancers are caused by internal factors, the result of inevitable mistakes in the human body rather than anything environmental. This would seem to imply that whether or not a person develops cancer is entirely out of his or her control; what that person does in terms of lifestyle choices is irrelevant. And yet the latest high-profile study has strongly challenged this. It estimates that between 70 and 90 per cent of the most widespread cancers have extrinsic causes, such as ultraviolet radiation, pollution and stress. If this study is to be believed, then whether or not you develop some cancers is no longer just something you can blame on your biology, but is to a significant extent within your own control.

I have a piece of string which I stretch out in a straight line. I then take a thin red felt-tip pen and make a small mark in the middle of the string.

Then I fold the string in half and again stretch it out, holding onto the fold and to the two ends. This time I make a small mark in the middle of both strands of the folded string with a thin green pen.

Then I fold it in half again and make a small blue mark in the middle of each strand of the folded string.

Finally I fold it in half once more, and this time I make a small purple mark in the middle of each strand of the folded string.

Now I unfold the string and stretch it back out to its full original length.

People wonder whether or not machines could ever become conscious, but it’s obvious that one day they will. After all, if consciousness is just the result of the working of the brain, and if the brain is just a complicated machine, then what’s to stop machines becoming complex enough to be conscious? Every year machines get more and more complex. It’s only a matter of time before they acquire consciousness.

There are two types of goal that can be scored in the sport of Chargeball: a fess, worth 7 points, and a pale, worth 2 points.

In a match played last night, the Argents beat the Sables by just 1 point.

The Argents scored one fess fewer than the Sables.
The Sables scored the same number of fesses and pales.
The Argents scored exactly twice as many pales as fesses.

Vegetable oils in the modern diet
Vegetable oils other than olive oil were not introduced in significant amounts into the human diet until the early part of the 20th century. Some people believe that, as we are the genetic product of a hunter–gatherer culture, these are not natural to us as they do not match certain balances of nutrients humans had when they fed mainly on such things as grain, berries and animals and most of our fat came from animal carcasses. They go on to argue that there has not been enough time since those days for evolution to have changed the nutritional requirements of humans.

Vegetable oils used in cooking, salad oils, margarine and processed foods can supply around 15% of the total daily energy intake in a western diet. This has had the result of raising the dietary ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids to its current value of more than fifteen to one. In hunter–gatherer diets, the omega-6/omega-3 ratio was closer to two to one.

However, recent research has indicated that there are benefits to the heart from eating fats which have a high polyunsaturate content, as many vegetable oils do. One study has suggested that for every 5% increase in polyunsaturated fat consumption there was a 10% fall in heart disease.

Some key factors which are thought by some to lead to a healthier diet are as follows:

• the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids.
• the erucic acid content: in 2003, Food Standards Australia set a Provisional Tolerable Daily Intake (PTDI) of about 500 mg/day of erucic acid.
• the percentage of polyunsaturates: it is recommended that adults get no more than 11% of their energy from saturated fats. Vegetable oils have an energy content of about 3700 kJ/100g.

The typical fat consumption of an adult in the EU was estimated in the year 2015 to be 143 grams per day total fat of which 30% was vegetable oils.

The table below shows the fatty acid composition of a number of common oils.

Vegetable oils in the modern diet
Vegetable oils other than olive oil were not introduced in significant amounts into the human diet until the early part of the 20th century. Some people believe that, as we are the genetic product of a hunter–gatherer culture, these are not natural to us as they do not match certain balances of nutrients humans had when they fed mainly on such things as grain, berries and animals and most of our fat came from animal carcasses. They go on to argue that there has not been enough time since those days for evolution to have changed the nutritional requirements of humans.

Vegetable oils used in cooking, salad oils, margarine and processed foods can supply around 15% of the total daily energy intake in a western diet. This has had the result of raising the dietary ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids to its current value of more than fifteen to one. In hunter–gatherer diets, the omega-6/omega-3 ratio was closer to two to one.

However, recent research has indicated that there are benefits to the heart from eating fats which have a high polyunsaturate content, as many vegetable oils do. One study has suggested that for every 5% increase in polyunsaturated fat consumption there was a 10% fall in heart disease.

Some key factors which are thought by some to lead to a healthier diet are as follows:

• the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids.
• the erucic acid content: in 2003, Food Standards Australia set a Provisional Tolerable Daily Intake (PTDI) of about 500 mg/day of erucic acid.
• the percentage of polyunsaturates: it is recommended that adults get no more than 11% of their energy from saturated fats. Vegetable oils have an energy content of about 3700 kJ/100g.

The typical fat consumption of an adult in the EU was estimated in the year 2015 to be 143 grams per day total fat of which 30% was vegetable oils.

The table below shows the fatty acid composition of a number of common oils.

Vegetable oils in the modern diet
Vegetable oils other than olive oil were not introduced in significant amounts into the human diet until the early part of the 20th century. Some people believe that, as we are the genetic product of a hunter–gatherer culture, these are not natural to us as they do not match certain balances of nutrients humans had when they fed mainly on such things as grain, berries and animals and most of our fat came from animal carcasses. They go on to argue that there has not been enough time since those days for evolution to have changed the nutritional requirements of humans.

Vegetable oils used in cooking, salad oils, margarine and processed foods can supply around 15% of the total daily energy intake in a western diet. This has had the result of raising the dietary ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids to its current value of more than fifteen to one. In hunter–gatherer diets, the omega-6/omega-3 ratio was closer to two to one.

However, recent research has indicated that there are benefits to the heart from eating fats which have a high polyunsaturate content, as many vegetable oils do. One study has suggested that for every 5% increase in polyunsaturated fat consumption there was a 10% fall in heart disease.

Some key factors which are thought by some to lead to a healthier diet are as follows:

• the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids.
• the erucic acid content: in 2003, Food Standards Australia set a Provisional Tolerable Daily Intake (PTDI) of about 500 mg/day of erucic acid.
• the percentage of polyunsaturates: it is recommended that adults get no more than 11% of their energy from saturated fats. Vegetable oils have an energy content of about 3700 kJ/100g.

The typical fat consumption of an adult in the EU was estimated in the year 2015 to be 143 grams per day total fat of which 30% was vegetable oils.

The table below shows the fatty acid composition of a number of common oils.

Vegetable oils in the modern diet
Vegetable oils other than olive oil were not introduced in significant amounts into the human diet until the early part of the 20th century. Some people believe that, as we are the genetic product of a hunter–gatherer culture, these are not natural to us as they do not match certain balances of nutrients humans had when they fed mainly on such things as grain, berries and animals and most of our fat came from animal carcasses. They go on to argue that there has not been enough time since those days for evolution to have changed the nutritional requirements of humans.

Vegetable oils used in cooking, salad oils, margarine and processed foods can supply around 15% of the total daily energy intake in a western diet. This has had the result of raising the dietary ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids to its current value of more than fifteen to one. In hunter–gatherer diets, the omega-6/omega-3 ratio was closer to two to one.

However, recent research has indicated that there are benefits to the heart from eating fats which have a high polyunsaturate content, as many vegetable oils do. One study has suggested that for every 5% increase in polyunsaturated fat consumption there was a 10% fall in heart disease.

Some key factors which are thought by some to lead to a healthier diet are as follows:

• the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids.
• the erucic acid content: in 2003, Food Standards Australia set a Provisional Tolerable Daily Intake (PTDI) of about 500 mg/day of erucic acid.
• the percentage of polyunsaturates: it is recommended that adults get no more than 11% of their energy from saturated fats. Vegetable oils have an energy content of about 3700 kJ/100g.

The typical fat consumption of an adult in the EU was estimated in the year 2015 to be 143 grams per day total fat of which 30% was vegetable oils.

The table below shows the fatty acid composition of a number of common oils.