Listening practice 17 oct merged

Our inventory came up with about 9,500 insect species feeding on 200 species of tree, and they do it in 50,000 different ways.. We found that a tree species has about the same number of

IELTS PRACTICE TASK 1

Fieldwork on the Final Frontier

What is it like to work in the remote forests of Papua New Guinea? Biologist Vojtech Novotny knows better than most

Let me tell you about our work in Papua New Guinea We’ve built a research station on the northern coast

About five per cent of all species live in Papua New Guinea With the Amazon and the Congo, it is one of the

three largest areas of rainforest still left

Papua New Guinea has about 800 different languages, a really amazing diversity, and there are 20 different

ones within a 20 mile radius of our station Because different tribes speak such different languages, they also

speak one universal language, pidgin English Once you learn that – and Europeans usually manage this in

less than six months – you can speak directly to the local people This is socially very rewarding because there

is a coming together of tribal culture and high-level academic culture

We have a team of what we call para-ecologists These are people we train in scientific methods and pay

to work with us The local people are perfect for this They not only have an intimate knowledge of the local

geography, they also have an extensive knowledge of taxonomy, especially of the trees We connect the Latin

names with their local language names and then explain that we need caterpillars from this list of trees, and

ask them to collect them for us On one occasion, we were studying tiny larvae that bore tunnels in leaves

I put a fairly high reward for every live insect We were expecting that our collectors might earn £5 a day,

which is reasonable by Papua New Guinea standards and by our budget But embarrassingly, they found so

many that we had to lower the rate because otherwise we would have gone bankrupt

This collaboration with local people helps our research because it opens up possibilities that others

don’t have For instance, we have contacts with people who own the forest that they cut down for their

subsistence, using traditional ‘slash-and-burn’ agricultural methods We always like to shock our fellow

biologists at conferences by describing how we are cutting down tropical forests so that we can survey

insects from the canopy But that’s exactly what we are doing When local people were clearing their part of

the forest, we worked with them, slowly taking the forest apart, collecting caterpillars, ants, everything

We have devised a 3D structure of insects and plants in the forest Our inventory came up with about 9,500

insect species feeding on 200 species of tree, and they do it in 50,000 different ways Even for us ecologists,

this is a mind-boggling complexity However, ecologists also tend to get overexcited by the huge diversity we

see in rainforests and extrapolate it to unrealistic numbers of species for the entire planet Previous estimates

put the number of insect species worldwide at 30 million We put it at six million We found that a tree

species has about the same number of insect species feeding on it whether it grows in Papua New Guinea or

Europe: tropical forests are so rich in insects only because they have so many species of tree

TASK TYPE 6 Identifying the Writer’s Views and Claims (Yes/No/Not Given)

ACADEMIC READING

88

Questions 1–6

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in the Reading Passage?

Next to questions 1–6, write

YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer

NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

1 The range of languages in the region makes communication difficult for Europeans

2 The training of para-ecologists costs less in Papua New Guinea than in Europe

3 Reducing the rate of pay offered to specimen collectors can reduce their effectiveness

4 The fact that some local collaborators are also landowners is an advantage

5 The researchers try to discourage the use of destructive agricultural practices

6 There is a tendency for scientists to underestimate the diversity of species in existence in the world

TASK TYPE 6 Identifying the Writer’s Views and Claims (Yes/No/Not Given)

IELTS PRACTICE TASK 2

The Future of Coal

Can this source of energy ever be made cleaner?

Coal currently provides an estimated 40% of the world’s electricity, and with that, millions of jobs for people

working in the sector It also produces 39% of global carbon dioxide, and causes serious health problems for

many urban populations As a source of energy, it provides us with heat and power, but it is often a disaster

for local environments and the global climate

The big question is not how we can make coal clean, which is impossible, but how to make it cleaner In the

USA, the Clean Air Act was a law that was introduced to reduce the emission of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen

oxides from factories and power plants The consequent reductions have been dramatic, showing that laws

like this can and do make a difference Unfortunately, less progress has been made with carbon dioxide

regulations Last year 34.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide were emitted from fossil fuels, the highest

amount on record, with coal contributing the most Cheap natural gas has recently reduced the demand for

coal in the USA, but elsewhere demand is rising Over the next twenty years several hundred million people

worldwide will gain access to electricity for the first time, and it is likely that most of them will use power

produced by coal

American Electric Power’s Mountaineer Plant in West Virginia supplies electricity to 1.3 million customers

across seven states Those customers pay relatively little to power the contents of their households:

refrigerators, washers, dryers, flat screens and lights, but neither they nor any American power company

have to pay anything for the right to pollute the atmosphere However, to their credit, Mountaineer did carry

out an experiment in containing the carbon they produced Through a complex chemical process, they were

able to compress over 37,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide and inject it into a large area of sandstone a

mile below ground level It was a successful system and they had planned to develop the project further

to increase the amount of carbon dioxide that they could capture However, they were unable to obtain the

financial investment they needed from the United States Department of Energy, due to a change in climate

change legislation, and they were forced to abandon it

Trapping carbon dioxide underground is nothing new, however Other companies in North America and

Norway have also been experimenting with this for the last few decades Although some voices in the media

have expressed concerns about the possibility of a sudden and catastrophic leak of carbon dioxide – which

would be lethal to people and animals – the risk of this happening is extremely low More worrying would be

smaller leaks occurring over long periods of time that would defeat the purpose of storage The task ahead,

then, is to make carbon capture more efficient, and countries such as China are keen to make this happen

In Tianjin, about 85 miles from Beijing, a power plant called GreenGen is China’s first power plant designed

to capture 80% of its emissions, and likewise, in the U.S a new power plant in eastern Mississippi has

also come up with the technology to capture a high proportion of carbon dioxide Technological innovation is

only half a solution, though It won’t be adopted by other power companies until governments require it, for

instance, by imposing a tax on the carbon that plants emit This may be a small price to pay for the sake of our

future

TASK TYPE 6 Identifying the Writer’s Views and Claims (Yes/No/Not Given)

ACADEMIC READING

90

Which statement best describes how you feel about Identifying the Writer’s Views and Claims (Yes/No/Not Given) tasks?

I feel confident about doing Yes/No/Not Given tasks

I did OK, but I still need to do more work on Yes/No/Not Given tasks

I need more practice with Yes/No/Not Given tasks I need to focus on …

Questions 1–6

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in the Reading Passage?

Next to questions 1–6, write

YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer

NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

1 The Clean Air Act has been disappointing in what it has achieved so far

2 The use of natural gas in the USA is likely to soon overtake the use of coal

3 People need to be more responsible in the way they use power in their homes

4 It was Mountaineer’s own choice to give up its carbon dioxide storage project

5 There is only a small chance that stored carbon dioxide might escape from below ground

6 Carbon-storage technology will only spread if the government makes it compulsory

TASK TYPE 6 Identifying the Writer’s Views and Claims (Yes/No/Not Given)