READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27–40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 on pages 9 and 10.
The Voynich Manuscript
The starkly modern Beinecke Library at Yale University is home to some of the most valuable books in the world: first folios of Shakespeare, Gutenberg Bibles and manuscripts from the early Middle Ages. Yet the library’s most controversial possession is an unprepossessing manuscript about the size of a hardback book, containing 240-odd pages of drawings and text of unknown age and authorship. Catalogued as MS408, the manuscript would attract little attention were it not for the fact that the drawings hint at esoteric knowledge, while the text seems to be some sort of code – one that no-one has been able to break. It’s known to scholars as the Voynich manuscript, after the American book dealer Wilfrid Voynich, who bought the manuscript from a Jesuit college in Italy in 1912.
Over the years, the manuscript has attracted the attention of everyone from amateur cryptographers to respected scholars, all of whom have tried – and failed – to decode it. Now a few researchers are devoted to uncovering the contents of the manuscript itself, while others are devoted to revealing the identity of the author. “All sorts of people write in with their proposed translations or solutions,” says Dr Gordon Rugg of Keele University, a leading Voynich expert. But there is one that you can see for yourself.
Pick it up. Start: strange page after strange page is filled with colourful illustrations of cosmological symbols and human figures, accompanied by apparent text. However, it is the text that attracts the most attention – and bafflement. What does it say? Who created the drawings about? Voynich himself believed that the manuscript was the work of the 13th-century English monk Roger Bacon, famed for his knowledge of alchemy, philosophy and science. In 1921 Voynich’s view that Bacon was the writer appeared in print with support from the work of William Newbold, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, who claimed to have found the key to the cipher system used by Bacon. According to Newbold, the manuscript proved that Bacon had access to a microscope and centuries before they were supposedly first invented. The claim that this medieval monk had observed living cells created a sensation. It soon became clear, however, that Newbold had fallen victim to wishful thinking: Other scholars showed that his 'decoding' methods produced a host of possible interpretations – the Voynich manuscript had not been cracked.
Many others tried to decode the layers of word-like symbols. In 1944, a team, assembled to tackle the incomprehensible writing of William Friedman, one of the US Army’s leading codebreakers of World War II, was unsuccessful. He later described the manuscript as “the most challenging cipher ever seen.”
Researchers studying the manuscript’s “mysterious” language have pointed to the size of the alphabet of the Voynich manuscript (which appears to make use of more than 20 distinct characters) and the more than 170,000-character text. Some have noted that the frequency of repeated patterns is also repeated more often than expected in a standard language. Others point out that the manuscript contains oddities, such as encryption by replacing letters with symbols based on phonetic frequencies.
Friedman concluded that the most plausible resolution of this paradox was that "Voynichese" is some sort of specially created artificial language, whose words are devised from concepts, rather than linguistics. So, could the Voynich manuscript be the earliest known example of an artificial language? Friedman’s hypothesis commands respect because of the lifetime of cryptanalytical expertise he brought to bear,” says Rob Churchill, co-author of The Voynich Manuscript, that still leaves a host of questions unanswered, however, such as the identity of the author and the meaning of the bizarre drawings. “It does little to advance our understanding of the manuscript as a whole,” says Churchill. Even though Friedman was working more than 60 years ago, he suspected that major insights would come from using the device that had already transformed codebreaking: the computer. In this he was right – it is now the key tool for uncovering clues about the manuscript’s language.
The insights so far have been perplexing. For example, in 2001 another leading Voynich scholar, Dr Gabriel Landini of Birmingham University in the UK, published the results of his study of the manuscript using a pattern-detecting method called spectral analysis. This revealed evidence that the manuscript contains underlying structures within the random nonsense, consistent with the existence of some underlying rational language. Yet the following year, Voynich expert Ren Zandbergen of the European Space Agency in Darmstadt, Germany, showed that the rate of transfer of information commonly seen when artificial language had been used.
Many are convinced that the Voynich Manuscript is a hoax. For how could a medieval hoaxer create so many telltale signs of structure from random nonsense? Yet even this has been challenged in new research by Rugg.
Using a system, first published by the Italian mathematician Girolamo Cardano in 1150 in which a specially constructed grille is used to pick out symbols from a table, Rugg found he could rapidly generate text with many of the basic traits of the Voynich manuscript. Publishing his results in 2004, Rugg stresses that he hadn’t set out to prove the manuscript a hoax. “I simply demonstrated that it’s feasible to make something like this in a few months,” he says. Inevitably, others beg to differ. Some scholars, such as Zandbergen for example, think there may be genuine meaning, though believe it may never be fully scrutable. Others, such as Churchill, hold out hope that the weirdness of the illustrations and the text hint at an author who had just lost touch with text reality. Which is why the book-sized manuscript kept under lock and key at Yale University is far from gone of fascination. “Many derive great intellectual pleasure from solving puzzles,” says Rugg. The Voynich manuscript is as challenging a puzzle as anyone could ask for.
Questions 27–30
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?
Write TRUE, FALSE, or NOT GIVEN in boxes 27–30 on your answer sheet.
27. It is uncertain when the Voynich manuscript was written.
28. Wilfrid Voynich donated the manuscript to the Beinecke Library.
29. Interest in the Voynich manuscript extends beyond that of academics and professional codebreakers.
30. The text of the Voynich manuscript contains just under 70 symbols.
Questions 31–34
Match each statement with the correct person, A–H.
Write the correct letter, A–H, in boxes 31–34 on your answer sheet.
31. The number of times the same words occur make it unlikely that the manuscript is based on an authentic language.
32. Unlike some other similar objects of fascination, people can gain direct access to the Voynich manuscript.
33. The person who wrote the manuscript may not have been entirely sane.
34. It is likely that the author of the manuscript is the same person as suggested by Wilfrid Voynich.
List of People
A. Gordon Rugg
B. Roger Bacon
C. Wilfrid Voynich
D. William Friedman
E. Rob Churchill
F. Ron Rugg
G. Ren Zandbergen
H. Girolamo Cardano
Questions 35–39
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 35–39 on your answer sheet.
Voynich Researchers
William Newbold believed that the author of the Voynich manuscript had been able to look at cells through a 35. ______. Other researchers later demonstrated that there were flaws in his argument.
William Friedman concluded that the manuscript was written in an artificial language that was based on 36. ______. He did not uncover the meaning of this language, but he believed that the 37. ______ would continue to bring advances in codebreaking.
Dr Gabriel Landini used a system known as 38. ______ in his research, and claims to have demonstrated the presence of genuine words.
Dr Gordon Rugg’s system involved a grille, that made it possible to quickly select symbols that appeared in a 39. ______. Rugg’s conclusion was that the manuscript lacked genuine meaning.
Question 40
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in box 40 on your answer sheet.
The writer’s main aim in this passage is to:
A. explain the meaning of the manuscript.
B. describe attempts to identify the manuscript’s author.
C. assess differing theories about the manuscript.
D. identify which research into the manuscript has had the most media coverage.
✅ Questions 27–30 (TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN)
27. It is uncertain when the Voynich manuscript was written.
➡️ TRUE
The passage mentions: “the text seems to be some sort of code – one that no-one has been able to break... it’s known to scholars as the Voynich manuscript.” It also implies uncertainty about age and authorship.
28. Wilfrid Voynich donated the manuscript to the Beinecke Library.
➡️ FALSE
It says “Wilfrid Voynich... bought the manuscript from a Jesuit college in Italy in 1912”, not that he donated it to the library.
29. Interest in the Voynich manuscript extends beyond that of academics and professional codebreakers.
➡️ TRUE
The passage says: “all sorts of people write in with their proposed translations...”, suggesting wide interest.
30. The text of the Voynich manuscript contains just under 70 symbols.
➡️ FALSE
It clearly states: “more than 20 distinct characters” and “more than 170,000-character text” – not 70 symbols.
✅ Questions 31–34 (Match with a person A–H)
31. The number of times the same words occur make it unlikely that the manuscript is based on an authentic language.
➡️ A. Gordon Rugg
He demonstrated that the manuscript’s repeated patterns could be meaningless.
32. Unlike some other similar objects of fascination, people can gain direct access to the Voynich manuscript.
➡️ F. Rob Churchill
He says you can “see for yourself” – it's accessible.
33. The person who wrote the manuscript may not have been entirely sane.
➡️ E. Rob Churchill
He says the author “may have just lost touch with text reality.”
34. It is likely that the author of the manuscript is the same person as suggested by Wilfrid Voynich.
➡️ D. William Newbold
He supported Voynich’s claim that Roger Bacon was the author.
✅ Questions 35–39 (Summary Completion)
35. microscope
Newbold believed Bacon had one.
36. concepts
Friedman said the artificial language used words derived from concepts.
37. computer
Friedman believed the computer would aid future decoding.
38. spectral analysis
Landini used this method.
39. table
Rugg used a table with a grille to generate symbols.
✅ Question 40 (Choose the correct letter)
40. C. assess differing theories about the manuscript.
The passage does not solve the mystery but presents multiple viewpoints – author theories, decoding attempts, hoax hypotheses, and modern research.
PASSWORD: 14MAY2025
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