TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC ĐÀ LẠT TRUNG TÂM NGOẠI NGỮ VÀ ĐÀO TẠO NGUỒN NHÂN LỰC ÔN TẬP KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC – BẬC 56 VÀ BẬC 46 Test Format The IELTS Academic Reading test is made up of three parts and a total of 40 ques................................................................................................................................................
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC ĐÀ LẠT TRUNG TÂM NGOẠI NGỮ VÀ ĐÀO TẠO NGUỒN NHÂN LỰC ÔN TẬP KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC – BẬC 5/6 VÀ BẬC 4/6 Test Format The IELTS Academic Reading test is made up of three parts and a total of 40 questions You are recommended to spend 20 minutes on each part Each of the three sections contains one long text with sets of two or three different types of questions attached to it There are 12 main types of questions: 1) Matching Headings 7) Summary Completion 2) Multiple Choice 8) Matching Sentence Endings 3) Short Answer 9) Sentence Completion 4) Name Matching 10) Matching Paragraph Information 5) True/False/Not Given 11) Table Completion 6) Yes/No/Not Given 12) Diagram Labeling Matching Headings Questions Key problems: There are more headings than paragraphs – this makes it harder to narrow down the correct ones Some headings will be very similar in meaning It’s easy to confuse specific details in a paragraph with the main idea – they may be different Synonyms and paraphrasing will often be used It’s easy to spend too much time on this type of question Read Headings First, Then Text Follow these steps 1) Read the headings First, read the full instructions, including the headings, then focus in on the headings Read each carefully and try to understand what it means Remember, each will summarise the main idea of the paragraph it matches Also remember that there will be more headings than paragraphs so you won’t need them all 2) Underline key words If a heading contains names, numbers, dates or place names, underline these to identify them as key words that should be easy to spot in the text Or there may be a key noun that stands out It could be one that occurs in more than one heading Doing this will help you to match information in the text and headings as you read each paragraph 3) Read the first paragraph Your aim is to identify the main idea Focus on the first one or two sentences and the last sentence as these will probably introduce and summarise this main idea Skim read the rest of the text You not need to know the detail for this type of question Look out for any keywords you underlined in the heading Be aware that synonyms could be used instead Note that occasionally a section will contain more than one paragraph In this case, you’ll need to find the main idea in each paragraph 4) Choose the matching heading => You should focus on the first two sentences and the last one, then skim read the rest of the paragraph Multiple Choice Questions The aim of this type of question is to test if you can: Understand the main idea of each paragraph Scan for specific information Use detailed reading to differentiate between several possible answers You will be asked to: 1) Read the first half of a sentence, a statement or a question about the text 2) Choose the most appropriate sentence ending, response or answer from a choice of a number of options (usually 4) Only one is correct although several could appear to be the right one on first reading, so beware Short Answer Questions/ Summary Completion/ Sentence Completion Key tips 1) Read the questions first, then the text 2) The answers will be in order in the text So, once you've found the answer to question 1, you’ll know that the answer to question will come soon after, and so on 3) Don’t go over the word limit stated for your answers, for example, ‘NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER.’ If you do, your answer will be marked ‘wrong’ even if the information you give is correct 4) Use only the actual words from the text for your answer You may need to change the tense of any verbs you use to ensure your answer is grammatically correct 5) Most questions will contain synonyms or paraphrasing of the text, that is, the meaning will be the same but the wording slightly different How to Borrow Books Most libraries require you to register before you are allowed to borrow any of their materials This means you will probably be asked to fill out and sign a registration card When you this, you are not only giving the library your name and address for their files, you are also signing an agreement The agreement says, basically, that you will obey the rules of the library A parent or guardian is sometimes also required to sign the card To be entitled to use your school library, you probably must only be enrolled in that school Once you are registered, you will be issued a library or borrower's card On this card will be your name and a number Each time you check out, that is, officially borrow something from the library, you will have to present this card to the librarian If your library is large enough, it may have film equipment that you may borrow To so, however, the library usually requires a separate registration You may also have to take and pass a course the library gives on how to operate the different pieces of equipment You usually check out and return borrowed materials at the same desk The sign on this desk may read Circulation Desk, Check Out Here, or perhaps Charge Desk The library staff member at this desk will take your card and stamp the book card with a date This is the date by which you are expected to return the material to the library, so others can have the chance of borrowing it Many libraries allow you to renew the book if it has not been requested by others Some libraries charge a fine for each day a library book is overdue, kept out beyond the date stamped on the book card There are also often fines for books returned damaged or written in Should you lose a library book, you may be required to pay the library the amount it was worth Not paying fines could result in your losing all library privileges Complete the summary below by choosing NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage How to Borrow Books for each answer Most libraries require you to register before you borrow any books First of all, you will need to fill out and sign _and while doing so, you are also 2. _ with the library Later each time you check out, you will have to present a library card to the librarian In some libraries, you will be required to make a separate registration if you want to borrow _ and at the same time, you will have to take and _ on how to operate the equipment When you borrow library books, the librarian will put a 5. _ on the book card so that you know when to return them If you want to keep the books longer, you can _ it if nobody requests them Name Matching Questions Key tips The statements will not appear in the same order in the text as they are listed in the instructions Neither will the names appear in the same order that they are listed The statements will usually paraphrase information in the text Some of the names might be shortened in the text to an initial and surname, or just the first name or last name might be used For example, ‘Gregor Borek’ may be shortened to ‘G Borek’, ‘Gregor’ or ‘Borek’ It can be helpful to have different coloured pens to underline the different names in the text Don’t spend too long on any one statement If you get stuck, move on to the next one Come back to it when you’ve eliminated other statements and there are thus fewer to choose from In some test papers, there will be more statements than there are names and you will be told in the instructions that you can use a letter (i.e a name) more than once This is the case in the following instructions from a real test paper Matching Sentence Endings Key tips 1) The answers appear in the same order in the text as the order of the list of incomplete sentences 2) Use a process of elimination to select the correct answers 3) Don’t read the text until you’ve studied the incomplete sentences and the sentence endings 4) You don’t need to read the whole text in detail, just the relevant sentences 5) All the sentence endings will appear in the text but not all will match one of the incomplete sentences 6) Synonyms and paraphrasing will be used You are matching meaning, not the exact words 7) The grammatical structure of the two halves of the sentence must match If they don’t, you have the wrong match Matching Paragraph Information Key tips 1) The answers will not come in the same order in the text as the order of the list of statements 2) Some paragraphs may not contain an answer 3) A paragraph could contain more than one answer 4) Expect lots of synonyms Be particularly aware of information that can be represented in words and figures For example, ½ – a half 15º – fifteen degrees 69% – sixty-nine per cent 5) Usually, you’ll find the matching information in a phrase or whole sentence, not in an individual word Simplicity reigns at London's biggest design festival (A) With upwards of 300 product launches, installations and exhibitions, London's annual nine-day design festival is a showcase of head-spinning choice In many ways that's the beauty of the extravaganza, everyone has a different experience and takes something unique away from it There were however some intriguing themes and trends in this year's edition that spoke to larger social or cultural preoccupations (B) One was the launch of two consumer electronics products designed to simplify and beautify our technology-addled lives Both chose the new London Design Festival venue of Somerset House to show their wares The first was a mobile phone launched by Swiss company Punkt and designed by Jasper Morrison that allows users to make calls and texts only (well, it has an alarm clock and an address book too) Punkt founder Petter Neby doesn't believe it will replace your smart phone but suggests users fit it with the same SIM card as your main phone and use it in the evenings, weekends and on holiday (C) The other electronics launch came from the unlikely French sibling duo of the Bouroullec brothers Though tech companies like Samsung are usually prescriptive about their products the Bouroullecs (who admitted they found most TVs sad and ugly) seem to have been given free rein Their new television for the mega Korean brand looks more like an item of furniture than an ultralarge and ultra-slim piece of tech More importantly, it comes with simplified on-screen interaction and a 'curtain mode' that turns your screen into a shimmering pattern during ads or half-time Again, their focus was on dialing down digital insanity (D) Customizable online furniture was also very much in vogue at this year's festival But rest assured, weird and unreliable software or off-the-wall designs sent to a 3D printer somewhere and arriving months later, seem to be a thing of the past Customization may finally have come of age Two examples were Scandi-brand Hem that combined good design by the likes of Luca Nichetto, Form Us With Love and Sylvain Willenz with affordable price points The fact that the brand opened a pop-up store in Covent Garden during the festival is a recognition of the importance of both physical and online spaces that work seamlessly together Simply put, the key point of semantics lies in, not the words definition, but our own semantic reactions, which occur when we respond to things the way they “should” be, rather than to the way they are If a person was to tell a shockingly obscene story in Arabic or Hindustani or Swahili before an audience that understood only English, no one would blush or be angry; the story would be neither shocking nor obscene— indeed, it would not even be a story Likewise, the value of a dollar bill is not in the bill, but in our social agreement to accept it as a symbol of value If that agreement were to break down through the collapse of our government, the dollar bill would become only a scrap of paper We not understand a dollar bill by staring at it long and hard We understand it by observing how people act with respect to it We understand it by understanding the social mechanisms and the loyalties that keep it meaningful Therefore, semantics belongs to social studies and potentially underpins the integrity of the social sciences Questions 27 - 31 CIRCLE the correct letter, A, B, C or D 27 What point is made in the first paragraph? A The aim of education is to teach people to read B Semantics focuses on the definition of words C Printed words only carry meaning to those who have received appropriate ways to respond D Writers should ensure their works satisfy a variety of readers 28 According to the second paragraph, people are judged by A their level of education B the closely-related people around them C how conventional their responses are D complex situations 29 What point is made in the third paragraph? A Standard ways are incapable of defining words precisely B A dictionary often provides clear definitions of words C Infinite regress is a common occurrence in a dictionary D Mathematicians could define words accurately 30 What does the writer suggest about Louis Armstrong? A He is a language expert B He demonstrated there are similarities between music and language C He provided insights into how words are defined D His good skill in music helped him research in other fields 31 What manager‖? A B C D does the writer intend to show with the example of the ―personnel The manager hates applicants from Harvard University Meaning can be unique to one person The manager has a bad memory of Harvard University People’s behaviour usually doesn’t agree with their words Questions 32-35 - Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage - WRITE YES NO NOT GIVEN if the statement agrees with the views of the writer if the statement contradicts the views of the writer if it is impossible to say that the writer thinks about this 32 _ Some statements are incapable of being proved or disproved 33 _ Meaning that is unique to an individual is less worthy of study than shared meanings 34 _ Flags and words are both elicited responses 35 _ A story can be entertaining without being understood Questions 36 – 40 - Complete each sentence with the correct ending, below - Write 36 A comic strip _ 37 A dictionary _ 38 Bridgman _ 39 A story in a language the audience cannot understand _ 40 A dollar bill without public acceptance _ A is meaningless B can have a lasting effect on human behaviour C is a symbol that has lost its meaning D can be understood only in its social context E can provide only an inadequate definition of meaning F reflects the variability of human behaviours G emphasizes the importance of analyzing how words were used H suggests that certain types of behaviour carry more meaning than others TEST READING PASSAGE You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage below The beginning of intelligence A No one doubts that intelligence develops as children grow older Yet the concept of intelligence has proved both quite difficult to define in unambiguous terms and unexpectedly controversial in some respects Although at one level, there seem to be almost as many definitions of intelligence as people who have tried to define it, there is broad agreement on two key features That is, intelligence involves the capacity not only to learn from experience but also to adapt to one’s environment However, we cannot leave the concept there Before turning to what is known about the development of intelligence, it is necessary to consider whether we are considering the growth of one or many skills That question has been tackled in rather different ways by psychometricians and by developmentalists B The former group has examined the issue by determining how children’s abilities on a wide range of tasks intercorrelate, or go together Statistical techniques have been used to find out whether the patterns are best explained by one broad underlying capacity, general intelligence, or by a set of multiple, relatively separate, special skills in domains such as verbal and visuospatial ability While it cannot be claimed that everyone agrees on what the results mean, most people now accept that for practical purposes it is reasonable to suppose that both are involved In brief, the evidence in favour of some kind of general intellectual capacity is that people who are superior (or inferior) on one type of task tend also to be superior (or inferior) on others Moreover, general measures of intelligence tend to have considerable powers to predict a person’s performance on a wide range of tasks requiring special skills Nevertheless, it is plain that it is not at all uncommon for individuals to be very good at some sorts of task and yet quite poor at some others C Furthermore the influences that affect verbal skills are not quite the same as those that affect other skills This approach to investigating intelligence is based on the nature of the task involved, but studies of age-related changes show that this is not the only, or necessarily the most important, approach For instance, some decades ago, Horn and Cattell argued for a differentiation between what they termed‘fluid’ and‘crystallised’ intelligence Fluid abilities are best assessed by tests that require mental manipulation of abstract symbols Crystallised abilities, by contrast, reflect knowledge of the environment in which we live and past experience of similar tasks; they may be assessed by tests of comprehension and information It seems that fluid abilities peak in early adult life, whereas crystallised abilities increase up to advanced old D Developmental studies also show that the interconnections between different skills vary with age Thus in the first year of life an interest in perceptual patterns is a major contributor to cognitive abilities, whereas verbal abilities are more important later on These findings seemed to suggest a substantial lack of continuity between infancy and middle childhood However, it is important to realise that the apparent discontinuity will vary according to which of the cognitive skills were assessed in infancy It has been found that tests of coping with novelty predict later intelligence These findings reinforce the view that young children’s intellectual performance needs to be assessed from their interest in and curiosity about the environment, and the extent to which this is applied to new situations, as well as by standardised intelligence testing E These psychometric approaches have focused on children’s increase in cognitive skills as they grow older Piaget brought about a revolution in the approach to cognitive development through his arguments ( backed up by observations) that the focus should be on the thinking processes involved rather than on levels of cognitive achievement These ideas of Piaget gave rise to an immense body of research and it would be true to say that subsequent thinking has been heavily dependent on his genius in opening up new ways of thinking about cognitive development Nevertheless, most of his concepts have had to be so radically revised, or rejected, that his theory no longer provides an appropriate basis for thinking about cognitive development To appreciate why that is so, we need to focus on some rather different elements of Piaget’s theorising F The first element, which has stood the test of time, is his view that the child is nactive agent of learning and of the importance of this activity in cognitive development Numerous studies have shown how infants actively scan their environment; how they prefer patterned to non-patterned objects, how they choose novel over familiar stimuli, and how they explore their environment as if to see how it works Children’s questions and comments vividly illustrate the ways in which they are constantly constructing schemes of what they know and trying out their ideas of how to fit new knowledge into those schemes or deciding that the schemes need modification Moreover, a variety of studies have shown that active experiences have a greater effect on learning than comparable passive experiences However, a second element concerns the notion that development proceeds through a series of separate stages that have to be gone through step-by-step, in a set order, each of which is characterised by a particular cognitive structure That has turned out to be a rather misleading way of thinking about cognitive development, although it is not wholly wrong Questions 1-4 Circle the correct letter, A, B, C or D Most researchers accept that one feature of intelligence is the ability to A change our behaviour according to our situation B react to others’ behaviour patterns C experiment with environmental features D cope with unexpected setbacks What have psychometricians used statistics for? A to find out if cooperative tasks are a useful tool in measuring certain skills B to explore whether several abilities are involved in the development of intelligence C to demonstrate that mathematical models can predict test results for different skills D to discover whether common sense is fundamental to developing children’s abilities Why are Horn and Cattell mentioned? A They disagreed about the interpretation of different intelligence tests B Their research concerned both linguistic and mathematical abilities C They were the first to prove that intelligence can be measured by testing a range of special skills D Their work was an example of research into how people’s cognitive skills vary with age What was innovative about Piaget’s research? A He refused to accept that children developed according to a set pattern B He emphasised the way children thought more than how well they did in tests C He used visually appealing materials instead of traditional intelligence tests D He studied children of all ages and levels of intelligence Questions 5-10 - Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage? - Write YES if the statement agrees with the information NO if the statement contradicts the information NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this 5. _ A surprising number of academics have come to the same conclusion about what the term intelligence means 6. _ A general test of intelligence is unlikely to indicate the level of performance in every type of task _ The elderly perform less well on comprehension tests than young adults _ We must take into account which skills are tested when comparing intelligence at different ages _ Piaget’s work influenced theoretical studies more than practical research 10 _ Piaget’s emphasis on active learning has been discredited by later researchers Questions 11-14 Complete the summary using the list of words, A-I, below Write your answers Researchers investigating the development of intelligence have shown that 11. _ skills become more significant with age One good predictor of 12 _ intelligence is the degree to which small children are 13. _ about their surroundings and how much interest they show on finding themselves in an 14 _ setting A adult B practical C verbal D spatial E inquisitive F uncertain G academic H plentiful I unfamiliar READING PASSAGE You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 15–26, which are based on the reading passage below The contribution of language to business People say that business is all about relationships, but the truth is that business is really all about language communication Languages make either a direct or indirect contribution to business and industry—from acquiring and retaining customers to improving employee engagement and performance At the most fundamental level, business cannot happen without communication This is even more true in the era of globalization As geographic borders become porous and the world flattens, effective communication with customers, employees, partners, suppliers, and other stakeholders across the globe becomes essential to successfully running a company There is no universal agreement on how significant the language factor is; nor the degree of language proficiency in contribution to the success of business and industry In large modern enterprises, people have the unique experience of working with thousands of organizations across different industries and sectors that are tackling this very problem Companies adjust to these demographic, cultural, and economic trends and proactively build workforces with the skills and capabilities needed to grow and thrive in this multicultural and international economy Although the combination of business functions and processes impacted by improved communication may vary from company to company, language skills consistently deliver tangible business value and results for organizations that invest in language training Although English is dominant for international transactions, many business people also think and deal in scores of languages Companies that operate solely in English will miss opportunities to capitalize on the explosive growth in developing and untapped markets at home and abroad These companies also run the risk of misunderstandings with customers, and with members of an increasingly global workforce Moreover, travellers on business need to have different levels of language proficiency On a basic level, they are able to use the language at the airport and to check in at the hotel Besides, they need a high language proficiency to deal with workers at their offshore factories One of the biggest business advantages of a workforce that can effectively communicate in more than one language is the ability to reach new markets—both at home and abroad On the domestic side, for example, the U.S has become even more of a melting pot than in the past, with minorities accounting for a greater proportion of the total population Accordingly, in domestic venues, the consumer contacts and service activities also ask for workers with good skills of different languages, such as at restaurants or in duty-free stores The language proficiency needed to hold a conversation is quite different from that needed for negotiating Receptionists and telephonists are the first point of contact between firms The language proficiency they need is to gather basic factual information Yet negotiating well in another language is one of the most difficult skills, especially nowadays when it is often done at a distance by videoconference, teleconference or email It is also one of the most important things to well, with usually a clear financial penalty for doing it badly To really master the negotiating skill, negotiators need a thorough understanding of the very many phrases they might hear during a negotiation and an ability to show fine shades in meaning in their own contributions Similar to negotiating, certain occupations like shipping, also require unbroken and detailed communication between officials When it comes to negotiation, the interpreters and translators are needed Interpreters and translators aid communication by converting messages or text from one language into another language Although some people both, interpreting and translating are different professions: interpreters work with spoken communication, and translators work with written communication The selection of interpreters and translators is critical Both the loyalty and accuracy of the interpreters and translators must be put at the top of agenda Thus, loyalty to the speaker and the original appears to be a hallmark of professionals more so than of amateurs Who can judge the performance of the interpreters? A person with language proficiency is needed in the negotiating team to check on the interpreters, guaranteeing the quality and accuracy of the interpretation Listeners are presumably listening only to the output and as such not aware of the structure of the source speech Only an experienced expert will understand the constraints of any given situation and be in a position to judge Only she (or he) can assess just how the speed, density and complexity of the speech will affect interpretation in any particular language combination And even this task is not easy: interpreters are trained to listen and speak at the same time, not to listen to two different audio streams Therefore, the check-on is best accomplished by those trained to teach or with enough experience to have mastered this skill Businesses may ask help from local consultants who are responsible for hiring local workers or train company managers to deal with local consumers That was the case with CommScope, a multibillion dollar telecom equipment manufacturer with customers, employees, and partners in 18 countries across the world In the wake of these transactions, the company began offering Jacqueline K Crofton, a local resident, language training to key employees and executives The goal of the training was not to make employees fluent in the new language, as much as to give them a degree of functional proficiency “In order to advance well in new markets and with new customers, we had to be able to at least understand and communicate at a basic level, even with the use of interpreters,” says David Hartsoe, manager of CommScope’s Global Learning Center In the long run, effective communication will definitely help their employees stay positive and productive Questions 15 - 19 Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 2? Write YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say that the writer thinks about this 15 _ All businesses have recognized the importance of language to business 16 _ English is the most important language for all business purposes 17 _ Senior executives, especially, need to be fluent in the language of their trading partners 18 _ Travelers on business need several different levels of language proficiency 19 _ Some businesses provide interpreter training to their employees Questions 20-23 Answer the questions below Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer Write your answers 20 What level of language proficiency are the workers required in the duty-free stores? _ 21 Who are the first people the client usually have contact with in business? _ 22 Which industry is _ high language proficiency essential to? 23 What business are _ interpreters and translators needed for? Questions 24 – 26 Circle the correct letter; A, B, C or D 24 One of the most important qualities of the interpreter is A common sense B industry knowledge and contacts C appropriate reaction D trustworthiness 25 A qualified interpreter is essential to the business for A ensuring cultural appropriateness B accuracy of information C success in trading D financial reasons 26 In the writer’s opinion, hiring an indigenous person to improve the dialect language proficiency of the company staff is A unethical B unlikely C sensible D expensive READING PASSAGE You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27- 40, which are based on the reading passage below History of telegraph in communication Jean-Antoine Nollet was a French clergyman and physicist In 1746 he gathered about two hundred monks into a circle about a mile (1.6 km) in circumference, with pieces iron wire connecting them He then discharged a battery of Leyden jars through the human chain and observed that each man reacted at substantially the same time to the electric shock, showing that the speed of electricity's propagation was very high Given a more humane detection system, this could be a way of signaling over long distances In 748, Nollet invented one of the first electrometers, the electroscope, which detected the presence of an electric charge by using electrostatic attraction and repulsion After the introduction of the European semaphore lines in 1792, the world's desire to further its ability to communicate from a distance only grew People wanted a way to send and receive news from remote locations so that they could better understand what was happening in the world around them—not just what was going on in their immediate town or city This type of communication not only appealed to the media industry, but also to private individuals and companies who wished to stay in touch with contacts In 1840 Charles Wheatstone from Britain, with William Cooke, obtained a new patent for a telegraphic arrangement The new apparatus required only a single pair of wires, but the telegraph was still too costly for general purposes In 845, however, Cooke and Wheatstone succeeded in producing the single needle apparatus, which they patented,and from that time the electric telegraph became a practical instrument, soon adopted on all the railway lines of the country It was the European optical telegraph, or semaphore, that was the predecessor of the electrical recording telegraph that changed the history of communication forever Building on the success of the optical telegraph, Samuel F B Morse completed a working version of the electrical recording telegraph, which only required a single wire to send code of dots and dashes At first, it was imagined that only a few highly skilled encoders would be able to use it but it soon became clear that many people could become proficient in Morse code A system of lines strung on telegraph poles began to spread in Europe and America In the 1840s and 1850s several individuals proposed or advocated construction of a telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean, including Edward Thornton and Alonzo Jackman At that time there was no material available for cable insulation and the first breakthrough came with the discovery of a rubber-like latex called gutta percha Introduced to Britain in 1843, gutta percha is the gum of a tree native to the Malay Peninsula and Malaysia After the failure of their first cable in 1850, the British brothers John and Jacob Brett laid a successful submarine cable from Dover to Calais in 1851 This used two layers of gutta percha insulation and an armoured outer layer With thin wire and thick insulation, it floated and had to be weighed down with lead pipe In the case of first submarine-cable telegraphy, there was the limitation of knowledge of how its electrical properties were affected by water The voltage which may be impressed on the cable was limited to a definite value Moreover, for certain reasons, the cable had an impedance associated with it at the sending end which could make the voltage on the cable differ from the voltage applied to the sending-end apparatus In fact, the cable was too big for a single boat, so two had to start in the middle of the Atlantic, join their cables and sail in opposite directions Amazingly, the first official telegram to pass between two continents was a letter of congratulation from Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom to the President of the United States, James Buchanan, on August 16, 858 However, signal quality declined rapidly, slowing transmission to an almost unusable speed and the cable was destroyed the following month To complete the link between England and Australia, John Pender formed the BritishAustralian Telegraph Company The first stage was to lay a 557nm cable from Singapore to Batavia on the island of Java in 1870 It seemed likely that it would come ashore qt the northern port of Darwin from where it might connect around the coast to Queensland and New South Wales It was an undertaking more ambitious than spanning ocean Flocks of sheep had to be driven with the 400 workers to provide food They needed horses and bullock carts and, for the parched interior, camels In the north, tropical rains left the teams flooded In the centre, it seemed that they would die of thirst One critical section in the red heart of Australia involved finding a route through the McDonnell mountain range and then finding water on the other side The water was not only essential for the construction teams There had to be telegraph repeater stations every few hundred miles to boost the signal and the staff obviously had to have a supply of water On August 22, 1872, the Northern and Southern sections of the Overland Telegraph Line were connected, uniting the Australian continent and within a few months, Australia was at last in direct contact with England via the submarine cable, too This allowed the Australian Government to receive news from around the world almost instantaneously for the first time It could cost several pounds to send a message and it might take several hours for it to reach its destination on the other side of the globe, but the world would never be the same again The telegraph was the first form of communication over a great distance and was a landmark in human history Question 27 - 32 Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage In boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet, write TRUE if the statement agrees with the information FALSE if the statement contradicts the information NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this 27 _ In the research of the French scientist, metal lines were used to send messages 28 _ People increasingly hoped to explore ways of long-distance communication in the late eighteenth century 29 _ Using Morse Code to send message needed special personnel to first simplify the message, 30 _ Morse was a famous inventor before he invented the code 31 _ Water was significant to early telegraph repeater stations on the continent 32 _ The Australian Government offered funds for the first overland line across the continent Questions 33 - 40 Answer the questions below Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer Write your answers 33 Why did Charles Wheatstone’s telegraph system fail to come into common use in the beginning? 34 What material was used for insulating cable across the sea? _ 35 What was used by British pioneers to increase the weight of the cable in the sea? 36 What would occur in the submarine cable when the voltage was applied? 37 Who was a message first sent to across the Atlantic by the Queen? 38 What animals were used to carry the cable through desert? 39 What weather condition delayed construction in north Australia? 40 How long did it take to send a telegraph message from Australia to England in 1872? - KẾT THÚC PHẦN ÔN TẬP KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC BẬC VÀ -