223 What’s the purpose of gaining knowledge? 27. vi 28. viii 29. ii 30. iv 31. iii 32. vii 33. fire science 34. investigators 35. evidence 36. prosecution 37. NOT GIVEN 38. YES 39. NO 40. NO 224 The History of Glass 1. obsidian 2. spears 3. beads 4. impurities 5. Romans 6. lead 7. clouding 8. taxes 9. TRUE 10. FALSE 11. NOT GIVEN 12. TRUE 13. FALSE 225 Bring back the big cats 14. D 15. A 16. C 17. A 18. C 19. E 20. D 21. F 22. A 23. NO 24. NOT GIVEN 25. YES 26. YES 226 UK companies need more effective boards of directors 27. iv 28. ii 29. vi 30. viii 31. vii 32. i 33. iii 34. YES 35. NOT GIVEN 36. NO 37. NO 38. information 39. financial 40. shareholdersinvestors 227 The risks agriculture faces in developing countries 1. A 2. B 3. H 4. D 5. B 6. C 7. G 8. B 9. A 10. D 11. E Answer to questions 10 11 in any order 12. C 13. D 228 The Lost City 14. iv 15. vi 16. viii 17. v 18. i 19. vii 20. iii 21. TRUE 22. FALSE 23. FALSE 24. NOT GIVEN 25. rubber 26. farmer 229 The Benefits of Being Bilingual 27. eye movements 28. language coactivation 29. Stroop Task 30. conflict management 31. cognitive control 32. YES 33. NOT GIVEN 34. NO 35. NO 36. NOT GIVEN 37. D 38. G 39. B 40. C 230 Flying Tortoises 1. v 2. iii 3. viii 4. i 5. iv 6. vi 7. ii 8. pirates 9. food 10. oil 11. settlers 12. species 13. eggs 231 The Intersection of Health Sciences and Geography 14. D 15. C 16. F 17. G 18. D 19. B 20. vaccinations 21. antibiotics 22. mosquitos 23. factories 24. forests 25. polio 26. mountain 232 Music and the emotions 27. dopamine 28. pleasure 29. caudate 30. anticipatory phase 31. food 32. B 33. C 34. A 35. B 36. D 37. F 38. B 39. E 40. C 233 Coastal Archaeology of Britain 14. B 15. C 16. D 17. TRUE 18. FALSE 19. TRUE 20. FALSE 21. NOT GIVEN 22. TRUE 23. TRUE 24. B 25. D 26. F 234 Travel Books 27. C 28. B 29. Persian wars 30. allies 31. geographical knowledge 32. pilgrimage 33. India 34. colonies 35. organisation 36. wealthy 37. D 38. B 39. A 40. D 235 The Impact of the Potato 1. FALSE 2. FALSE 3. NOT GIVEN 4. TRUE 5. TRUE 6. flower 7. prejudice 8. reverse 9. meat 10. crops 11. soil 12. cultivation 13. investment 236 LifeCasting and Art 14. C 15. E 16. B 17. F 18. D 19. NO 20. NO 21. NO 22. NOT GIVEN 23. NO 24. YES 25. B 26. D 237 Honey bees in trouble 27. YES 28. NOT GIVEN 29. NO 30. YES 31. B 32. C 33. A 34. D 35. B 36. B 37. F 38. E 39. A 40. D 238 Learning color words 1. iv 2. i 3. iii 4. vii 5. training trials 6. position 7. cues 8. meaning 9. unhelpful 10. 11. A, C in either order 12. 13. C, D in either order 239 The history of the poster 15. storage 16. invention 17. color and design 18. crayon 19. transfer paper 20. words and images 21. mass communication 22. exhibition 23. cultural institutions 24. FALSE 25. TRUE 26. TRUE 27. NOT GIVEN 240 Last man standing 28. D 29. E 30. A 31. G 32. C 33. sediment layers 34. ivory and bone 35. technologies 36. skull shapes 37. C 38. B 39. A 40. B 241 Dirty River But Clean Water 1. NOT GIVEN 2. FALSE 3. TRUE 4. FALSE 5. TRUE 6. TRUE 7. NOT GIVEN 8. spring 9. sediment 10. razorback sucker 11. common carp 12. visibility 13. sand 242 Activities for Children 14. A 15. B 16. C 17. D 18. NOT GIVEN 19. TRUE 20. NOT GIVEN 21. FALSE 22. C 23. B 24. C 25. A 26. B 243 Mechanisms of Linguistic Change 27. Sound laws 28. fashion 29. imperfect 30. principle of ease 31. FALSE 32. FALSE 33. NOT GIVEN 34. TRUE 35. TRUE 36. NOT GIVEN 37. TRUE 38. C 39. B 40. A 244 William Gilbert and Magnetism 1. v 2. i 3. vi 4. x 5. ix 6. iv 7. ii 8. TRUE 9. TRUE 10. NOT GIVEN 11. 12. 13. C, D, E in any order 245 The 2003 Heatwave 14. YES 15. YES 16. NO 17. NOT GIVEN 18. YES 19. NOT GIVEN 20. 1976, 1995 21. 2000 floods 22. 1998, 2002 23. 1990 24. 1856 25. France 26. D 246 Amateur Naturalists 27. B 28. C 29. H 30. G 31. E 32. D 33. A 34. beekeeping 35. life cycles 36. droughts 37. C 38. D 39. D 40. D 247 Examining the placebo effect 1. NO 2. YES 3. NOT GIVEN 4. YES 5. NO 6. H 7. A 8. C 9. G 10. E 11. C 12. B 13. A 14. A 248 The MIT factor: celebrating 150 years of maverick genius 14. FALSE 15. FALSE 16. NOT GIVEN 17. TRUE 18. NOT GIVEN 19. computer science 20. program 21. adaptability 22. contact lens 23. a quarter 24. global warming 25. electric cars 26. the corridors 249 The Sweet Scent of Success 1. F 2. E 3. C 4. B 5. G 6. D 7. A 8. C 9. A 10. D 11. B 12. B 13. D 250 Mrs. Carlill and the Carbolic Smoke Ball 14. NOT GIVEN 15. FALSE 16. TRUE 17. NOT GIVEN 18. gauze 19. nozzle 20. powder 21. rubber ball 22. C 23. A 24. D 25. F 26. B 251 Communicating Styles and Conflict 27. iii 28. vii 29. i 30. iv 31. ix 32. viii 33. v 35. FALSE 36. TRUE 37. NOT GIVEN 38. TRUE 39. TRUE 40. B 252 Learning by Examples 1. D 2. A 3. C 4. E 5. FALSE 6. TRUE 7. TRUE 8. FALSE 9. less 10. social 11. watched 12. observer 13. Nutcracker 253 A New Ice Age 14. B 15. A 16. D 17. A 18. B 19. D 20. A 21. B 22. C 23. heat 24. denser 25. Great Ocean Conveyor 26. fresh water 254 The Fruit Book 27. D 28. A 29. C 30. B 31. E 32. I 33. fruitforest fruit 34. Fibre 35. uxi 36. unpredictable 37. piquiapiquia trees 38. subsistence 39. commercial potential 40. nontimber forest products 255 Australian culture and culture shock 1. TRUE 2. NOT GIVEN 3. TRUE 4. FALSE 5. FALSE 6. NOT GIVEN 7. Honeymoon 8. similarities 9. a month 10. enthusiasm 11. cultural clues 12. problemsolving skills 13. adaptation 256 Organic food: why? 14. v 15. i 16. iii 17. ix 18. vii 19. iv 20. 21. B, E in either order 22. 23. B, D in either order 24. 25. B, E in either order 257 Why don’t babies talk like adults? 26. YES 27. YES 28. NOT GIVEN 29. NO 30. C 31. B 32. A 33. F 34. E 35. A 36. C 37. C 38. B 39. D 258 How to Spot a Liar 1. YES 2. YES 3. NOT GIVEN 4. NO 5. YES 6. C 7. D 8. B 9. D 10. A 11. B 12. C 13. A 259 Being Lefthanded in a Righthanded World 14. C 15. A 16. B 17. F 18. D 19. B 20. F 21. D 22. A 23. YES 24. NO 25. NOT GIVEN 26. NOT GIVEN 260 What is a dinosaur? 27. vi 28. xi 29. xiii 30. vii 31. iv 32. v 33. viii 34. skeletal anatomy 35. eosuchians 36. two long bones 37. B 38. G 39. H 40. F 261 The new way to be a fifthgrader 1. D 2. B 3. C 4. B 5. D 6. YES 7. NO 8. NO 9. NOT GIVEN 10. NOT GIVEN 11. B 12. D 13. G 14. E 262 Gold dusters 15. v 16. viii 17. vi 18. x 19. i 20. iii 21. ix 22. flies and beetles 23. furry coats 24. longer distances 25. worker bees 26. 27. C E in either order 263 The Earth and Space Foundation 28. YES 29. NO 30. NOT GIVEN 31. NO 32. NOT GIVEN 33. C 34. A 35. D 36. B 37. B 38. H 39. A 40. D 41. G 264 The Mozart Effect 1. D 2. G
Academic IELTS Reading Sample 223 - What’s the purpose of gaining knowledge? Last Updated: Monday, 14 August 2017 12:27 Written by IELTS Mentor Hits: 16733 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14- 26, which are based on Passage 223 below What’s the purpose of gaining knowledge? Questions 27-32 Reading Passage 223 has six sections, A-F Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below Write the correct number, i-viii, in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet 27 Section A 28 Section B 29 Section C 30 Section D 31 Section E 32 Section F List of Headings i Courses that require a high level of commitment ii A course title with two meanings iii The equal importance of two key issues iv Applying a theory in an unexpected context v The financial benefits of studying vi A surprising course title vii Different names for different outcomes viii The possibility of attracting the wrong kind of student A ‘I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any subject' That was the founder's motto for Cornell University, and it seems an apt characterization of the different university, also in the USA, where I currently teach philosophy A student can prepare for a career in resort management, engineering, interior design, accounting, music, law enforcement, you name it But what would the founders of these two institutions have thought of a course called Arson for Profit’? I kid you not: we have it on the books Any undergraduates who have met the academic requirements can sign up for the course in our program in 'fire science’ B Naturally, the course is intended for prospective arson investigators, who can learn all the tricks of the trade for detecting whether a fire was deliberately set, discovering who did it, and establishing a chain of evidence for effective prosecution in a court of law But wouldn’t this also be the perfect course for prospective arsonists to sign up for? My point is not to criticize academic programs in fire science: they are highly welcome as part of the increasing professionalization of this and many other occupations However, it’s not unknown for a firefighter to torch a building This example suggests how dishonest and illegal behavior, with the help of higher education, can creep into every aspect of public and business life C I realized this anew when I was invited to speak before a class in marketing, which is another of our degree programs The regular instructor is a colleague who appreciates the kind of ethical perspective I can bring as a philosopher There are endless ways I could have approached this assignment, but I took my cue from the title of the course: 'Principles of Marketing’ It made me think to ask the students, 'Is marketing principled?’ After all, a subject matter can have principles in the sense of being codified, having rules, as with football or chess, without being principled in the sense of being ethical Many of the students immediately assumed that the answer to my question about marketing principles was obvious: no Just look at the ways in which everything under the sun has been marketed; obviously, it need not be done in a principled (=ethical) fashion D Is that obvious? I made the suggestion, which may sound downright crazy in light of the evidence, that perhaps marketing is by definition principled My inspiration for this judgement is the philosopher Immanuel Kant, who argued that any body of knowledge consists of an end (or purpose) and a means E Let us apply both the terms 'means' and ‘end' to marketing The students have signed up for a course in order to learn how to market effectively But to what end? There seem to be two main attitudes toward that question One is that the answer is obvious: the purpose of marketing is to sell things and to make money The other attitude is that the purpose of marketing is irrelevant: Each person comes to the program and course with his or her own plans, and these need not even concern the acquisition of marketing expertise as such My proposal, which I believe would also be Kant's, is that neither of these attitudes captures the significance of the end to the means for marketing A field of knowledge or a professional endeavor is defined by both the means and the end; hence both deserve scrutiny Students need to study both how to achieve X, and also what X is F It is at this point that ‘Arson for Profit’ becomes supremely relevant That course is presumably all about means: how to detect and prosecute criminal activity It is therefore assumed that the end is good in an ethical sense When I ask fire science students to articulate the end, or purpose, of their field, they eventually generalize to something like, ‘The safety and welfare of society,’ which seems right As we have seen, someone could use the very same knowledge of means to achieve a much less noble end, such as personal profit via destructive, dangerous, reckless activity But we would not call that firefighting We have a separate word for it: arson Similarly, if you employed the ‘principles of marketing’ in an unprincipled way, you would not be doing marketing We have another term for it: fraud Kant gives the example of a doctor and a poisoner, who use the identical knowledge to achieve their divergent ends We would say that one is practicing medicine, the other, murder Questions 33-36 Complete the summary below Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer Write your answers in boxes 33-36 on your answer sheet The ‘Arson for Profit’ course This is a university course intended for students who are undergraduates and who are studying 33 The expectation is that they will become 34 specialising in arson The course will help them to detect cases of arson and find 35 of criminal intent, leading to successful 36 in the courts Questions 37-40 Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 223? In boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet, 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 what the writer thinks about this 37 It is difficult to attract students onto courses that not focus on a career 38 The ‘Arson for Profit’ course would be useful for people intending to set fire to buildings 39 Fire science courses are too academic to help people to be good at the job of firefighting 40 The writer’s fire science students provided a detailed definition of the purpose of their studies Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: 27 vi 28 viii 29 ii 30 iv 31 iii 32 vii 33 fire science 34 investigators 35 evidence 36 prosecution 37 NOT GIVEN 38 YES 39 NO 40 NO Academic IELTS Reading Sample 224 - The History of Glass Last Updated: Sunday, 13 August 2017 14:46 Written by IELTS Mentor Hits: 13566 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 224 below The History of Glass From our earliest origins, man has been making use of glass Historians have discovered that a type of natural glass - obsidian - formed in places such as the mouth of a volcano as a result of the intense heat of an eruption melting sand was first used as tips for spears Archaeologists have even found evidence of man-made glass which dates back to 4000 BC; this took the form of glazes used for coating stone beads It was not until 1500 BC, however, that the first hollow glass container was made by covering a sand core with a layer of molten glass Glass blowing became the most common way to make glass containers from the first century BC The glass made during this time was highly coloured due to the impurities of the raw material In the first century AD, methods of creating colourless glass were developed, which was then tinted by the addition of colouring materials The secret of glass making was taken across Europe by the Romans during this century However, they guarded the skills and technology required to make glass very closely, and it was not until their empire collapsed in 476 AD that glass-making knowledge became widespread throughout Europe and the Middle East From the 10th century onwards, the Venetians gained a reputation for technical skill and artistic ability in the making of glass bottles, and many of the city’s craftsmen left Italy to set up glassworks throughout Europe A major milestone in the history of glass occurred with the invention of lead crystal glass by the English glass manufacturer George Ravenscroft (1632 1683) He attempted to counter the effect of clouding that sometimes occurred in blown glass by introducing lead to the raw materials used in the process The new glass he created was softer and easier to decorate, and had a higher refractive index, adding to its brilliance and beauty, and it proved invaluable to the optical industry It is thanks to Ravenscroft’s invention that optical lenses, astronomical telescopes, microscopes and the like became possible In Britain, the modem glass industry only really started to develop after the repeal of the Excise Act in 1845 Before that time, heavy taxes had been placed on the amount of glass melted in a glasshouse, and were levied continuously from 1745 to 1845 Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace at London’s Great Exhibition of 1851 marked the beginning of glass as a material used in the building industry This revolutionary new building encouraged the use of glass in public, domestic and horticultural architecture Glass manufacturing techniques also improved with the advancement of science and the development of better technology From 1887 onwards, glass making developed from traditional mouth-blowing to a semi-automatic process, after factory- owner HM Ashley introduced a machine capable of producing 200 bottles per hour in Castleford, Yorkshire, England more than three times quicker than any previous production method Then in 1907, the first fully automated machine was developed in the USA by Michael Owens - founder of the Owens Bottle Machine Company (later the major manufacturers Owens- Illinois) - and installed in its factory Owens’ invention could produce an impressive 2,500 bottles per hour Other developments followed rapidly, but it | was not until the First World War when Britain became cut off from essential glass suppliers, that glass became part of the scientific sector Previous to this, glass had been seen as a craft rather than a precise science Today, glass making is big business It has become a modem, hi-tech industry operating in a fiercely competitive global market where quality, design and service levels are critical to maintaining market share Modem glass plants are capable of making millions of glass containers a day in many different colours, with green, brown and clear remaining the most popular Few of us can imagine modem life without glass It features in almost every aspect of our lives - in our homes, our cars and whenever we sit down to eat or drink Glass packaging is used for many products, many beverages are sold in glass, as are numerous foodstuffs, as well as medicines and cosmetics Glass is an ideal material for recycling, and with growing consumer concern for green issues, glass bottles and jars are becoming ever more popular Glass recycling is good news for the environment It saves used glass containers being sent to landfill As less energy is needed to melt recycled glass than to melt down raw materials, this also saves fuel and production costs Recycling also reduces the need for raw materials to be quarried, thus saving precious resources Questions 1-8 Complete the notes below Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer Write your answers in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet The History of Glass • Early humans used a material called to make the sharp points of their • 4000 BC: made of stone were covered in a coating of man-made glass • First century BC: glass was coloured because of the in the material • Until 476 AD: Only the knew how to make glass • From 10th century: Venetians became famous for making bottles out of glass • 17th century: George Ravenscroft developed a process using to avoid the occurrence of in blown glass • Mid-19th century: British glass production developed after changes to laws concerning Questions 9-13 In boxes 9-13 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 In 1887, HM Ashley had the fastest bottle-producing machine that existed at the time 10 Michael Owens was hired by a large US company to design a fully-automated bottle manufacturing machine for them 11 Nowadays, most glass is produced by large international manufacturers 12 Concern for the environment is leading to an increased demand for glass containers 13 It is more expensive to produce recycled glass than to manufacture new glass Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: obsidian spears beads impurities Romans lead clouding taxes TRUE 10 FALSE 11 NOT GIVEN 12 TRUE 13 FALSE Academic IELTS Reading Sample 225 - Bring back the big cats Last Updated: Monday, 14 August 2017 12:26 Written by IELTS Mentor Hits: 11726 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 225 below Bring back the big cats It's time to start returning vanished native animals to Britain, says John Vesty There is a poem, written around 598 AD, which describes hunting a mystery animal called a llewyn But what was it? Nothing seemed to fit, until 2006, when an animal bone, dating from around the same period, was found in the Kinsey Cave in northern England Until this discovery, the lynx - a large spotted cat with tassel led ears - was presumed to have died out in Britain at least 6,000 years ago, before the inhabitants of these islands took up farming But the 2006 find, together with three others in Yorkshire and Scotland, is compelling evidence that the lynx and the mysterious llewyn were, in fact, one and the same animal If this is so, it would bring forward the tassel-eared cat's estimated extinction date by roughly 5,000 years However, this is not quite the last glimpse of the animal in British culture A 9thcentury stone cross from the Isle of Eigg shows, alongside the deer, boar and aurochs pursued by a mounted hunter, a speckled cat with tasselled ears Were it not for the animal's backside having worn away with time, we could have been certain, as the lynx's stubby tail is unmistakable But even without this key feature, it's hard to see what else the creature could have been The lynx is now becoming the totemic animal of a movement that is transforming British environmentalism: rewilding Rewilding means the mass restoration of damaged ecosystems It involves letting trees return to places that have been denuded, allowing parts of the seabed to recover from trawling and dredging, permitting rivers to flow freely again Above all, it means bringing back missing species One of the most striking findings of modern ecology is that ecosystems without large predators behave in completely different ways from those that retain them Some of them drive dynamic processes that resonate through the whole food chain, creating niches for hundreds of species that might otherwise struggle to survive The killers turn out to be bringers of life Such findings present a big challenge to British conservation, which has often selected arbitrary assemblages of plants and animals and sought, at great effort and expense, to prevent them from changing It has tried to preserve the living world as if it were a jar of pickles, letting nothing in and nothing out, keeping nature in a state of arrested development But ecosystems are not merely collections of species; they are also the dynamic and ever-shifting relationships between them And this dynamism often depends on large predators At sea the potential is even greater: by protecting large areas from commercial fishing, we could once more see what 18th-century literature describes: vast shoals of fish being chased by fin and sperm whales, within sight of the English shore This policy would also greatly boost catches in the surrounding seas; the fishing industry's insistence on scouring every inch of seabed, leaving no breeding reserves, could not be more damaging to its own interests Rewilding is a rare example of an environmental movement in which campaigners articulate what they are for rather than only what they are against One of the reasons why the enthusiasm for rewilding is spreading so quickly in Britain is that it helps to create a more inspiring vision than the green movement's usual promise of 'Follow us and the world will be slightly less awful than it would otherwise have been The lynx presents no threat to human beings: there is no known instance of one preying on people It is a specialist predator of roe deer, a species that has exploded in Britain in recent decades, holding back, by intensive browsing, attempts to re-establish forests It will also winkle out sika deer: an exotic species that is almost impossible for human beings to control, as it hides in impenetrable plantations of young trees The attempt to reintroduce this predator marries well with the aim of bringing forests back to parts of our bare and barren uplands The lynx requires deep cover, and as such presents little risk to sheep and other livestock, which are supposed, as a condition of farm subsidies, to be kept out of the woods On a recent trip to the Cairngorm Mountains, I heard several conservationists suggest that the lynx could be reintroduced there within 20 years If trees return to the bare hills elsewhere in Britain, the big cats could soon follow There is nothing extraordinary about these proposals, seen from the perspective of anywhere else in Europe The lynx has now been reintroduced to the Jura Mountains, the Alps, the Vosges in eastern France and the Harz mountains in Germany, and has re-established itself in many more places The European population has tripled since 1970 to roughly 10,000 As with wolves, bears, beavers, boar, bison, moose and many other species, the lynx has been able to spread as farming has, left the hills and people discover that it is more lucrative to protect charismatic wildlife than to hunt it, as tourists will pay for the chance to see it Large-scale rewilding is happening almost everywhere - except Britain Questions 14-18 Reading Passage 259 has seven sections A-G Which section contains the following information? Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet 14 Preference of using one side of the body in animal species 15 How likely one-handedness is born 16 The age when the preference of using one hand is settled 17 Occupations usually found in left-handed population 18 A reference to an early discovery of each hemisphere’s function Questions 19-22 Look at the following researchers (Questions 19-22) and the list of findings below Match each researcher with the correct finding Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 19-22 on your answer sheet List of Findings A Early language evolution is correlated to body movement and thus affecting the preference of use of one hand B No single biological component determines the handedness of a child C Each hemisphere of the brain is in charge of different body functions D Language process is mainly centered in the left-hemisphere of the brain E Speech difficulties are often caused by brain damage F The rate of development of one side of the body has influence on hemisphere preference in fetus G Brain function already matures by the end of the fetal stage 19 Marian Annett 20 Peter Hepper 21 Brenda Milner & Theodore Rasmussen 22 Michael Corballis Questions 23-26 Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 259? In boxes 23-26 on your answer sheet 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 23 The study of twins shows that genetic determination is not the only factor for left-handedness 24 Marc Dax’s report was widely accepted in his time 25 Juhn Wada based his findings on his research of people with language problems 26 There tend to be more men with left-handedness than women Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: 14 C 15 A 16 B 17 F 18 D 19 B 20 F 21 D 22 A 23 YES 24 NO 25 NOT GIVEN 26 NOT GIVEN Academic IELTS Reading Sample 260 - What is a dinosaur? Last Updated: Sunday, 20 August 2017 17:15 Written by IELTS Mentor Hits: 18801 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27- 40, which are based on Reading Passage 260 below What is a dinosaur? Although the name dinosaur is derived from the Greek for "terrible lizard", dinosaurs were not, in fact, lizards at all Like lizards, dinosaurs are included in the class Reptilia, or reptiles, one of the five main classes of Vertebrata, animals with backbones However, at the next level of classification, within reptiles, significant differences in the skeletal anatomy of lizards and dinosaurs have led A scientists to place these groups of animals into two different superorders: Lepidosauria, or lepidosaurs, and Archosauria, or archosaurs Classified as lepidosaurs are lizards and snakes and their prehistoric ancestors Included among the archosaurs, or "ruling reptiles", are prehistoric and modern crocodiles, and the now extinct thecodonts, pterosaurs and dinosaurs Palaeontologists believe that both dinosaurs and crocodiles evolved, in the later years of the Triassic Period (c 248-208 million years ago), from creatures called pseudosuchian thecodonts Lizards, snakes and different types of thecodont are believed to have evolved earlier in the Triassic Period from reptiles known as eosuchians B C The most important skeletal differences between dinosaurs and other archosaurs are in the bones of the skull, pelvis and limbs Dinosaur skulls are found in a great range of shapes and sizes, reflecting the different eating habits and lifestyles of a large and varied group of animals that dominated life on Earth for an extraordinary 165 million years However, unlike the skulls of any other known animals, the skulls of dinosaurs had two long bones known as vomers These bones extended on either side of the head, from the front of the snout to the level of the holes on the skull known as the antorbital fenestra, situated in front of the dinosaur's orbits or eye sockets All dinosaurs, whether large or small, quadrupedal or bidepal, fleet-footed or slow-moving, shared a common body plan Identification of this plan makes it possible to differentiate dinosaurs from any other types of animal, even other archosaurs Most significantly, in dinosaurs, the pelvis and femur had evolved so that the hind limbs were held vertically beneath the body, rather than sprawling out to the sides like the limbs of a lizard The femur of a dinosaur had a sharply in-turned neck and a ball-shaped head, which slotted into a fully open acetabulum or hip socket A supra-acetabular crest helped prevent dislocation of the femur The position of the knee joint, aligned below the acetabulum, made it possible for the whole hind limb to swing backwards and forwards This unique combination of features gave dinosaurs what is known as a "fully improved gait" Evolution of this highly efficient method of walking also developed in mammals, but among reptiles, it occurred only in dinosaurs D E For the purpose of further classification, dinosaurs are divided into two orders: Saurischia, or saurischian dinosaurs, and Ornithischia, or ornithischian dinosaurs This division is made on the basis of their pelvic anatomy All dinosaurs had a pelvic girdle with each side comprised of three bones: the pubis, ilium and ischium However, the orientation of these bones follows one of two patterns In saurischian dinosaurs, also known as lizard-hipped dinosaurs, the pubis points forwards, as is usual in most types of reptile By contrast, in ornithischian, or birdhipped, dinosaurs, the pubis points backwards towards the rear of the animal, which is also true of birds Of the two orders of dinosaurs, the Saurischia was the larger and the first to evolve It is divided into two suborders: Therapoda, or therapods, and Sauropodomorpha, or sauropodomorphs The therapods, or "beast feet", were bipedal, predatory carnivores They ranged in size from the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex, 12m long, 5.6m tall and weighing an estimated 6.4 tonnes, to the smallest known dinosaur, Compsognathus, a mere 1.4m long and estimated 3kg in weight when fully grown The sauropodomorphs, or "lizard feet forms", included both bipedal and quadrupedal dinosaurs Some sauropodomorphs were carnivorous or omnivorous but later species were typically herbivorous They included some of the largest and best-known of all dinosaurs, such as Diplodocus, a huge quadruped with an elephant-like body, a long, thin tail and neck that gave it a total length of 27m, and a tiny head F Ornithischian dinosaurs were bipedal or quadrupedal herbivores They are now usually divided into three suborders: Ornithipoda, Thyreophora and Marginocephalia The ornithopods, or "bird feet", both large and small, could walk or run on their long hind legs, balancing their body by holding their tails stiffly off the ground behind them An example is Iguanodon, up to 9m long, 5m tall and weighing 4.5 tonnes The thyreophorans, or "shield bearers", also known as armoured dinosaurs, were quadrupeds with rows of protective bony spikes, studs, or plates along their backs and tails They included Stegosaurus, 9m long and weighing tonnes G The marginocephalians, or "margined heads", were bipedal or quadrupedal ornithschians with a deep bony frill or narrow shelf at the back of the skull An example is Triceratops, a rhinoceros-like dinosaur, 9m long, weighing 5.4 tonnes and bearing a prominent neck frill and three large horns H Questions 27-33 Reading Passage 260 has paragraphs (A-H) Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph from the List of headings below Write the appropriate numbers (i-xiii) in Boxes 27-33 on your answer sheet One of the headings has been done for you as an example NB There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use all of them 27 Paragraph A 28 Paragraph B 29 Paragraph C 30 Paragraph D 31 Paragraph E 32 Paragraph F 33 Paragraph G Example: Paragraph H Answer: x List of headings i 165 million years ii The body plan of archosaurs iii Dinosaurs - terrible lizards iv Classification according to pelvic anatomy v The suborders of Saurischia vi Lizards and dinosaurs - two distinct superorders vii Unique body plan helps identify dinosaurs from other animals viii Herbivore dinosaurs ix Lepidosaurs x Frills and shelves xi The origins of dinosaurs and lizards xii Bird-hipped dinosaurs xiii Skull bones distinguish dinosaurs from other archosaurs Questions 34-36 Complete the sentences below Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each blank space Write your answers in boxes 34-36 on your answer sheet 34 Lizards and dinosaurs are classified into two different superorders because of the difference in their 35 In the Triassic Period, evolved into thecodonts, for example, lizards and snakes 36 Dinosaur skulls differed from those of any other known animals because of the presence of vomers: Questions 37-40 Choose one phrase (A-H) from the List of features to match with the Dinosaurs listed below Write the appropriate letters (A-H) in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet The information in the completed sentences should be an accurate summary of the points made by the writer NB There are more phrases than sentences, so you will not need to use them all You may use each phrase once only Dinosaurs 37 Dinosaurs differed from lizards, because 38 Saurischian and ornithischian dinosaurs 39 Unlike therapods, sauropodomorphs 40 Some dinosaurs used their tails to balance, others List of features A are both divided into two orders B the former had a "fully improved gait" C were not usually very heavy D could walk or run on their back legs E their hind limbs sprawled out to the side F walked or ran on four legs, rather than two G both had a pelvic girdle comprising six bones H did not always eat meat Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: 27 vi 28 xi 29 xiii 30 vii 31 iv 32 v 33 viii 34 skeletal anatomy 35 eosuchians 36 two long bones 37 B 38 G 39 H 40 F Academic IELTS Reading Sample 261 - The new way to be a fifth-grader Last Updated: Sunday, 20 August 2017 17:11 Written by IELTS Mentor Hits: 14283 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-14, which are based on Reading Passage 261 below The new way to be a fifth-grader Khan Academy is changing the rules of education I peer over his shoulder at his laptop screen to see the math problem the fifthgrader is pondering It's a trigonometry problem Carpenter, a serious-feced tenyear-old, pauses for a second, fidgets, then clicks on ”0 degrees." The computer tells him that he's correct "It took a while for me to work it out," he admits sheepishly The software then generates another problem, followed by another, until eventually he's done ten in a row Last November, his teacher, Kami Thordarson, began using Khan Academy in her class It is an educational website on which students can watch some 2,400 videos The videos are anything but sophisticated At seven to 14 minutes long, they consist of a voiceover by the site's founder, Salman Khan, chattily describing a mathematical concept or explaining how to solve a problem, while his handscribbled formulas and diagrams appear on-screen As a student, you can review a video as many times as you want, scrolling back several times over puzzling parts and fast-forwarding through the boring bits you already know Once you've mastered a video, you can move on to the next one Initially, Thordarson thought Khan Academy would merely be a helpful supplement to her normal instruction But it quickly became far more than that She is now on her way to "flipping" the way her class works This involves replacing some of her lectures with Khan's videos, which students can watch at home Then in class, they focus on working on the problem areas together The idea is to invert the normal rhythms of school, so that lectures are viewed in the children's own time and homework is done at school It sounds weird, Thordarson admits, but this reversal makes sense when you think about it It is when they are doing homework that students are really grappling with a subject and are most likely to want someone to talk to And Khan Academy provides teachers with a dashboard application that lets them see the instant a student gets stuck For years, teachers like Thordarson have complained about the frustrations of teaching to the "middle" of the class They stand at the whiteboard trying to get 25 or more students to learn at the same pace Advanced students get bored and tune out, lagging ones get lost and tune out, and pretty soon half the class is not paying attention Since the rise of personal computers in the 1980s, educators have hoped that technology could save the day by offering lessons tailored to each child Schools have spent millions of dollars on sophisticated classroom technology, but the effort has been in vain The one-to-one instruction it requires is, after all, prohibitively expensive What country can afford such a luxury? Khan never intended to overhaul the school curricula and he doesn't have a consistent, comprehensive plan for doing so Nevertheless, some of his fans believe that he has stumbled onto the solution to education's middle-of-the-class mediocrity Most notable among them is Bill Gates, whose foundation has invested $1.5 million in Khan's site Students have pointed out that Khan is particularly good at explaining all the hidden, small steps in math problems—steps that teachers often gloss over He has an uncanny ability to inhabit the mind of someone who doesn't already understand something However, not all educators are enamoured with Khan and his site Gary Stager, a longtime educational consultant and advocate of laptops in classrooms, thinks Khan Academy is not innovative at all The videos and software modules, he contends, are just a high-tech version of the outdated teaching techniques—lecturing and drilling Schools have become "joyless test-prep factories," he says, and Khan Academy caters to this dismal trend As Sylvia Martinez, president of an organization focusing on technology in the classroom, puts it, "The things they're doing are really just rote." Flipping the classroom isn't an entirely new idea, Martinez says, and she doubts that it would work for the majority of pupils: "I'm sorry, but if they can't understand the lecture in a classroom, they're not going to grasp it better when it's done through a video at home." Another limitation of Khan's site is that the drilling software can only handle questions where the answers are unambiguously right or wrong, like math or chemistry; Khan has relatively few videos on messier, grey-area subjects like history Khan and Gates admit there is no easy way to automate the teaching of writing—even though it is just as critical as math Even if Khan is truly liberating students to advance at their own pace, it is not clear that schools will be able to cope The very concept of grade levels implies groups of students moving along together at an even pace So what happens when, using Khan Academy, you wind up with a ten- year- old who has already mastered high-school physics? Khan's programmer, Ben Kamens, has heard from teachers who have seen Khan Academy presentations and loved the idea but wondered whether they could modify it "to stop students from becoming this advanced." Khan's success has injected him into the heated wars over school reform Reformers today, by and large, believe student success should be carefully tested, with teachers and principals receiving better pay if their students advance more quickly In essence, Khan doesn't want to change the way institutions teach; he wants to change how people learn, whether they're in a private school or a public school—or for that matter, whether they're a student or an adult trying to self-educate in Ohio, Brazil, Russia, or India One member of Khan's staff is spearheading a drive to translate the videos into ten major languages It's classic start-up logic: something novel, it with speed, and the people who love it will find you [Adapted from Wired Magazine] Questions 1-5 Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D Write A, B, C or D in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet What you learn about the student in the first paragraph? A He has not used the maths software before B He did not expect his answer to the problem to be correct C He was not initially doing the right maths problem D He did not immediately know how to solve the maths problem What does the writer say about the content of the Khan Academy videos? A They have been produced in a professional manner B They include a mix of verbal and visual features C Some of the maths problems are too easy D Some of the explanations are too brief What does this reversal refer to in line 40? A going back to spending fewer hours in school B students being asked to explain answers to teachers C swapping the activities done in the class and at home D the sudden improvement in students’ maths performance What does the writer say about teaching to the ‘middle’ of the class? A Teachers become too concerned about weaker students B Technology has not until now provided a solution to the problem C Educators have been unwilling to deal with the issues D Students in this category quickly become bored Students praise Khan’s videos because they A show the extent of his mathematical knowledge B deal with a huge range of maths problems C provide teaching at different ability levels D cover details that are often omitted in class Questions 6-10 Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in the reading passage? In boxes 6-10 on your answer sheet 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 Thordarson's first impressions of how she would use Khan Academy turned out to be wrong Khan wished to completely change the way courses are taught in schools School grade levels are based on the idea of students progressing at different rates Some principals have invited Khan into their schools to address students 10 Khan has given advice to other people involved in start-up projects Questions 11-14 Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G, below 11 Bill Gates thinks Khan Academy 12 According to Gary Stager Khan Academy 13 Sylvia Martinez regrets that Khan Academy 14 Ben Kamens has been told that Khan Academy A is only suited to subjects where questions have exact answers B can teach both the strongest and the weakest pupils in a class C means the teaching of other school subjects will have to be changed D only prepares students to pass exams E could cause student achievement to improve too quickly F requires all students to own the necessary technology G is unlikely to have a successful outcome for most students Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: D B C B D YES NO NO NOT GIVEN 10 NOT GIVEN 11 B 12 D 13 G 14 E Academic IELTS Reading Sample 262 - Gold dusters Last Updated: Sunday, 20 August 2017 17:46 Written by IELTS Mentor Hits: 20195 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 15-27, which are based on Reading Passage 262 below Gold dusters They are the Earth’s pollinators and they come in more than 200,000 shapes and sizes A Row upon row, tomato plants stand in formation inside a greenhouse To reproduce, most flowering plants depend on a third party to transfer pollen between their male and female parts Some require extra encouragement to give up that golden dust The tomato flower, for example, needs a violent shake, a vibration roughly equivalent to 30 times the pull of Earth’s gravity, explains Arizona entomologist Stephen Buchmann Growers have tried numerous ways to rattle pollen from tomato blossoms They have used shaking tables, air blowers and blasts of sound But natural means seem to work better It is no surprise that nature’s design works best What’s astonishing is the array of workers that it: more than 200,000 individual animal species, by varying strategies, help the world's 240,000 species of flowering plants make more flowers Flies and beetles are the original pollinators, going back to when flowering plants first appeared 130 million years ago As for bees, scientists have identified some 20,000 distinct species so far Hummingbirds, butterflies, moths, wasps and ants are also up to the job Even non-flying mammals their part: sugar-loving opossums, some rainforest monkeys, and lemurs in Madagascar, all with nimble hands that tear open flower stalks and furry coats to which pollen sticks Most surprising, some lizards, such as geckos, lap up nectar and pollen and then transport the stuff on their faces and feet as they forage onward B C All that messy diversity, unfortunately, is not well suited to the monocrops and mega-yields of modern commercial farmers Before farms got so big, says conservation biologist Claire Kremen of the University of California, Berkeley, ‘we didn’t have to manage pollinators They were all around because of the diverse landscapes Now you need to bring in an army to get pollination done The European honeybee was first imported to the US some 400 years ago Now at least a hundred commercial crops rely almost entirely on managed honeybees, which beekeepers raise and rent out to tend to big farms And although other species of bees are five to ten times more efficient, on a per-bee basis, at pollinating certain fruits, honeybees have bigger colonies, cover longer distances, and tolerate management and movement better than most insects They're not picky - they’ll spend their time on almost any crop It’s tricky to calculate what their work is truly worth; some economists put it at more than $200 billion globally a year D Industrial-scale farming, however, may be wearing down the system Honeybees have suffered diseases and parasite infestations for as long as they've been managed, but in 2006 came an extreme blow Around the world, bees began to disappear over the winter in massive numbers Beekeepers would lift the lid of a hive and be amazed to find only the queen and a few stragglers, the worker bees gone In the US, a third to half of all hives crashed; some beekeepers reported colony losses near 90 percent The mysterious culprit was named colony collapse disorder (CCD) and it remains an annual menace - and an enigma E When it first hit, many people, from agronomists to the public, assumed that our slathering of chemicals on agricultural fields was to blame for the mystery Indeed, says Jeff Pettis of the USDA Bee Research Laboratory, ‘we find more disease in bees that have been exposed to pesticides, even at low levels.’ But it is likely that CCD involves multiple stressors Poor nutrition and chemical exposure, for instance, might wear down a bee's immunities before a virus finishes the insect off It’s hard to tease apart factors and outcomes, Pettis says New studies reveal that fungicides - not previously thought toxic to bees - can interfere with microbes that break down pollen in the insects’ guts, affecting nutrient absorption and thus long-term health and longevity Some findings pointed to viral and fungal pathogens working together ‘I only wish we had a single agent causing all the declines,’ Pettis says, ’that would make our work much easier! F However, habitat loss and alteration, he says, are even more of a menace to pollinators than pathogens Claire Kremen encourages farmers to cultivate the flora surrounding farmland to help solve habitat problems ‘You can't move the farm,’ she says, ‘but you can diversify what grows in its vicinity: along roads, even in tractor yards.’ Planting hedgerows and patches of native flowers that bloom at different times and seeding fields with multiple plant species rather than monocrops 'not only is better for native pollinators, but it’s just better agriculture,’ she says Pesticide-free wildflower havens, adds Buchmann, would also bolster populations of useful insects Fortunately, too, ‘there are far more generalist plants than specialist plants, so there's a lot of redundancy in pollination,’ Buchmann says ‘Even if one pollinator drops out, there are often pretty good surrogates left to the job The key to keeping our gardens growing strong, he says, is letting that diversity thrive G Take away that variety, and we'll lose more than honey ‘We wouldn't starve,’ says Kremen ‘But what we eat, and even what we wear pollinators, after all, give us some of our cotton and flax - would be limited to crops whose pollen travels by other means ‘In a sense,’ she says, ‘our lives would be dictated by the wind It’s vital that we give pollinators more of what they need and less of what they don't, and ease the burden on managed bees by letting native animals their part, say scientists [Adapted from National Geographic Magazine.] Questions 15-21 The reading passage has seven sections, A-G Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below In boxes 15-21 on your answer sheet write A-G List of Headings i Looking for clues ii Blaming the beekeepers iii Solutions to a more troublesome issue iv Discovering a new bee species v An impossible task for any human vi The preferred pollinator vii Plant features designed to suit the pollinator viii Some obvious and less obvious pollen carriers ix The undesirable alternative x An unexpected setback 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Section A Section B Section C Section D Section E Section F Section G Questions 22-25 Complete the sentences below Choose NO MOKE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer 22 Both were the first creatures to pollinate the world's plants 23 Monkeys transport pollen on their 24 Honeybees are favoured pollinators among bee species partly because they travel 25 A feature of CCD is often the loss of all the Questions 26-27 Choose TWO letters, A-E Which TWO methods of combating the problems caused by CCD and habitat loss are mentioned in the article? In boxes 26 & 27 on your answer sheet write Two letters (A-E) A using more imported pest controllers B removing microbes from bees’ stomachs C cultivating a wide range of flowering plants D increasing the size of many farms E placing less reliance on honeybees Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: 15 v 16 viii 17 vi 18 x 19 i 20 iii 21 ix 22 flies and beetles 23 furry coats 24 longer distances 25 worker bees 26 & 27 C & E [in either order] ... as part of the increasing professionalization of this and many other occupations However, it’s not unknown for a firefighter to torch a building This example suggests how dishonest and illegal... realized this anew when I was invited to speak before a class in marketing, which is another of our degree programs The regular instructor is a colleague who appreciates the kind of ethical perspective... There are endless ways I could have approached this assignment, but I took my cue from the title of the course: 'Principles of Marketing’ It made me think to ask the students, 'Is marketing principled?’