English I Qualifier: 24 March 2024 (January 2024 term)

Read the passage and answer the given subquestions.
There is a place forty kilometres north-east of Portland, Victoria, which makes for an unusual visit. It is Lake Condah. Here are to be found remains of aboriginal settlements: the circular stone bases of several hundred huts, rock-lined water channels, and stone tools chipped from rock not normally found in the area. One of the attractions of Lake Condah long ago was its fish and the most startling evidence of aboriginal technology and engineering to be found there are the systems built to trap fish. Water courses had been constructed by redirecting streams, building stone sides and even scraping out new channels. At strategic spots, they piled rocks across the water courses to create weirs and build funnels to channel eels and fish into conical baskets. This is an eel-fishing technique which has hardly changed to the present day. Beside some of the larger traps, there are the outlines of rectangular, stone-lined ponds, probably to hold fish and keep them fresh. On the bluffs overlooking the lake, stone circles are all that remain of ancient dwellings. Not all of the stones were quarried locally. The huts vary in size, but all have gaps for doorways located on the lee side, away from the prevailing wind. One theory is that the stone walls were only waist to shoulder high, with the top roofed by branches and possibly packed with mud. The site presents a picture of a semi-settled people quite different from the stereotype of nomadic hunter-gatherers of the desert.

Which word means an idea or representation of a particular type of person or thing?

Read the passage and answer the given subquestions.
There is a place forty kilometres north-east of Portland, Victoria, which makes for an unusual visit. It is Lake Condah. Here are to be found remains of aboriginal settlements: the circular stone bases of several hundred huts, rock-lined water channels, and stone tools chipped from rock not normally found in the area. One of the attractions of Lake Condah long ago was its fish and the most startling evidence of aboriginal technology and engineering to be found there are the systems built to trap fish. Water courses had been constructed by redirecting streams, building stone sides and even scraping out new channels. At strategic spots, they piled rocks across the water courses to create weirs and build funnels to channel eels and fish into conical baskets. This is an eel-fishing technique which has hardly changed to the present day. Beside some of the larger traps, there are the outlines of rectangular, stone-lined ponds, probably to hold fish and keep them fresh. On the bluffs overlooking the lake, stone circles are all that remain of ancient dwellings. Not all of the stones were quarried locally. The huts vary in size, but all have gaps for doorways located on the lee side, away from the prevailing wind. One theory is that the stone walls were only waist to shoulder high, with the top roofed by branches and possibly packed with mud. The site presents a picture of a semi-settled people quite different from the stereotype of nomadic hunter-gatherers of the desert.

What does the system to trap fish in the Lake Condah area signify?

Read the passage and answer the given subquestions.
There is a place forty kilometres north-east of Portland, Victoria, which makes for an unusual visit. It is Lake Condah. Here are to be found remains of aboriginal settlements: the circular stone bases of several hundred huts, rock-lined water channels, and stone tools chipped from rock not normally found in the area. One of the attractions of Lake Condah long ago was its fish and the most startling evidence of aboriginal technology and engineering to be found there are the systems built to trap fish. Water courses had been constructed by redirecting streams, building stone sides and even scraping out new channels. At strategic spots, they piled rocks across the water courses to create weirs and build funnels to channel eels and fish into conical baskets. This is an eel-fishing technique which has hardly changed to the present day. Beside some of the larger traps, there are the outlines of rectangular, stone-lined ponds, probably to hold fish and keep them fresh. On the bluffs overlooking the lake, stone circles are all that remain of ancient dwellings. Not all of the stones were quarried locally. The huts vary in size, but all have gaps for doorways located on the lee side, away from the prevailing wind. One theory is that the stone walls were only waist to shoulder high, with the top roofed by branches and possibly packed with mud. The site presents a picture of a semi-settled people quite different from the stereotype of nomadic hunter-gatherers of the desert.

What was the function of conical baskets?