IELTS practice test 10 reading academic test

IELTS PRACTICE TESTS READING TEST 10 IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Pra ctice Test / Rea ding Good Luck! 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and you will be considered to have accepted such changes if you use this web site after we have published the changed terms on this web site If you have any questions about this document or our privacy policy, please contact us © IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com , All Rights Reserved This content is for your ow n individua l study only You ca nnot sha re or tra nsm it it Non com plia nce could result in lega l a ction a ga inst you IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Pra ctice Test / Rea ding Reading Academic IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Test 10 IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com © IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com , All Rights Reserved This content is for your ow n individua l study only You ca nnot sha re or tra nsm it it Non com plia nce could result in lega l a ction a ga inst you IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com SECTION Pra ctice Test / Rea ding Questions – 13 Words fail them A It seems companies will soon begin to say goodbye to the written word The basic unit of communication will no longer be typed out in e-mails It will be shot in pictures and shown on video Companies have already discovered that the written word is failing them Its feebleness compared with the moving image was rammed home in 2010 when the sight of BP's oil spewing out into the Gulf of Mexico on YouTube sent a message to the world far more compelling than any written statement could ever be B If the word has become weak at conveying big corporate messages, it has become even weaker at conveying small ones For years the in-boxes of all office workers have been overflowing with unread e-mails But managers will something about it and desist from communicating with staff in this way E-mail will still exist as a way of talking to one person at a time, but as a means of mass communication it will be finished Companies will find instead that to get a message over to employees, customers, shareholders and the outside world, video is far more effective IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com C In the past three years video has come from nothing to make up nearly half of internet traffic; in another three, it is likely to be more than three-quarters So far corporations have taken a back seat in this growth, but they will soon need to climb into the front and start to drive it D This shift in communications will have three important effects It will change the sort of person who makes it to the corner office It will alter the way that businesses are managed And it will shift the position corporations occupy in society and possibly make us like some of them just a little bit more E The new corporate leaders will no longer be pen pushers and bean counters The 20-year reign of faceless bosses will come to an end Charisma will be back in: all successful business chiefs will have to be storytellers and performers Just as political leaders have long had to be dynamite on TV to stand much hope of election or survival, so too will corporate leaders They must be able to sell not only their vision of their companies but their vision of themselves The new big boss will be expected to set an example; any leaders showing signs of human frailty will be out on their ears The moral majority will tighten its hold on corporate life, first in America, but then elsewhere too IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com F With this shift will come a change in management style Numbers and facts will be supplanted by appeals to emotion to make employees and customers what they are told The businessperson's emotion may be no more genuine than the politician's, but successful bosses will get good at faking it Others will struggle: prepare to cringe in as corporate leaders spout a lot of phoney stuff that used to look bad enough when written down, but will sound even worse spoken G One good consequence of the change, however, will be a greater clarity in the way companies think about their businesses The written word was a forgiving medium for over-complicated, ill-conceived messages Video demands simplicity The best companies will use this to their advantage by thinking through more rigorously what it is they are trying to say and © IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com , All Rights Reserved This content is for your ow n individua l study only You ca nnot sha re or tra nsm it it Non com plia nce could result in lega l a ction a ga inst you IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Pra ctice Test / Rea ding Questions - In which paragraph The need for managers to understand peoples' feelings A tool which will be used when communicating with just a single person How personality will become more important An example of video's power compared to the written word A need for corporate change IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Questions - 10 Write True, False or Not Given Large corporations are already using video extensively We will probably like the managers of corporations a lot more Business leaders will have to be seen in public A business leaders ability to sell themselves will become more important 10 The new bosses will have to be physically stronger IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Questions 11 - 13 Complete the summary with NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the text One change which is predicted is that in order to motivate 11 , managers will use different techniques, for example, using 12 rather than data Another change, and no doubt a positive one, is that because of the need for 13 when using video, companies will have to bring more clarity to their business © IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com , All Rights Reserved This content is for your ow n individua l study only You ca nnot sha re or tra nsm it it Non com plia nce could result in lega l a ction a ga inst you IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com SECTION Pra ctice Test / Rea ding Questions 14 – 26 The way the brain buys A It may have occurred to you, during the course of a dismal trawl round a supermarket indistinguishable from every other supermarket you have ever been into, to wonder why they are all the same The answer is more sinister than depressing It is not because the companies that operate them lack imagination It is because they are all versed in the science of persuading people to buy things-a science that, thanks to technological advances, is beginning to unlock the innermost secrets of the consumer's mind B In the Sainsbury's in Hatch Warren, Basingstoke, south-west of London, it takes a while for the mind to get into a shopping mode This is why the area immediately inside the entrance of a supermarket is known as the "decompression zone" People need to slow down and take stock of the surroundings, even if they are regulars In sales terms this area is a bit of a loss, so it tends to be used more for promotion Even the multi-packs of beer piled up here are designed more to hint at bargains within than to be lugged round the aisles Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, famously employs "greeters" at the entrance to its stores Whether or not they boost sales, a friendly welcome is said to cut shoplifting It is harder to steal from nice people IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com C Immediately to the left in Sainsbury's is another familiar sight: a "chill zone" for browsing magazines, books and DVDs, tempting impromptu purchases and slowing customers down But those on a serious mission will keep walking ahead-and the first thing they come to is the fresh fruit and vegetables section D For shoppers, this makes no sense Fruit and vegetables can be easily damaged, so they should be bought at the end, not the beginning, of a shopping trip But psychology is at work here: selecting good wholesome fresh food is an uplifting way to start shopping, and it makes people feel less guilty about reaching for the stodgy stuff later on IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com E Shoppers already know that everyday items, like milk, are invariably placed towards the back of a store to provide more opportunity to tempt customers This is why pharmacies are generally at the rear, even in "convenience" stores But supermarkets know shoppers know this, so they use other tricks, like placing popular items halfway along a section so that people have to walk all along the aisle looking for them The idea is to boost "dwell time": the length of time people spend in a store F Traditionally retailers measure "footfall", as the number of people entering a store is known, but those numbers say nothing about where people go and how long they spend there But nowadays, a ubiquitous piece of technology can fill the gap: the mobile phone Path Intelligence, a British company working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, tracked people's phones at Gunwharf Quays, a large retail and leisure centre in Portsmouth-not by monitoring calls, but by plotting the positions of handsets as they transmit automatically to cellular networks It found that when dwell time rose 1% sales rose 1.3% G Having walked to the end of the fruit and vegetable aisle, Basingstoke's hard-core shoppers arrive at counters of prepared food, the fishmonger, the butcher and the deli Then there is the in-store bakery, which can be smelt before it is seen Even small supermarkets now use in-store bakeries Mostly these bake pre-prepared items and frozen dough, and they have boomed even though central bakeries that deliver to a number of stores are much more efficient They it for the smell of freshly baked bread, which makes people hungry and thus encourages people to buy not just bread but also other food, including frozen stuff © IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com , All Rights Reserved This content is for your ow n individua l study only You ca nnot sha re or tra nsm it it Non com plia nce could result in lega l a ction a ga inst you IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Pra ctice Test / Rea ding H Most of the information that shoppers are bombarded with is visual: labels, price stickers and advertising But the wafting bread aroma shows smell can usefully be stimulated too, says Simon Harrop, chief executive of BRAND sense agency, a British specialist in multi-sensory marketing In the aisle by the laundry section he suggests introducing the smell of freshly laundered sheets Even the sound of sheets being folded could be reproduced here and contained within the area using the latest audio technology The Aroma Company, which Mr Harrop founded, has put the smell of coconut into the shops of Thompson, a British travel agent Some suntan oils smell of coconut, so the scent is supposed to remind people of past holidays The company even infuses the fresh smell of citrus into a range of clothing made by Odeur, a Swedish company It can waft for up to 13 washes I Such techniques are increasingly popular because of a deepening understanding about how shoppers make choices People tell market researchers and "focus groups" that they make rational decisions about what to buy, considering things like price, selection or convenience But subconscious forces, involving emotion and memories, are clearly also at work IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com © IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com , All Rights Reserved This content is for your ow n individua l study only You ca nnot sha re or tra nsm it it Non com plia nce could result in lega l a ction a ga inst you IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Pra ctice Test / Rea ding Questions 14 - 22 Match each heading to the most suitable paragraph i An odour for every product ii The significance of dwell time iii Tricks to keep us in the store iv A healthy start v Price and convenience still rule vi Not so rational vii A smell to whet our appetite viii Slow down Chill out ix Getting customers in the mood x Not a shortage of creativity IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com 14 Paragraph A 15 Paragraph B 16 Paragraph C 17 Paragraph D 18 Paragraph E 19 Paragraph F 20 Paragraph G 21 Paragraph H 22 Paragraph I IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Questions 23 - 26 Write Yes, No or Not Given 23 'Footfall' data is not useful 24 Supermarkets could get very good service from central bakeries 25 People buy more bedding when they hear the sound of sheets being folded 26 The Aroma Company believes the smell of lemon can help to sell clothes © IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com , All Rights Reserved This content is for your ow n individua l study only You ca nnot sha re or tra nsm it it Non com plia nce could result in lega l a ction a ga inst you IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com SECTION Pra ctice Test / Rea ding Questions 27 – 40 The biggest contract A THE great, long-running debate about business's role in society is currently caught between two contrasting, and tired, ideological positions B On one side of the current debate are those who argue that (to borrow Milton Friedman's phrase) the "business of business is business" This belief is most established in Anglo-Saxon economies On this view, social issues are peripheral to the challenges of corporate management The sole legitimate purpose of business is to create shareholder value C On the other side are the proponents of "Corporate Social Responsibility" (CSR), a rapidly growing, rather fuzzy movement encompassing both companies which claim already to practise CSR and sceptical campaign groups arguing they need to go further in mitigating their social impacts As other regions of the world-parts of continental and central Europe, for example- move towards the Anglo-Saxon shareholder-value model, debate between these sides has increasingly taken on global significance IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com D That is a pity Both perspectives obscure in different ways the significance of social issues to business success They also caricature unhelpfully the contribution of business to social welfare It is time for CEOs of big companies to recast this debate and recapture the intellectual and moral high ground from their critics E Large companies need to build social issues into strategy in a way which reflects their actual business importance They need to articulate business's social contribution and define its ultimate purpose in a way that has more subtlety than "the business of business is business" worldview and is less defensive than most current CSR approaches It can help to view the relationship between big business and society in this respect as an implicit "social agreement": Rousseau adapted for the corporate world, you might say This agreement has obligations, opportunities and mutual advantage for both sides IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com F To explain the basis for such an approach, however, it may help first to pinpoint the limitations with the two current ideological poles Start with the "business of business is business" The issue here is not primarily legal In many countries, such as Germany, the legal obligation anyway is to stakeholders, and even in America the legal primacy of shareholders is open to very broad interpretation G The problem with "the business of business" mindset is rather that it can blind management to two important realities The first is that social issues are not so much tangential to the business of business as fundamental to it From a defensive point of view, companies that ignore public sentiment make themselves vulnerable to attack But social pressures can also operate as early indicators of factors core to corporate profitability: for example, the regulations and public-policy environment in which companies must operate; the appetite of consumers for certain goods above others; and the motivation (and willingness to be hired in the first place) of employees H Companies that treat social issues as either irritating distractions or simply unjustified vehicles for attack on business are turning a blind eye to impending forces that have the potential fundamentally to alter their strategic future Although the effect of social pressure on these forces may not be immediate, this is not a reason for companies to delay preparing for or tackling them Even from a strict shareholder-value perspective, most stock market value-typically over 80% in American and western European public © IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com , All Rights Reserved This content is for your ow n individua l study only You ca nnot sha re or tra nsm it it Non com plia nce could result in lega l a ction a ga inst you IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Pra ctice Test / Rea ding markets-depends on expectations of companies' cashflow beyond the next three years I Examples abound of the long-term business impact of social issues These are growing fast In the pharmaceuticals sector, a storm of social pressures over the last decade-stemming from issues such as public perceptions of excessive prices charged for HIV drugs in developing countries, for example-are now translating into a general (and sometimes seemingly indiscriminate) toughening in the regulatory environment In the food and restaurant sector, meanwhile, the long-escalating debate about obesity is now resulting in calls for further controls on the marketing of unhealthy foods In the case of big financial institutions, concerns over conflicts of interest and mis-selling of products have recently led to changes in core business practices and industry structure For some big retailers, public and planning resistance to new stores is constraining growth opportunities And all this is to say nothing of how social and political pressures have reshaped and redefined the tobacco industry, say, or the oil and mining industries over the decades J In all such cases, billions of dollars of shareholder value have been put at stake as the result of social issues that ultimately feed into fundamental drivers of corporate performance In many instances, a "business of business is business" outlook has blinded companies to outcomes (or shifts in their implicit "social agreement") which often could have been anticipated IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com K Just as important, these outcomes have posed not just risks to companies, but also have generated value-creation opportunities In the case of the pharmaceuticals sector, for example, in the growing market for generic (ie, non-patent-protected) drugs; in the case of fast-food restaurants, in providing healthier meals; and in the case of the energy industry, in meeting fast-growing demand (as well as regulatory pressure) for cleaner fuels such as natural gas Social pressures often indicate the existence of unmet social needs or consumer preferences Businesses can gain advantage by spotting and supplying these before their competitors IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com © IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com , All Rights Reserved This content is for your ow n individua l study only You ca nnot sha re or tra nsm it it Non com plia nce could result in lega l a ction a ga inst you IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Pra ctice Test / Rea ding Question 27 - 30 Which paragraph contains 27 a new kind of contract with society 28 the type of economies where shareholder value is king 29 restrictions placed on the marketing of money products 30 a key factor affecting share value Questions 31 - 35 Write True, False or Not Given IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com 31 Social issues can provide companies with early warning signals 32 Tackling social issues early usually has a positive effect on longer-term cash flow 33 Many people would like to see stricter controls over the catering industry 34 Retail companies often need to pay more to expand their premises these days 35 Changes in the oil and mining industries have been similar to those in the tobacco industry IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Questions 36 - 40 Complete the summary with words from the table below The impact of social issues on many large corporations has put billions of dollars of companies' value at 36 Probably the main reason why organisations have not acted more quickly is because of the 37 on the 'business of business is business' way of thinking However, it is now clear that some of the potential threats have created opportunities At the end of the day these 38 for more social awareness are, from a 39 point of view, simply demands which have not yet been 40 reasons, opportunities, way, safe, met, investment, risk, blindness, emphasis, blinded, calls, financial, administrative, marketing, social, offered, supplied, people © IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com , All Rights Reserved This content is for your ow n individua l study only You ca nnot sha re or tra nsm it it Non com plia nce could result in lega l a ction a ga inst you IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Pra ctice Test / Rea ding Answers IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com © IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com , All Rights Reserved This content is for your ow n individua l study only You ca nnot sha re or tra nsm it it Non com plia nce could result in lega l a ction a ga inst you IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Pra ctice Test / Rea ding 10 11 E B D A C False False True True Not Given employees and customers 12 emotion 13 simplicity 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 x ix viii iv iii ii vii i vi Not Given Yes Not Given Yes 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 E B H G True Not Given True Not Given Not Given risk emphasis calls marketing met IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com © IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com , All Rights Reserved This content is for your ow n individua l study only You ca nnot sha re or tra nsm it it Non com plia nce could result in lega l a ction a ga inst you