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Instructions to candidates
This question paper consists of 18 printed pages and 2 blank pages. O Majlis Peperiksaan Malaysia2}l2
MUET
8OO/3,TTI
COI{FIDENTIAL*
Question
The hotel business is relentless. The management has to provide twenty-four hours service, 365 days ayear, and every single day is just as important as any other day. Not surprisingly, M&M Hotel, which prides itself on providing excellent customer service, had for many years a deeply-ingrained culture of 'face time'- the more hours you put in, the better. That philosophy of 'see and be seen'was effective for serving customers, but it had a price: the management were finding it increasingly tough to recruit talented people and some existing managers were leaving, often because they wanted to spend more time with their families.
In the following year, M&M Hotel implemented a test programme to help managers strike a better balance between their professional and personal lives while maintaining the quality of its customer service and the bottom line of its
financial results. They found a lot of quick fixes by sliminating redundant meetings and other inefficient procedures. For instance, they learnt that managers could fi|e certain business reports less frequently and that many of the regular scheduled meetings were unnecessary. They also re-examined certain hotel procedures they were following, traditionally. For instance, the scheduled overlap time of front desk manager's with the person on the next shift was reduced from one hour to only fifteen minutes. Additionally, managers were given better Information Technology (IT) support so that they could communicate with customers through email and get connected to relevant sections within minutes to get immediate assistance.
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At the end of the test programme, managers reported working an average of five hours less each week. Perhaps, more important, was the change in attitudes (Figure i).
Figure 1: Attitude Adjustment
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Before the test programme, TT%o of managers felt that their jobs were so demanding that they could not take adequate care of their personal and family responsibilities. At the end of the programme, that percentage had plumnieted to 43o/o. In addition, the percentage of managers who felt that the emphasis was on hours worked, plunged from 43ah to l5Yo. One of the most important things shown was that people could be just as productive when they worked fewer hours. This is so because they are extra-motivated to get things done and they do not waste time in doing what they need to do.
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.In the 'face time'work culture, the longer a managff spends time at work, the better it is.
A B C 2
job.
True False
Not stated
The main objective of the test programme was to change the employees' attitude towards their
A B C 3 A B C 4
True False
Not stated
The test programme that rvas implemented reviewed the work procedures. True False
Not stated
In Figure 1, the test prograflrme showed an increase in the percentage of managers who felt
A B C 5 A B C 6 A B C
True False
Not stated
From Figure 1, it can be infened that the managem were happy with the changes made.
True
False
Not stated
Not stated
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over.
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False
Not stated
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Questions 8 to 14 are based on the following passage.
Caffeine Myths
Through the years, the public has been buffeted by much misguided information about caffeine and its most common source, coffee. In March, the Centre for Science in the Public Interest published a colqpr-ehensiye 4pplaisal of scientific reports in its Nutrition Action Health newsletter. Its findings and those of other
research reports follow.
Hydration. It was long thought that caffeinated beverages were diuretics, but studies reviewed last year found that people who consumed drinks containing up to
550 milligrams of caffeine produced no more urine than when drinking fluids free of caffeine. Above 575 milligrams, the drug was a diuretic.
So even a Starbucks Grande, with 330 milligrams of caffeine, will not send you to a bathroom any sooner than if you drank 16 ounces of pure water. Drinks containing usual doses of caffeine are hydrating and, like water, contribute to the body's daily water needs.
10
Cancer. Panic swept this coffee-dependent nation in 1981 when a Harvard study tied the drink to a higher risk of pancreatic cancer. Coflee consumption
temporarily plummeted, and the researchers later concluded that perhaps smoking, not coffee, was the culprit.
In an international review of66 studies last year, scientists found coffee drinking
15
had little if any effect on the risk of developing kidney cancer. In fact, another review suggested that compared with people who do not drink coffee, those who do have half the risk of developing liver cancer. And a study of 59 000 women in Sweden found no connection between coffee, tea or caffeine consumption and breast cancer.
20
Weight loss. Here's abummer. Although caffeine speeds up metabolism, with to 100 calories a day, no long-term benefit to weight control has been demonstrated. In fact, in a study of more than 58 000 health professionals followed for L2 years, both men and women who increased their caffeine consumption gained more weight than those who did not.
100 milligrams burning an extra 75
25
Probably the most important effects of caffeine are its ability to enhance mood, mental and physical performance. At consumption levels up to 200 milligrams, consumers report an improved sense ofwell-being, happiness, energy, alertness and sociability. Roland Griffiths of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine reported that higher amounts sometimes cause anxiety and stomach upset.
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time. In the sleep-deprived, it improves memory and the ability to perform complex
t0
For the active, caffeine enhances endurance in aerobic activities and performance
in anaerobic ones, perhaps because it blunts the perception of pain and aids the
ability to burn fat for fuel.
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COhIFIDEI{TIAL*
11
Another review found that compared with non-coffee drinkers, people who
drank four to six cups of coffee a day, with or without caffeine, had a 28 percent lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. This benefit probably comes from coffee's antioxidants and chlorogenic acid.
The research findings presented in this article are taken from a study carried out by the Centre for Science in the Public Interest.
A B C
True
False
Not stated
9 A person who drinks 700 milligrams of coffee the same amount of a caffeine-free drink. A B C
10
True
False
will
Not stated
Scientists say that coffee hydrates our body better than water.
A B C A B C
12
True False
Not stated
study on coffee and cancer concluded that
11 Findings ofthe
there is no clear link between coffee drinking and cancer there is a clear link between pancreatic cancer and caffeine more research is needed to draw the connection between caffeine and breast cancer
A B C A B C A B C
expressdissatisfaction
debunk a misconception
one should not consume more than 200 milligrams of caffeine consuming caffeine
14 After
over.
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OOHFII}EITIIAL*
Armfuas 15 n2l arc based on thefollowing passage.
WhnAriel Lugo takes visitors to the rainforests of Puerto Rico, he likes to play a little trick. First, the ecologist shows offthe beautiful surroundings: the diversity of plant life on the forest floor; the densely-packed trees merging into a canopy, high overhead. Only when his audience is suitably impressed does he reveal that they are actually in the midst of what many conservationists would dismiss as weeds - a collection of non-native species growing uncontrolled, on land once used for
agriculture. His guests are almost always taken aback, and who wouldn't be? For years we have been told that invasive alien species are driving native ones to extinction and eroding the integrity of ancient ecosystems. The post-invasion world is supposed to be bleak, biologically-impoverished wasteland, not something you could mistake for untouched wilderness. Lugo is one of a small but growing number of researchers who think much of what we have been told about non-native species is wrong. Alien species, they argue, are rarely as monstrous a threat as they have been painted. In fact, in a world that has been dramatically altered by human activity, many could be important allies in rbuildiag-healthyrppsystemq. Given the chance, alien species may just save us from the worst consequences of our own destructive actions.
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Many consArygllentsts-cringg at such talk. They view non-native species as ecological tumours, spreading uncontrollably at the expense of natives. To them the high rate of accidental inhoductions - hundreds of alien species are now well established in ecosystems from the Mediterranean Sea to Hawaii - is one of the biggest threats facing life on Earth. Mass extinction of native species is one fear. Another is the loss of what many regard as the keys to environmental health: the networts of relationships that exist between native species after thousands or even millions of years of ceevolution. Such concerns have fuelled an all-out war. Vast sums are being spent on campaigns to eradicate or control the spread of highly-invasive exotics.
Conservation groups enlist teams of volunteers to uproot garlic mustard from local
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parks. Government agencies flll waterways with poisonous chemicals to halt the advance of Asian carp. Most governments have no choice but to join the fight; under the terms of the Convention of Biological Diversity.
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Advocates for non-native species do not deny that they can sometimes create
maj or problems, particularly in cases where disease-causing microbes are introduced into a new host population. But they argue that often the threat is overblown.
For
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one thing, many species are not nearly as problematic as they are made out to be.
The notorious cane toad, introduced into Australia in the 1930s to control pests of the sugar cane crops, is considered a major threat to the continent's unique fauna. Its highly-toxic skin has long been seen as a death sentence for native predators, while its rapid spread is thought to have occurred at the expense of other amphibians. 40 Yet, the first serious impact study on the cane toad recently concluded that they may in fact be innocent ofall charges.
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15 What is the little trick (line 2) played by Ariel Lugo when he takes visitors to the rainforests of Puerto Rico?
A B C A B C
17
He shows the visitors uncontrolled weeds instead of the rainforests. He makes them believe that what they are seeing is native to the
1and.
He takes them to see the impoverished wasteland and not the wilderness.
2, the guests are described as almost always taken aback (line
16 In paragraph
A B C
18
A B C
19
will
alien species are now more established than natives in the ecosystems
The writer mentions the use of volunteers to uproot garlic mustard from local parks to
A B C A B C
21
20 In paragraph 6, advocates
the dangers of introducing non-native species have been proven problems created by alien species are not as serious as made out to be
A B C
it kills other amphibians it was introduced into Australia to control pests of the sugar cane
800/3/N
over.
CONFIDBNTIAL*
COIYFIDENTIAL*
Questions 22 to 29 are based on thefollowing passage.
Today, when we think of the world's teeming billions of humans, we tend to think
of overpopulation, poverty, disease, instability and environmental destruction. Humans are the cause ofmost of the planet's problems. What if that were to change? What if the average humans were able to contribute more than consume?. To add more than subkact? Think of the world as if each person drives a balance sheet. On the negative side are the resources they consume without replacing. On the positive side are the contributions they make in the form of resources they produce, the artifacts of value they build, and the ideas and technologies that might create a better future for their families, their communities, and the planet as a whole. Our future hangs on whether the sum of those balance sheets can turn positive.
10
What might make that possible? One key reason for hope is that so far we have barely scraped the surface ofhuman potential. Throughout history the vast majority of humans have not been the people they could have been. Take this simple thought
experiment. Pick your favourite scientist, mathematician, or culfural hero. Now imagine that instead of being born when and where they were, they had instead been born with the same abilities in a poverty-stricken village. Would they have made the same contribution they did make? Probably not. They would not have received the education and encouragement it took to achieve what they did.
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If only we could find a way of unlocking that potential. Two keys might be enough: knowledge and inspiration. If you learn how to transform your life for the better and you are inspired to act on that knowledge, there is a good chance that your life will indeed improve.
There are many scary things about today's world, but what is thrilling is that the means of spreading both knowledge and inspiration have never been greater. Five years ago, a teacher or professor who is able to change the lives of his or her students, could realistically hope to reach maybe a hundred of them ayeal Today, that same teacher can communicate through video to millions of eager students. The cost of distributing a recorded lecture anywhere in the world via the Internet has effectively fallen to zero. This has happened with breathtaking speed and its implications are not yet widely understood. But it is surely capable of transforming global education.
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30
For one thing, the realization that today's best teachers can become global wjll boost the calibre of those who teach. For the first time, it is possible to imagine ambitious, brilliant eighteen-year-olds putting 'teacher' at the top of their career choice list. Indeed, the very definition of 'great teacher'will expand, as numerous people outside the profession who can communicate important ideas find new incentive to make that talent available to the world. Additionally, teachers can amplify their own abilities by inviting into their classrooms, on video, the world's
celebrities
greatest scientists, visionaries and futors.
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Now, think of this from the pupils' perspective. In the past, your success depended on whether you were lucky enough to have a great mentor or teacher in your neighbourhood. The vast majority have not been that fortunate. But a young girl born in Africa today will probably have access, in ten years' time, to a cell phone with a high-resolution screen, a Web-connection, and more power than the computer you own today. We can imagine her obtaining face-to-face insight from her choice of the world's great teachers. She will get the chance to be what she
can be.
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(Adapted fuomThis Will Change Everything, John Brockman (Ed.) HarperCollins, 2010)
22
A B C
highlight the reality that it would be difficult to change the world the previous
A B C
24
restates
illustrates
elaborates
11)
A B C
25
fully *-
i4) to
A B C
26
except
show that people have different abilities compare the contributions of past heroes with today's heroes support the idea that the poor have limited opportunities to excel
Patagraph
4 lists the following reasons why the Internet can transform educafion globalty
A B C
r-
it is a cheap means to distribute recorded lectures it adopts teaching techniques that students are familiar with
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11
27 T\e
A B C
28
main outcome of making great teachers accessible to the masses throrrgh the web is
that they people
A B c A B c
even children from remote areas can learn from great teachers
29 which
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over.
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t2
1 2
Stories and psychological description are effective ways of building emotional appeal. Emotional appeal works best when people want to be persuaded.
Even when you need to provide statistics or numbers to convince the careful reader that your anecdote is a representative example, telling a story first makes
your message more persuasive. Experiments with both high school teachers and quantitatively-trained Master of Business Administration (MBA) students show that people are more likely to.believe a point and more likely to be committed to it when points were made by examples, stories and statistics; the combination was more effective than statistics alone. In another experiment, attitude changes lasted longer when the audience had read stories than when they had only read numbers.
Recent research suggests that stories are more persuasive because people remember
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them.
As with other appeals, the emotional appeal should focus on the reader. To describe its service ofgathering up and renting good-quality used cardboard boxes, Boomerang Boxes could focus on its innovative thinking, but its Website appeals to readers by telling them they can "Save time, save money and save trees!" The company tells its story with descriptive language: 'T.{o longer do you have to drive around aimlessly searching for good quality boxes behind supermarkets and liquor stores. No longer do you have to contribute to the destruction of strong healthy
trees, just so more cardboard boxes can be made, used (often only once) and thrown
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away." That story is likely to resonate with many apartment-renting students who have scrounged boxes for a low-cost moving day.
Sense impressions what the reader sees, hears, smells, tastes, feels evoke a strong emotional response. Psychological description means creating a scenario rich with sense impressions so readers can picture themselves using your product or service and enjoying its benefits. You can also use psychological description to describe the problem your product will solve. Psychological description works best early in the message to catch readers' attention.
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In psychological description, you're putting your reader in a picture. If the reader doesn't feel that the picture fits him or her, the technique bacldres. To prevent this, psychological description often uses subjunctive verbs ("if you like..." "if you were. . . ") or the words maybe and. perhaps .
The best phrasing depends on your relationship to the reader. When you ask for action from people who report directly to you, orders ("Get me the Ervin fiIe.") and questions ("Do we have the third-quarter numbers yet?") will work. When you need action from co-workers, superiors, or people outside the organisation, you need to be more forceful but also more polite. How you ask for action affects whether you build or destroy positive relationships
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with other employees, customers and suppliers. Professor and consultant, Dan
Dieterich, notes that the calls to action in many messages are: o Buried somewhere deep in the middle of the correspondence. o Disguised as either statements or questions. o Insulting because they use "parental language".
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Such messages, Dieterich points out, "lower productivity within the organisation
and reduce or eliminate the goodwill customers have toward the Those two things...can put the organisation out of business."
organisation...
45
Avoiding messages that sound parental or preachy is often a matter of tone. Saying "Please" is a nice touch, especially to people on your level or outside the organisation. Tone will also be better when you give reasons for your request or reasons to act promptly.
When you write to people you know well, humour can work. Just make sure that the message is not insulting to anyone who does not find the humour funny.
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(Adapted from Bus ine s s and Adminis trativ e Communication. 7'h ed. New York: McGraw Hill,2006)
30
Even when you need to provide statistics or numbers to convince the careful reader that your anecdote is a representative example, telling a story first makes your message more persuasive
A B C D
31
facts and figures are more convincing than stories persuasive message has more anecdotal elements than facts and figures
a combination
telling a story before presenting facts and figures will make the message more effective
The story told by Boomerang Boxes is likely to appeal to many apartment-hunting students. This is because the story
A B C D
32 ln
except
is told in descriptive language is communicated through a website reflects their concerns and experiences presents an innovative way of doing things paragraph
response
A B C D
33
The phrase, the technique bacffires (line 30) means that the technique brings
A B D C
adverse effects
over.
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34
if
given by
A B C D A B C D
36
clients
a friend a superior
A B C D
37
If it is really funny If it
is not insulting
If it is not in writing
If it is used with
A B C D
writing to persuade
avoiding emotions in writing
the reasons for requests made the structure of product advertisement
over.
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t5
Last year the skyrocketing cost of food was a wake-up call for the planet. Between 2005 and 2008, the price of wheat and corn tripled, and the price of rice climbed five-fold, spurring food riots in nearly two dozen countries and pushing 75 million
more people into poverty. But unlike previous shocks driven by short-term shortages, this time, the high prices were a symptom of a larger problem. Simply put: For most of the past decade, the world has been consuming more food than it has been producing. After years of drawing stockpiles, in 2007, the world saw global stocks fall to 6i days of global consumption, the second lowest on record.
This was not the first time the world had stood at the brink of a food crisis. At 83, Gurcharan Singh Kalkat has lived long enough to remember one of the worst famines of the 20th century. In 1943, as many as four million people died in the Bengal Famine. For the following two decades, India had to import millions of tons of grain to feed its people. Then came the green revolution. In the 1960s, as India was struggling to feed its people during yet another crippling drought, an American plant breeder namedNorman Borlaug was working with Indian researchers to bring his high-yielding wheat varieties to Punjab. Borlaug was born in Iowa and saw his mission as spreading the high-yielding farm methods that had turned the American Midwest into the world's breadbasket to impoverished places throughout the world. His new dwarf wheat varieties with short stems supporting full, fat seeds were a breakthrough. They could produce grain like no other wheat ever seen - as long as there was plenty of water and syrthetic fertilizer and little competition from weeds or insects. To that end, the Indian government subsidized canals, fertilizeq and
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zCI
the drilling of tube wells for irrigation. The new wheat varieties quickly spread throughoutAsia, changing the traditional farming practices of millions of farmers, and were soon followed by new strains of 'miracle'rice. The new crops matured faster and enabled farmers to grow two crops ayear instead of one.
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Today, though, the miracle of the green revolution is over in Punjab: Yield growth has flattened since the mid-1990s. Over-irrigation has led to steep drops in the water table while thousands of hectares of productive land have been lost to water-logged soils. Forty years of intensive irrigation, fertilization, and pesticides have not been kind to the fields of Punjab. Nor, in some cases, to the people themselves. In the farming village of Bhuttiwala, home to some 6000 people, village elder, Jagsir Singh adds up the toll: "We've had 49 deaths due to cancer in the last four years," he says. 'oMost of them were young people. The water is not good. It's poisonous, contaminated water. Yet, people drink it. The green revolution has brought us only downfall. The government has sacrificed the people of Punjab for
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grain."
Others, of course, see it differently. Rattan Lal, a soil scientist believes it was the abuse - not the use - of green revolution technologies that caused most of the problems. That includes the overuse of fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation and the removal of all crop residues from the fields. "Irealize the problems of water quality and water withdrawal," says Lal. "But it saved hundreds of millions of people. We paid aprice in water, but the choice was to let people die." In terms of production, the beneflts of the green revolution are hard to deny. India has not experienced famine since Borlaug brought his seed to town, while world grain production has more than doubled.
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COITIFIDENIIAL+
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Many crop scientists believe the solution to our food crisis lies in a second green revolution, based largely on our newfound knowledge of the gene. Plant breeders now know the sequence ofnearly all ofthe 50 000 or so genes in corn and soybean plants and are using that knowledge. Robert Farley, chief technology 50 officer for the agricultural giant Monsanto, is convinced that genetic modification, which allows breeders to bolster crops with beneficial traits from other species, will lead to new varieties with higher yields, reduced fefiilizer needs and drought tolerance. He believes biotechnology will make it possible to double yields of corn, cotton, and soybeans by 2030. 55 But is a reprise of the green revolution the answer to the world's food crisis? Last year, a six-yea1 study concluded that the production increases brought about by science and technology in the past 30 years have failed to improve food access for many of the world's poor. The study called for a paradigm shift in agriculture toward more sustainable and ecologically-friendly practices that would benefit 60 the world's 900 million small farmers, not just agribusiness. And so a shift has already begun to small, under-funded projects scattered across Africa and Asia. Some call it agroecology, others sustainable agriculture, but the underlying idea is revolutionary: that we must stop focusing on maximizing grain yields at any cost and consider the environmental and social impacts on food production. Vandana 65 Shiva, an agroecologist, argues that small-scale, biologically-diverse farms can produce more food with fewer petroleum-based inputs. Her research has shown that using compost instead of nafural-gas-derived fertilizer increases organic matter in the soil. "If you are talking about solving the food crisis, these are the methods you need," adds Shiva. 70
Regardless of which model prevails - agriculture as a diverse ecological art, industry or some combination of the two * the challenge of putting enough food in nine billion mouths by 2050 is daunting.
as a high-tech
A B C D A B C D
the reasons for a global food crisis shortage of food leads to high prices
39 The following are reasons for the skyrocketing cost of food except
steeply-risingpopulation
increasing dependence on imported grains
COI{FIDENTIAL*
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t7
did Borlaug introduce to India?
I II m IV
A B C D
draw attention to the poor soil condition as a result ofthe green revolution
of course, see it
A B C D
43
The green revolution is too costly to sustain. The green revolution has caused much damage. The abuse of green revolution technologies was the culprit. The problem of shortage of food was resolved by the green revolution.
The most distinguishing feature intbe second green revolution (lines 47 and 48) is
A B C D
44
The study called for a paradigm shift (line 59) in agricultural practices. The following are
A B C D
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A B C D
will
will
over.
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