Thi thử VSTEP online đề 1 reading test 6 part 2

PASSAGE 3 - Questions 21-30

ADVERTISING - ART OR POLLUTION?

How many adverts do you think you'll see today? 10? 30? According to the market research firm Yankelovich, some of us see as many as 2,000-5,000 adverts a day! There are adverts all around us. Most of the time we're not even consciously aware of them. But think about your town or city. How many billboards, shop signs and posters does it have?

Tokyo, in Japan, takes urban advertising to the extreme. Although the city temples may still lay claim to being more impressive, the explosion of sound and colour in the commercial centre can take your breath away. Whether you find the overall effect stunning or nightmarish is a question of personal taste. However, it would be hard not to admire the advertisers' ingenuity. Recent innovations include interactive games projected onto walls for people to play. 'Smellvertising' is also catching on - that's the idea of using pleasant smells like chocolate to attract consumers' attention!

Innovations in Tokyo are of huge significance in the world of advertising because where Tokyo leads, other cities soon follow. Big cities from New York to London already have outdoor television screens. Although Tokyo is far from being universally admired, many urban authorities find its approach to advertising exciting and dynamic. So what's the problem?
If every city copied Tokyo, it would be absolutely terrible!' exclaims Roberta Calvino of the advertising watchdog group, Ad Alert. 'At the moment, Tokyo's futuristic style sets it apart. It invites our attention because there's simply nothing like it. But we don't need 100 poor imitations. In many cities, advertising is as bad as litter or vandalism - it spoils our environment. Go beyond the city outskirts and you'll find that advertising is taking over the countryside, too. The world's biggest advert was actually in a field in Austria, below the flight path to Vienna airport. It was the size of 50 football pitches!'

According to Roberta, advertising can also influence the way we think and feel. 'Advertisers want to convince us that their products will make us happy or successful. Unfortunately, that's all an illusion - you can't simply "buy" a celebrity lifestyle at the shops! Nevertheless, advertisers work hard to get us to swallow this message. For instance, fashion brands prefer to advertise using images of glamorously made-up supermodels because they want "ordinary" girls to feel inadequate in comparison as the more dissatisfied we feel with our lives, the more we'll spend to cheer ourselves up! Although outdoor advertising may seem to make less of an immediate impression than TV commercials, its message can have greater force.

In 2007, one Brazilian city made a radical protest. Gilberto Kassab, the mayor of São Paulo, ordered the removal of more than 15,000 adverts! In justification, he condemned urban advertising in very strong terms as 'visual pollution'. Unsurprisingly, this made many local businesses unhappy. One marketing executive argued that adverts 'are more like works of art, hiding grey office blocks and industrial estates,' However, a more typical response can be summed up in this statement from Isuara dos Santos, 19. 'If we'd known what a difference it would make, we'd have got rid of the adverts years ago. Now we can see the real Sào Paulo, and it's wonderful!'

PASSAGE 3 - Questions 21-30

ADVERTISING - ART OR POLLUTION?

How many adverts do you think you'll see today? 10? 30? According to the market research firm Yankelovich, some of us see as many as 2,000-5,000 adverts a day! There are adverts all around us. Most of the time we're not even consciously aware of them. But think about your town or city. How many billboards, shop signs and posters does it have?

Tokyo, in Japan, takes urban advertising to the extreme. Although the city temples may still lay claim to being more impressive, the explosion of sound and colour in the commercial centre can take your breath away. Whether you find the overall effect stunning or nightmarish is a question of personal taste. However, it would be hard not to admire the advertisers' ingenuity. Recent innovations include interactive games projected onto walls for people to play. 'Smellvertising' is also catching on - that's the idea of using pleasant smells like chocolate to attract consumers' attention!

Innovations in Tokyo are of huge significance in the world of advertising because where Tokyo leads, other cities soon follow. Big cities from New York to London already have outdoor television screens. Although Tokyo is far from being universally admired, many urban authorities find its approach to advertising exciting and dynamic. So what's the problem?
If every city copied Tokyo, it would be absolutely terrible!' exclaims Roberta Calvino of the advertising watchdog group, Ad Alert. 'At the moment, Tokyo's futuristic style sets it apart. It invites our attention because there's simply nothing like it. But we don't need 100 poor imitations. In many cities, advertising is as bad as litter or vandalism - it spoils our environment. Go beyond the city outskirts and you'll find that advertising is taking over the countryside, too. The world's biggest advert was actually in a field in Austria, below the flight path to Vienna airport. It was the size of 50 football pitches!'

According to Roberta, advertising can also influence the way we think and feel. 'Advertisers want to convince us that their products will make us happy or successful. Unfortunately, that's all an illusion - you can't simply "buy" a celebrity lifestyle at the shops! Nevertheless, advertisers work hard to get us to swallow this message. For instance, fashion brands prefer to advertise using images of glamorously made-up supermodels because they want "ordinary" girls to feel inadequate in comparison as the more dissatisfied we feel with our lives, the more we'll spend to cheer ourselves up! Although outdoor advertising may seem to make less of an immediate impression than TV commercials, its message can have greater force.

In 2007, one Brazilian city made a radical protest. Gilberto Kassab, the mayor of São Paulo, ordered the removal of more than 15,000 adverts! In justification, he condemned urban advertising in very strong terms as 'visual pollution'. Unsurprisingly, this made many local businesses unhappy. One marketing executive argued that adverts 'are more like works of art, hiding grey office blocks and industrial estates,' However, a more typical response can be summed up in this statement from Isuara dos Santos, 19. 'If we'd known what a difference it would make, we'd have got rid of the adverts years ago. Now we can see the real Sào Paulo, and it's wonderful!'

PASSAGE 3 - Questions 21-30

ADVERTISING - ART OR POLLUTION?

How many adverts do you think you'll see today? 10? 30? According to the market research firm Yankelovich, some of us see as many as 2,000-5,000 adverts a day! There are adverts all around us. Most of the time we're not even consciously aware of them. But think about your town or city. How many billboards, shop signs and posters does it have?

Tokyo, in Japan, takes urban advertising to the extreme. Although the city temples may still lay claim to being more impressive, the explosion of sound and colour in the commercial centre can take your breath away. Whether you find the overall effect stunning or nightmarish is a question of personal taste. However, it would be hard not to admire the advertisers' ingenuity. Recent innovations include interactive games projected onto walls for people to play. 'Smellvertising' is also catching on - that's the idea of using pleasant smells like chocolate to attract consumers' attention!

Innovations in Tokyo are of huge significance in the world of advertising because where Tokyo leads, other cities soon follow. Big cities from New York to London already have outdoor television screens. Although Tokyo is far from being universally admired, many urban authorities find its approach to advertising exciting and dynamic. So what's the problem?
If every city copied Tokyo, it would be absolutely terrible!' exclaims Roberta Calvino of the advertising watchdog group, Ad Alert. 'At the moment, Tokyo's futuristic style sets it apart. It invites our attention because there's simply nothing like it. But we don't need 100 poor imitations. In many cities, advertising is as bad as litter or vandalism - it spoils our environment. Go beyond the city outskirts and you'll find that advertising is taking over the countryside, too. The world's biggest advert was actually in a field in Austria, below the flight path to Vienna airport. It was the size of 50 football pitches!'

According to Roberta, advertising can also influence the way we think and feel. 'Advertisers want to convince us that their products will make us happy or successful. Unfortunately, that's all an illusion - you can't simply "buy" a celebrity lifestyle at the shops! Nevertheless, advertisers work hard to get us to swallow this message. For instance, fashion brands prefer to advertise using images of glamorously made-up supermodels because they want "ordinary" girls to feel inadequate in comparison as the more dissatisfied we feel with our lives, the more we'll spend to cheer ourselves up! Although outdoor advertising may seem to make less of an immediate impression than TV commercials, its message can have greater force.

In 2007, one Brazilian city made a radical protest. Gilberto Kassab, the mayor of São Paulo, ordered the removal of more than 15,000 adverts! In justification, he condemned urban advertising in very strong terms as 'visual pollution'. Unsurprisingly, this made many local businesses unhappy. One marketing executive argued that adverts 'are more like works of art, hiding grey office blocks and industrial estates,' However, a more typical response can be summed up in this statement from Isuara dos Santos, 19. 'If we'd known what a difference it would make, we'd have got rid of the adverts years ago. Now we can see the real Sào Paulo, and it's wonderful!'

PASSAGE 3 - Questions 21-30

ADVERTISING - ART OR POLLUTION?

How many adverts do you think you'll see today? 10? 30? According to the market research firm Yankelovich, some of us see as many as 2,000-5,000 adverts a day! There are adverts all around us. Most of the time we're not even consciously aware of them. But think about your town or city. How many billboards, shop signs and posters does it have?

Tokyo, in Japan, takes urban advertising to the extreme. Although the city temples may still lay claim to being more impressive, the explosion of sound and colour in the commercial centre can take your breath away. Whether you find the overall effect stunning or nightmarish is a question of personal taste. However, it would be hard not to admire the advertisers' ingenuity. Recent innovations include interactive games projected onto walls for people to play. 'Smellvertising' is also catching on - that's the idea of using pleasant smells like chocolate to attract consumers' attention!

Innovations in Tokyo are of huge significance in the world of advertising because where Tokyo leads, other cities soon follow. Big cities from New York to London already have outdoor television screens. Although Tokyo is far from being universally admired, many urban authorities find its approach to advertising exciting and dynamic. So what's the problem?
If every city copied Tokyo, it would be absolutely terrible!' exclaims Roberta Calvino of the advertising watchdog group, Ad Alert. 'At the moment, Tokyo's futuristic style sets it apart. It invites our attention because there's simply nothing like it. But we don't need 100 poor imitations. In many cities, advertising is as bad as litter or vandalism - it spoils our environment. Go beyond the city outskirts and you'll find that advertising is taking over the countryside, too. The world's biggest advert was actually in a field in Austria, below the flight path to Vienna airport. It was the size of 50 football pitches!'

According to Roberta, advertising can also influence the way we think and feel. 'Advertisers want to convince us that their products will make us happy or successful. Unfortunately, that's all an illusion - you can't simply "buy" a celebrity lifestyle at the shops! Nevertheless, advertisers work hard to get us to swallow this message. For instance, fashion brands prefer to advertise using images of glamorously made-up supermodels because they want "ordinary" girls to feel inadequate in comparison as the more dissatisfied we feel with our lives, the more we'll spend to cheer ourselves up! Although outdoor advertising may seem to make less of an immediate impression than TV commercials, its message can have greater force.

In 2007, one Brazilian city made a radical protest. Gilberto Kassab, the mayor of São Paulo, ordered the removal of more than 15,000 adverts! In justification, he condemned urban advertising in very strong terms as 'visual pollution'. Unsurprisingly, this made many local businesses unhappy. One marketing executive argued that adverts 'are more like works of art, hiding grey office blocks and industrial estates,' However, a more typical response can be summed up in this statement from Isuara dos Santos, 19. 'If we'd known what a difference it would make, we'd have got rid of the adverts years ago. Now we can see the real Sào Paulo, and it's wonderful!'

PASSAGE 3 - Questions 21-30

ADVERTISING - ART OR POLLUTION?

How many adverts do you think you'll see today? 10? 30? According to the market research firm Yankelovich, some of us see as many as 2,000-5,000 adverts a day! There are adverts all around us. Most of the time we're not even consciously aware of them. But think about your town or city. How many billboards, shop signs and posters does it have?

Tokyo, in Japan, takes urban advertising to the extreme. Although the city temples may still lay claim to being more impressive, the explosion of sound and colour in the commercial centre can take your breath away. Whether you find the overall effect stunning or nightmarish is a question of personal taste. However, it would be hard not to admire the advertisers' ingenuity. Recent innovations include interactive games projected onto walls for people to play. 'Smellvertising' is also catching on - that's the idea of using pleasant smells like chocolate to attract consumers' attention!

Innovations in Tokyo are of huge significance in the world of advertising because where Tokyo leads, other cities soon follow. Big cities from New York to London already have outdoor television screens. Although Tokyo is far from being universally admired, many urban authorities find its approach to advertising exciting and dynamic. So what's the problem?
If every city copied Tokyo, it would be absolutely terrible!' exclaims Roberta Calvino of the advertising watchdog group, Ad Alert. 'At the moment, Tokyo's futuristic style sets it apart. It invites our attention because there's simply nothing like it. But we don't need 100 poor imitations. In many cities, advertising is as bad as litter or vandalism - it spoils our environment. Go beyond the city outskirts and you'll find that advertising is taking over the countryside, too. The world's biggest advert was actually in a field in Austria, below the flight path to Vienna airport. It was the size of 50 football pitches!'

According to Roberta, advertising can also influence the way we think and feel. 'Advertisers want to convince us that their products will make us happy or successful. Unfortunately, that's all an illusion - you can't simply "buy" a celebrity lifestyle at the shops! Nevertheless, advertisers work hard to get us to swallow this message. For instance, fashion brands prefer to advertise using images of glamorously made-up supermodels because they want "ordinary" girls to feel inadequate in comparison as the more dissatisfied we feel with our lives, the more we'll spend to cheer ourselves up! Although outdoor advertising may seem to make less of an immediate impression than TV commercials, its message can have greater force.

In 2007, one Brazilian city made a radical protest. Gilberto Kassab, the mayor of São Paulo, ordered the removal of more than 15,000 adverts! In justification, he condemned urban advertising in very strong terms as 'visual pollution'. Unsurprisingly, this made many local businesses unhappy. One marketing executive argued that adverts 'are more like works of art, hiding grey office blocks and industrial estates,' However, a more typical response can be summed up in this statement from Isuara dos Santos, 19. 'If we'd known what a difference it would make, we'd have got rid of the adverts years ago. Now we can see the real Sào Paulo, and it's wonderful!'

PASSAGE 3 - Questions 21-30

ADVERTISING - ART OR POLLUTION?

How many adverts do you think you'll see today? 10? 30? According to the market research firm Yankelovich, some of us see as many as 2,000-5,000 adverts a day! There are adverts all around us. Most of the time we're not even consciously aware of them. But think about your town or city. How many billboards, shop signs and posters does it have?

Tokyo, in Japan, takes urban advertising to the extreme. Although the city temples may still lay claim to being more impressive, the explosion of sound and colour in the commercial centre can take your breath away. Whether you find the overall effect stunning or nightmarish is a question of personal taste. However, it would be hard not to admire the advertisers' ingenuity. Recent innovations include interactive games projected onto walls for people to play. 'Smellvertising' is also catching on - that's the idea of using pleasant smells like chocolate to attract consumers' attention!

Innovations in Tokyo are of huge significance in the world of advertising because where Tokyo leads, other cities soon follow. Big cities from New York to London already have outdoor television screens. Although Tokyo is far from being universally admired, many urban authorities find its approach to advertising exciting and dynamic. So what's the problem?
If every city copied Tokyo, it would be absolutely terrible!' exclaims Roberta Calvino of the advertising watchdog group, Ad Alert. 'At the moment, Tokyo's futuristic style sets it apart. It invites our attention because there's simply nothing like it. But we don't need 100 poor imitations. In many cities, advertising is as bad as litter or vandalism - it spoils our environment. Go beyond the city outskirts and you'll find that advertising is taking over the countryside, too. The world's biggest advert was actually in a field in Austria, below the flight path to Vienna airport. It was the size of 50 football pitches!'

According to Roberta, advertising can also influence the way we think and feel. 'Advertisers want to convince us that their products will make us happy or successful. Unfortunately, that's all an illusion - you can't simply "buy" a celebrity lifestyle at the shops! Nevertheless, advertisers work hard to get us to swallow this message. For instance, fashion brands prefer to advertise using images of glamorously made-up supermodels because they want "ordinary" girls to feel inadequate in comparison as the more dissatisfied we feel with our lives, the more we'll spend to cheer ourselves up! Although outdoor advertising may seem to make less of an immediate impression than TV commercials, its message can have greater force.

In 2007, one Brazilian city made a radical protest. Gilberto Kassab, the mayor of São Paulo, ordered the removal of more than 15,000 adverts! In justification, he condemned urban advertising in very strong terms as 'visual pollution'. Unsurprisingly, this made many local businesses unhappy. One marketing executive argued that adverts 'are more like works of art, hiding grey office blocks and industrial estates,' However, a more typical response can be summed up in this statement from Isuara dos Santos, 19. 'If we'd known what a difference it would make, we'd have got rid of the adverts years ago. Now we can see the real Sào Paulo, and it's wonderful!'

PASSAGE 3 - Questions 21-30

ADVERTISING - ART OR POLLUTION?

How many adverts do you think you'll see today? 10? 30? According to the market research firm Yankelovich, some of us see as many as 2,000-5,000 adverts a day! There are adverts all around us. Most of the time we're not even consciously aware of them. But think about your town or city. How many billboards, shop signs and posters does it have?

Tokyo, in Japan, takes urban advertising to the extreme. Although the city temples may still lay claim to being more impressive, the explosion of sound and colour in the commercial centre can take your breath away. Whether you find the overall effect stunning or nightmarish is a question of personal taste. However, it would be hard not to admire the advertisers' ingenuity. Recent innovations include interactive games projected onto walls for people to play. 'Smellvertising' is also catching on - that's the idea of using pleasant smells like chocolate to attract consumers' attention!

Innovations in Tokyo are of huge significance in the world of advertising because where Tokyo leads, other cities soon follow. Big cities from New York to London already have outdoor television screens. Although Tokyo is far from being universally admired, many urban authorities find its approach to advertising exciting and dynamic. So what's the problem?
If every city copied Tokyo, it would be absolutely terrible!' exclaims Roberta Calvino of the advertising watchdog group, Ad Alert. 'At the moment, Tokyo's futuristic style sets it apart. It invites our attention because there's simply nothing like it. But we don't need 100 poor imitations. In many cities, advertising is as bad as litter or vandalism - it spoils our environment. Go beyond the city outskirts and you'll find that advertising is taking over the countryside, too. The world's biggest advert was actually in a field in Austria, below the flight path to Vienna airport. It was the size of 50 football pitches!'

According to Roberta, advertising can also influence the way we think and feel. 'Advertisers want to convince us that their products will make us happy or successful. Unfortunately, that's all an illusion - you can't simply "buy" a celebrity lifestyle at the shops! Nevertheless, advertisers work hard to get us to swallow this message. For instance, fashion brands prefer to advertise using images of glamorously made-up supermodels because they want "ordinary" girls to feel inadequate in comparison as the more dissatisfied we feel with our lives, the more we'll spend to cheer ourselves up! Although outdoor advertising may seem to make less of an immediate impression than TV commercials, its message can have greater force.

In 2007, one Brazilian city made a radical protest. Gilberto Kassab, the mayor of São Paulo, ordered the removal of more than 15,000 adverts! In justification, he condemned urban advertising in very strong terms as 'visual pollution'. Unsurprisingly, this made many local businesses unhappy. One marketing executive argued that adverts 'are more like works of art, hiding grey office blocks and industrial estates,' However, a more typical response can be summed up in this statement from Isuara dos Santos, 19. 'If we'd known what a difference it would make, we'd have got rid of the adverts years ago. Now we can see the real Sào Paulo, and it's wonderful!'

PASSAGE 3 - Questions 21-30

ADVERTISING - ART OR POLLUTION?

How many adverts do you think you'll see today? 10? 30? According to the market research firm Yankelovich, some of us see as many as 2,000-5,000 adverts a day! There are adverts all around us. Most of the time we're not even consciously aware of them. But think about your town or city. How many billboards, shop signs and posters does it have?

Tokyo, in Japan, takes urban advertising to the extreme. Although the city temples may still lay claim to being more impressive, the explosion of sound and colour in the commercial centre can take your breath away. Whether you find the overall effect stunning or nightmarish is a question of personal taste. However, it would be hard not to admire the advertisers' ingenuity. Recent innovations include interactive games projected onto walls for people to play. 'Smellvertising' is also catching on - that's the idea of using pleasant smells like chocolate to attract consumers' attention!

Innovations in Tokyo are of huge significance in the world of advertising because where Tokyo leads, other cities soon follow. Big cities from New York to London already have outdoor television screens. Although Tokyo is far from being universally admired, many urban authorities find its approach to advertising exciting and dynamic. So what's the problem?
If every city copied Tokyo, it would be absolutely terrible!' exclaims Roberta Calvino of the advertising watchdog group, Ad Alert. 'At the moment, Tokyo's futuristic style sets it apart. It invites our attention because there's simply nothing like it. But we don't need 100 poor imitations. In many cities, advertising is as bad as litter or vandalism - it spoils our environment. Go beyond the city outskirts and you'll find that advertising is taking over the countryside, too. The world's biggest advert was actually in a field in Austria, below the flight path to Vienna airport. It was the size of 50 football pitches!'

According to Roberta, advertising can also influence the way we think and feel. 'Advertisers want to convince us that their products will make us happy or successful. Unfortunately, that's all an illusion - you can't simply "buy" a celebrity lifestyle at the shops! Nevertheless, advertisers work hard to get us to swallow this message. For instance, fashion brands prefer to advertise using images of glamorously made-up supermodels because they want "ordinary" girls to feel inadequate in comparison as the more dissatisfied we feel with our lives, the more we'll spend to cheer ourselves up! Although outdoor advertising may seem to make less of an immediate impression than TV commercials, its message can have greater force.

In 2007, one Brazilian city made a radical protest. Gilberto Kassab, the mayor of São Paulo, ordered the removal of more than 15,000 adverts! In justification, he condemned urban advertising in very strong terms as 'visual pollution'. Unsurprisingly, this made many local businesses unhappy. One marketing executive argued that adverts 'are more like works of art, hiding grey office blocks and industrial estates,' However, a more typical response can be summed up in this statement from Isuara dos Santos, 19. 'If we'd known what a difference it would make, we'd have got rid of the adverts years ago. Now we can see the real Sào Paulo, and it's wonderful!'

PASSAGE 3 - Questions 21-30

ADVERTISING - ART OR POLLUTION?

How many adverts do you think you'll see today? 10? 30? According to the market research firm Yankelovich, some of us see as many as 2,000-5,000 adverts a day! There are adverts all around us. Most of the time we're not even consciously aware of them. But think about your town or city. How many billboards, shop signs and posters does it have?

Tokyo, in Japan, takes urban advertising to the extreme. Although the city temples may still lay claim to being more impressive, the explosion of sound and colour in the commercial centre can take your breath away. Whether you find the overall effect stunning or nightmarish is a question of personal taste. However, it would be hard not to admire the advertisers' ingenuity. Recent innovations include interactive games projected onto walls for people to play. 'Smellvertising' is also catching on - that's the idea of using pleasant smells like chocolate to attract consumers' attention!

Innovations in Tokyo are of huge significance in the world of advertising because where Tokyo leads, other cities soon follow. Big cities from New York to London already have outdoor television screens. Although Tokyo is far from being universally admired, many urban authorities find its approach to advertising exciting and dynamic. So what's the problem?
If every city copied Tokyo, it would be absolutely terrible!' exclaims Roberta Calvino of the advertising watchdog group, Ad Alert. 'At the moment, Tokyo's futuristic style sets it apart. It invites our attention because there's simply nothing like it. But we don't need 100 poor imitations. In many cities, advertising is as bad as litter or vandalism - it spoils our environment. Go beyond the city outskirts and you'll find that advertising is taking over the countryside, too. The world's biggest advert was actually in a field in Austria, below the flight path to Vienna airport. It was the size of 50 football pitches!'

According to Roberta, advertising can also influence the way we think and feel. 'Advertisers want to convince us that their products will make us happy or successful. Unfortunately, that's all an illusion - you can't simply "buy" a celebrity lifestyle at the shops! Nevertheless, advertisers work hard to get us to swallow this message. For instance, fashion brands prefer to advertise using images of glamorously made-up supermodels because they want "ordinary" girls to feel inadequate in comparison as the more dissatisfied we feel with our lives, the more we'll spend to cheer ourselves up! Although outdoor advertising may seem to make less of an immediate impression than TV commercials, its message can have greater force.

In 2007, one Brazilian city made a radical protest. Gilberto Kassab, the mayor of São Paulo, ordered the removal of more than 15,000 adverts! In justification, he condemned urban advertising in very strong terms as 'visual pollution'. Unsurprisingly, this made many local businesses unhappy. One marketing executive argued that adverts 'are more like works of art, hiding grey office blocks and industrial estates,' However, a more typical response can be summed up in this statement from Isuara dos Santos, 19. 'If we'd known what a difference it would make, we'd have got rid of the adverts years ago. Now we can see the real Sào Paulo, and it's wonderful!'

PASSAGE 3 - Questions 21-30

ADVERTISING - ART OR POLLUTION?

How many adverts do you think you'll see today? 10? 30? According to the market research firm Yankelovich, some of us see as many as 2,000-5,000 adverts a day! There are adverts all around us. Most of the time we're not even consciously aware of them. But think about your town or city. How many billboards, shop signs and posters does it have?

Tokyo, in Japan, takes urban advertising to the extreme. Although the city temples may still lay claim to being more impressive, the explosion of sound and colour in the commercial centre can take your breath away. Whether you find the overall effect stunning or nightmarish is a question of personal taste. However, it would be hard not to admire the advertisers' ingenuity. Recent innovations include interactive games projected onto walls for people to play. 'Smellvertising' is also catching on - that's the idea of using pleasant smells like chocolate to attract consumers' attention!

Innovations in Tokyo are of huge significance in the world of advertising because where Tokyo leads, other cities soon follow. Big cities from New York to London already have outdoor television screens. Although Tokyo is far from being universally admired, many urban authorities find its approach to advertising exciting and dynamic. So what's the problem?
If every city copied Tokyo, it would be absolutely terrible!' exclaims Roberta Calvino of the advertising watchdog group, Ad Alert. 'At the moment, Tokyo's futuristic style sets it apart. It invites our attention because there's simply nothing like it. But we don't need 100 poor imitations. In many cities, advertising is as bad as litter or vandalism - it spoils our environment. Go beyond the city outskirts and you'll find that advertising is taking over the countryside, too. The world's biggest advert was actually in a field in Austria, below the flight path to Vienna airport. It was the size of 50 football pitches!'

According to Roberta, advertising can also influence the way we think and feel. 'Advertisers want to convince us that their products will make us happy or successful. Unfortunately, that's all an illusion - you can't simply "buy" a celebrity lifestyle at the shops! Nevertheless, advertisers work hard to get us to swallow this message. For instance, fashion brands prefer to advertise using images of glamorously made-up supermodels because they want "ordinary" girls to feel inadequate in comparison as the more dissatisfied we feel with our lives, the more we'll spend to cheer ourselves up! Although outdoor advertising may seem to make less of an immediate impression than TV commercials, its message can have greater force.

In 2007, one Brazilian city made a radical protest. Gilberto Kassab, the mayor of São Paulo, ordered the removal of more than 15,000 adverts! In justification, he condemned urban advertising in very strong terms as 'visual pollution'. Unsurprisingly, this made many local businesses unhappy. One marketing executive argued that adverts 'are more like works of art, hiding grey office blocks and industrial estates,' However, a more typical response can be summed up in this statement from Isuara dos Santos, 19. 'If we'd known what a difference it would make, we'd have got rid of the adverts years ago. Now we can see the real Sào Paulo, and it's wonderful!'

PASSAGE 4 - Questions 31-40

Until fairly recently explaining the presence of human beings in Australia was not such a problem. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was thought that Aborigines had been on the continent for no more than 400 years. As recently as the 1960s, the time-frame was estimated to be perhaps 8,000 years. Then in 1969 a geologist from the Australian National University in Canberra was poking around on the shores of a long-dried lake bed called Mungo in a dry and lonely comer of

New South Wales when something caught his eye. It was the skeleton of a woman sticking out slightly from a sandbank. The bones were collected and sent off for carbon dating. When the report came back, it showed that the woman had died 23,000 years ago. Since then, other finds have pushed the date back further. Today the evidence points to an arrival date of at least 45,000 years ago but probably more like 60,000.

The first occupants of Australia could not have walked there because at no point in human times has Australia not been an island. They could not have arisen independently because Australia has no apelike creatures from which humans could have descended. The first arrivals could only have come by sea, presumably from Timor or the Indonesian archipelago, and here is where the problems arise.

In order to put Homo sapiens in Australia you must accept that at a point in time so remote that it precedes the known rise of behaviourally modem humans, there lived in southern Asia a people so advanced that they were fishing inshore waters from boats of some sort. Never mind that the archaeological record shows no one else on earth doing this for another 30,000 years.

Next we have to explain what led them to cross at least sixty miles of open sea to reach a land they could hardly have known was there. The scenario that is usually described is of a simple fishing craft - probably little more than a floating platform - accidentally earned out to sea probably in one of the sudden storms that are characteristic of this area. This craft then drifted helplessly for some days before washing up on a beach in northern Australia. So far, so good.
The question that naturally arises - but is seldom asked - is how you get a new population out of this. If it's a lone fisherman who is carried off to Australia, then clearly he must find his way back to his homeland to report his discovery and persuade enough people to come with him to start a colony. This suggests, of course, the possession of considerable sailing skills.

By any measure this is a staggeringly momentous achievement. And how much notice is paid to it? Well, ask yourself when was the last time you read anything about it. When was the last time in any context concerning human movements and the rise of civilizations that you saw even a passing mention of the role of Aborigines? They are the planet's invisible people. A big part of the problem is that for most of us it is nearly imposible to grasp what an extraordinary span of time we are considering here. Assume for the sake of argument that the Aborigines arrived 60,000 years ago (that is the figure used by Roger Lewin of Harvard in Principles of Evolution, a standard text). On that scale, the total period of European occupation of Australia represents about 0.3 per cent of the total.

PASSAGE 4 - Questions 31-40

Until fairly recently explaining the presence of human beings in Australia was not such a problem. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was thought that Aborigines had been on the continent for no more than 400 years. As recently as the 1960s, the time-frame was estimated to be perhaps 8,000 years. Then in 1969 a geologist from the Australian National University in Canberra was poking around on the shores of a long-dried lake bed called Mungo in a dry and lonely comer of

New South Wales when something caught his eye. It was the skeleton of a woman sticking out slightly from a sandbank. The bones were collected and sent off for carbon dating. When the report came back, it showed that the woman had died 23,000 years ago. Since then, other finds have pushed the date back further. Today the evidence points to an arrival date of at least 45,000 years ago but probably more like 60,000.

The first occupants of Australia could not have walked there because at no point in human times has Australia not been an island. They could not have arisen independently because Australia has no apelike creatures from which humans could have descended. The first arrivals could only have come by sea, presumably from Timor or the Indonesian archipelago, and here is where the problems arise.

In order to put Homo sapiens in Australia you must accept that at a point in time so remote that it precedes the known rise of behaviourally modem humans, there lived in southern Asia a people so advanced that they were fishing inshore waters from boats of some sort. Never mind that the archaeological record shows no one else on earth doing this for another 30,000 years.

Next we have to explain what led them to cross at least sixty miles of open sea to reach a land they could hardly have known was there. The scenario that is usually described is of a simple fishing craft - probably little more than a floating platform - accidentally earned out to sea probably in one of the sudden storms that are characteristic of this area. This craft then drifted helplessly for some days before washing up on a beach in northern Australia. So far, so good.
The question that naturally arises - but is seldom asked - is how you get a new population out of this. If it's a lone fisherman who is carried off to Australia, then clearly he must find his way back to his homeland to report his discovery and persuade enough people to come with him to start a colony. This suggests, of course, the possession of considerable sailing skills.

By any measure this is a staggeringly momentous achievement. And how much notice is paid to it? Well, ask yourself when was the last time you read anything about it. When was the last time in any context concerning human movements and the rise of civilizations that you saw even a passing mention of the role of Aborigines? They are the planet's invisible people. A big part of the problem is that for most of us it is nearly imposible to grasp what an extraordinary span of time we are considering here. Assume for the sake of argument that the Aborigines arrived 60,000 years ago (that is the figure used by Roger Lewin of Harvard in Principles of Evolution, a standard text). On that scale, the total period of European occupation of Australia represents about 0.3 per cent of the total.

PASSAGE 4 - Questions 31-40

Until fairly recently explaining the presence of human beings in Australia was not such a problem. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was thought that Aborigines had been on the continent for no more than 400 years. As recently as the 1960s, the time-frame was estimated to be perhaps 8,000 years. Then in 1969 a geologist from the Australian National University in Canberra was poking around on the shores of a long-dried lake bed called Mungo in a dry and lonely comer of

New South Wales when something caught his eye. It was the skeleton of a woman sticking out slightly from a sandbank. The bones were collected and sent off for carbon dating. When the report came back, it showed that the woman had died 23,000 years ago. Since then, other finds have pushed the date back further. Today the evidence points to an arrival date of at least 45,000 years ago but probably more like 60,000.

The first occupants of Australia could not have walked there because at no point in human times has Australia not been an island. They could not have arisen independently because Australia has no apelike creatures from which humans could have descended. The first arrivals could only have come by sea, presumably from Timor or the Indonesian archipelago, and here is where the problems arise.

In order to put Homo sapiens in Australia you must accept that at a point in time so remote that it precedes the known rise of behaviourally modem humans, there lived in southern Asia a people so advanced that they were fishing inshore waters from boats of some sort. Never mind that the archaeological record shows no one else on earth doing this for another 30,000 years.

Next we have to explain what led them to cross at least sixty miles of open sea to reach a land they could hardly have known was there. The scenario that is usually described is of a simple fishing craft - probably little more than a floating platform - accidentally earned out to sea probably in one of the sudden storms that are characteristic of this area. This craft then drifted helplessly for some days before washing up on a beach in northern Australia. So far, so good.
The question that naturally arises - but is seldom asked - is how you get a new population out of this. If it's a lone fisherman who is carried off to Australia, then clearly he must find his way back to his homeland to report his discovery and persuade enough people to come with him to start a colony. This suggests, of course, the possession of considerable sailing skills.

By any measure this is a staggeringly momentous achievement. And how much notice is paid to it? Well, ask yourself when was the last time you read anything about it. When was the last time in any context concerning human movements and the rise of civilizations that you saw even a passing mention of the role of Aborigines? They are the planet's invisible people. A big part of the problem is that for most of us it is nearly imposible to grasp what an extraordinary span of time we are considering here. Assume for the sake of argument that the Aborigines arrived 60,000 years ago (that is the figure used by Roger Lewin of Harvard in Principles of Evolution, a standard text). On that scale, the total period of European occupation of Australia represents about 0.3 per cent of the total.

PASSAGE 4 - Questions 31-40

Until fairly recently explaining the presence of human beings in Australia was not such a problem. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was thought that Aborigines had been on the continent for no more than 400 years. As recently as the 1960s, the time-frame was estimated to be perhaps 8,000 years. Then in 1969 a geologist from the Australian National University in Canberra was poking around on the shores of a long-dried lake bed called Mungo in a dry and lonely comer of

New South Wales when something caught his eye. It was the skeleton of a woman sticking out slightly from a sandbank. The bones were collected and sent off for carbon dating. When the report came back, it showed that the woman had died 23,000 years ago. Since then, other finds have pushed the date back further. Today the evidence points to an arrival date of at least 45,000 years ago but probably more like 60,000.

The first occupants of Australia could not have walked there because at no point in human times has Australia not been an island. They could not have arisen independently because Australia has no apelike creatures from which humans could have descended. The first arrivals could only have come by sea, presumably from Timor or the Indonesian archipelago, and here is where the problems arise.

In order to put Homo sapiens in Australia you must accept that at a point in time so remote that it precedes the known rise of behaviourally modem humans, there lived in southern Asia a people so advanced that they were fishing inshore waters from boats of some sort. Never mind that the archaeological record shows no one else on earth doing this for another 30,000 years.

Next we have to explain what led them to cross at least sixty miles of open sea to reach a land they could hardly have known was there. The scenario that is usually described is of a simple fishing craft - probably little more than a floating platform - accidentally earned out to sea probably in one of the sudden storms that are characteristic of this area. This craft then drifted helplessly for some days before washing up on a beach in northern Australia. So far, so good.
The question that naturally arises - but is seldom asked - is how you get a new population out of this. If it's a lone fisherman who is carried off to Australia, then clearly he must find his way back to his homeland to report his discovery and persuade enough people to come with him to start a colony. This suggests, of course, the possession of considerable sailing skills.

By any measure this is a staggeringly momentous achievement. And how much notice is paid to it? Well, ask yourself when was the last time you read anything about it. When was the last time in any context concerning human movements and the rise of civilizations that you saw even a passing mention of the role of Aborigines? They are the planet's invisible people. A big part of the problem is that for most of us it is nearly imposible to grasp what an extraordinary span of time we are considering here. Assume for the sake of argument that the Aborigines arrived 60,000 years ago (that is the figure used by Roger Lewin of Harvard in Principles of Evolution, a standard text). On that scale, the total period of European occupation of Australia represents about 0.3 per cent of the total.

PASSAGE 4 - Questions 31-40

Until fairly recently explaining the presence of human beings in Australia was not such a problem. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was thought that Aborigines had been on the continent for no more than 400 years. As recently as the 1960s, the time-frame was estimated to be perhaps 8,000 years. Then in 1969 a geologist from the Australian National University in Canberra was poking around on the shores of a long-dried lake bed called Mungo in a dry and lonely comer of

New South Wales when something caught his eye. It was the skeleton of a woman sticking out slightly from a sandbank. The bones were collected and sent off for carbon dating. When the report came back, it showed that the woman had died 23,000 years ago. Since then, other finds have pushed the date back further. Today the evidence points to an arrival date of at least 45,000 years ago but probably more like 60,000.

The first occupants of Australia could not have walked there because at no point in human times has Australia not been an island. They could not have arisen independently because Australia has no apelike creatures from which humans could have descended. The first arrivals could only have come by sea, presumably from Timor or the Indonesian archipelago, and here is where the problems arise.

In order to put Homo sapiens in Australia you must accept that at a point in time so remote that it precedes the known rise of behaviourally modem humans, there lived in southern Asia a people so advanced that they were fishing inshore waters from boats of some sort. Never mind that the archaeological record shows no one else on earth doing this for another 30,000 years.

Next we have to explain what led them to cross at least sixty miles of open sea to reach a land they could hardly have known was there. The scenario that is usually described is of a simple fishing craft - probably little more than a floating platform - accidentally earned out to sea probably in one of the sudden storms that are characteristic of this area. This craft then drifted helplessly for some days before washing up on a beach in northern Australia. So far, so good.
The question that naturally arises - but is seldom asked - is how you get a new population out of this. If it's a lone fisherman who is carried off to Australia, then clearly he must find his way back to his homeland to report his discovery and persuade enough people to come with him to start a colony. This suggests, of course, the possession of considerable sailing skills.

By any measure this is a staggeringly momentous achievement. And how much notice is paid to it? Well, ask yourself when was the last time you read anything about it. When was the last time in any context concerning human movements and the rise of civilizations that you saw even a passing mention of the role of Aborigines? They are the planet's invisible people. A big part of the problem is that for most of us it is nearly imposible to grasp what an extraordinary span of time we are considering here. Assume for the sake of argument that the Aborigines arrived 60,000 years ago (that is the figure used by Roger Lewin of Harvard in Principles of Evolution, a standard text). On that scale, the total period of European occupation of Australia represents about 0.3 per cent of the total.

PASSAGE 4 - Questions 31-40

Until fairly recently explaining the presence of human beings in Australia was not such a problem. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was thought that Aborigines had been on the continent for no more than 400 years. As recently as the 1960s, the time-frame was estimated to be perhaps 8,000 years. Then in 1969 a geologist from the Australian National University in Canberra was poking around on the shores of a long-dried lake bed called Mungo in a dry and lonely comer of

New South Wales when something caught his eye. It was the skeleton of a woman sticking out slightly from a sandbank. The bones were collected and sent off for carbon dating. When the report came back, it showed that the woman had died 23,000 years ago. Since then, other finds have pushed the date back further. Today the evidence points to an arrival date of at least 45,000 years ago but probably more like 60,000.

The first occupants of Australia could not have walked there because at no point in human times has Australia not been an island. They could not have arisen independently because Australia has no apelike creatures from which humans could have descended. The first arrivals could only have come by sea, presumably from Timor or the Indonesian archipelago, and here is where the problems arise.

In order to put Homo sapiens in Australia you must accept that at a point in time so remote that it precedes the known rise of behaviourally modem humans, there lived in southern Asia a people so advanced that they were fishing inshore waters from boats of some sort. Never mind that the archaeological record shows no one else on earth doing this for another 30,000 years.

Next we have to explain what led them to cross at least sixty miles of open sea to reach a land they could hardly have known was there. The scenario that is usually described is of a simple fishing craft - probably little more than a floating platform - accidentally earned out to sea probably in one of the sudden storms that are characteristic of this area. This craft then drifted helplessly for some days before washing up on a beach in northern Australia. So far, so good.
The question that naturally arises - but is seldom asked - is how you get a new population out of this. If it's a lone fisherman who is carried off to Australia, then clearly he must find his way back to his homeland to report his discovery and persuade enough people to come with him to start a colony. This suggests, of course, the possession of considerable sailing skills.

By any measure this is a staggeringly momentous achievement. And how much notice is paid to it? Well, ask yourself when was the last time you read anything about it. When was the last time in any context concerning human movements and the rise of civilizations that you saw even a passing mention of the role of Aborigines? They are the planet's invisible people. A big part of the problem is that for most of us it is nearly imposible to grasp what an extraordinary span of time we are considering here. Assume for the sake of argument that the Aborigines arrived 60,000 years ago (that is the figure used by Roger Lewin of Harvard in Principles of Evolution, a standard text). On that scale, the total period of European occupation of Australia represents about 0.3 per cent of the total.

PASSAGE 4 - Questions 31-40

Until fairly recently explaining the presence of human beings in Australia was not such a problem. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was thought that Aborigines had been on the continent for no more than 400 years. As recently as the 1960s, the time-frame was estimated to be perhaps 8,000 years. Then in 1969 a geologist from the Australian National University in Canberra was poking around on the shores of a long-dried lake bed called Mungo in a dry and lonely comer of

New South Wales when something caught his eye. It was the skeleton of a woman sticking out slightly from a sandbank. The bones were collected and sent off for carbon dating. When the report came back, it showed that the woman had died 23,000 years ago. Since then, other finds have pushed the date back further. Today the evidence points to an arrival date of at least 45,000 years ago but probably more like 60,000.

The first occupants of Australia could not have walked there because at no point in human times has Australia not been an island. They could not have arisen independently because Australia has no apelike creatures from which humans could have descended. The first arrivals could only have come by sea, presumably from Timor or the Indonesian archipelago, and here is where the problems arise.

In order to put Homo sapiens in Australia you must accept that at a point in time so remote that it precedes the known rise of behaviourally modem humans, there lived in southern Asia a people so advanced that they were fishing inshore waters from boats of some sort. Never mind that the archaeological record shows no one else on earth doing this for another 30,000 years.

Next we have to explain what led them to cross at least sixty miles of open sea to reach a land they could hardly have known was there. The scenario that is usually described is of a simple fishing craft - probably little more than a floating platform - accidentally earned out to sea probably in one of the sudden storms that are characteristic of this area. This craft then drifted helplessly for some days before washing up on a beach in northern Australia. So far, so good.
The question that naturally arises - but is seldom asked - is how you get a new population out of this. If it's a lone fisherman who is carried off to Australia, then clearly he must find his way back to his homeland to report his discovery and persuade enough people to come with him to start a colony. This suggests, of course, the possession of considerable sailing skills.

By any measure this is a staggeringly momentous achievement. And how much notice is paid to it? Well, ask yourself when was the last time you read anything about it. When was the last time in any context concerning human movements and the rise of civilizations that you saw even a passing mention of the role of Aborigines? They are the planet's invisible people. A big part of the problem is that for most of us it is nearly imposible to grasp what an extraordinary span of time we are considering here. Assume for the sake of argument that the Aborigines arrived 60,000 years ago (that is the figure used by Roger Lewin of Harvard in Principles of Evolution, a standard text). On that scale, the total period of European occupation of Australia represents about 0.3 per cent of the total.

PASSAGE 4 - Questions 31-40

Until fairly recently explaining the presence of human beings in Australia was not such a problem. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was thought that Aborigines had been on the continent for no more than 400 years. As recently as the 1960s, the time-frame was estimated to be perhaps 8,000 years. Then in 1969 a geologist from the Australian National University in Canberra was poking around on the shores of a long-dried lake bed called Mungo in a dry and lonely comer of

New South Wales when something caught his eye. It was the skeleton of a woman sticking out slightly from a sandbank. The bones were collected and sent off for carbon dating. When the report came back, it showed that the woman had died 23,000 years ago. Since then, other finds have pushed the date back further. Today the evidence points to an arrival date of at least 45,000 years ago but probably more like 60,000.

The first occupants of Australia could not have walked there because at no point in human times has Australia not been an island. They could not have arisen independently because Australia has no apelike creatures from which humans could have descended. The first arrivals could only have come by sea, presumably from Timor or the Indonesian archipelago, and here is where the problems arise.

In order to put Homo sapiens in Australia you must accept that at a point in time so remote that it precedes the known rise of behaviourally modem humans, there lived in southern Asia a people so advanced that they were fishing inshore waters from boats of some sort. Never mind that the archaeological record shows no one else on earth doing this for another 30,000 years.

Next we have to explain what led them to cross at least sixty miles of open sea to reach a land they could hardly have known was there. The scenario that is usually described is of a simple fishing craft - probably little more than a floating platform - accidentally earned out to sea probably in one of the sudden storms that are characteristic of this area. This craft then drifted helplessly for some days before washing up on a beach in northern Australia. So far, so good.
The question that naturally arises - but is seldom asked - is how you get a new population out of this. If it's a lone fisherman who is carried off to Australia, then clearly he must find his way back to his homeland to report his discovery and persuade enough people to come with him to start a colony. This suggests, of course, the possession of considerable sailing skills.

By any measure this is a staggeringly momentous achievement. And how much notice is paid to it? Well, ask yourself when was the last time you read anything about it. When was the last time in any context concerning human movements and the rise of civilizations that you saw even a passing mention of the role of Aborigines? They are the planet's invisible people. A big part of the problem is that for most of us it is nearly imposible to grasp what an extraordinary span of time we are considering here. Assume for the sake of argument that the Aborigines arrived 60,000 years ago (that is the figure used by Roger Lewin of Harvard in Principles of Evolution, a standard text). On that scale, the total period of European occupation of Australia represents about 0.3 per cent of the total.

PASSAGE 4 - Questions 31-40

Until fairly recently explaining the presence of human beings in Australia was not such a problem. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was thought that Aborigines had been on the continent for no more than 400 years. As recently as the 1960s, the time-frame was estimated to be perhaps 8,000 years. Then in 1969 a geologist from the Australian National University in Canberra was poking around on the shores of a long-dried lake bed called Mungo in a dry and lonely comer of

New South Wales when something caught his eye. It was the skeleton of a woman sticking out slightly from a sandbank. The bones were collected and sent off for carbon dating. When the report came back, it showed that the woman had died 23,000 years ago. Since then, other finds have pushed the date back further. Today the evidence points to an arrival date of at least 45,000 years ago but probably more like 60,000.

The first occupants of Australia could not have walked there because at no point in human times has Australia not been an island. They could not have arisen independently because Australia has no apelike creatures from which humans could have descended. The first arrivals could only have come by sea, presumably from Timor or the Indonesian archipelago, and here is where the problems arise.

In order to put Homo sapiens in Australia you must accept that at a point in time so remote that it precedes the known rise of behaviourally modem humans, there lived in southern Asia a people so advanced that they were fishing inshore waters from boats of some sort. Never mind that the archaeological record shows no one else on earth doing this for another 30,000 years.

Next we have to explain what led them to cross at least sixty miles of open sea to reach a land they could hardly have known was there. The scenario that is usually described is of a simple fishing craft - probably little more than a floating platform - accidentally earned out to sea probably in one of the sudden storms that are characteristic of this area. This craft then drifted helplessly for some days before washing up on a beach in northern Australia. So far, so good.
The question that naturally arises - but is seldom asked - is how you get a new population out of this. If it's a lone fisherman who is carried off to Australia, then clearly he must find his way back to his homeland to report his discovery and persuade enough people to come with him to start a colony. This suggests, of course, the possession of considerable sailing skills.

By any measure this is a staggeringly momentous achievement. And how much notice is paid to it? Well, ask yourself when was the last time you read anything about it. When was the last time in any context concerning human movements and the rise of civilizations that you saw even a passing mention of the role of Aborigines? They are the planet's invisible people. A big part of the problem is that for most of us it is nearly imposible to grasp what an extraordinary span of time we are considering here. Assume for the sake of argument that the Aborigines arrived 60,000 years ago (that is the figure used by Roger Lewin of Harvard in Principles of Evolution, a standard text). On that scale, the total period of European occupation of Australia represents about 0.3 per cent of the total.

PASSAGE 4 - Questions 31-40

Until fairly recently explaining the presence of human beings in Australia was not such a problem. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was thought that Aborigines had been on the continent for no more than 400 years. As recently as the 1960s, the time-frame was estimated to be perhaps 8,000 years. Then in 1969 a geologist from the Australian National University in Canberra was poking around on the shores of a long-dried lake bed called Mungo in a dry and lonely comer of

New South Wales when something caught his eye. It was the skeleton of a woman sticking out slightly from a sandbank. The bones were collected and sent off for carbon dating. When the report came back, it showed that the woman had died 23,000 years ago. Since then, other finds have pushed the date back further. Today the evidence points to an arrival date of at least 45,000 years ago but probably more like 60,000.

The first occupants of Australia could not have walked there because at no point in human times has Australia not been an island. They could not have arisen independently because Australia has no apelike creatures from which humans could have descended. The first arrivals could only have come by sea, presumably from Timor or the Indonesian archipelago, and here is where the problems arise.

In order to put Homo sapiens in Australia you must accept that at a point in time so remote that it precedes the known rise of behaviourally modem humans, there lived in southern Asia a people so advanced that they were fishing inshore waters from boats of some sort. Never mind that the archaeological record shows no one else on earth doing this for another 30,000 years.

Next we have to explain what led them to cross at least sixty miles of open sea to reach a land they could hardly have known was there. The scenario that is usually described is of a simple fishing craft - probably little more than a floating platform - accidentally earned out to sea probably in one of the sudden storms that are characteristic of this area. This craft then drifted helplessly for some days before washing up on a beach in northern Australia. So far, so good.
The question that naturally arises - but is seldom asked - is how you get a new population out of this. If it's a lone fisherman who is carried off to Australia, then clearly he must find his way back to his homeland to report his discovery and persuade enough people to come with him to start a colony. This suggests, of course, the possession of considerable sailing skills.

By any measure this is a staggeringly momentous achievement. And how much notice is paid to it? Well, ask yourself when was the last time you read anything about it. When was the last time in any context concerning human movements and the rise of civilizations that you saw even a passing mention of the role of Aborigines? They are the planet's invisible people. A big part of the problem is that for most of us it is nearly imposible to grasp what an extraordinary span of time we are considering here. Assume for the sake of argument that the Aborigines arrived 60,000 years ago (that is the figure used by Roger Lewin of Harvard in Principles of Evolution, a standard text). On that scale, the total period of European occupation of Australia represents about 0.3 per cent of the total.