đề thi học phần môn đọc từ 311 322

311 Learning lessons from the past 27. C 28. D 29. A 30. YES 31. YES 32. NO 33. NOT GIVEN 34. YES 35. C 36. A 37. F 38. D 39. E 40. A 312 Astronaut ice cream, anyone? 1. transportation 2. pharmaceuticals 3. manuscripts 4. sublimation 5. simple drying (techniques) 6. (freezedrying) chamber 7. shelves 8. freezing coil 9. (refrigerator) compressor 10. enzymes 11. composition 12. overheating 13. high altitudes 313 The wild side of town 14. NOT GIVEN 15. TRUE 16. TRUE 17. NOT GIVEN 18. NOT GIVEN 19. FALSE 20. woodland species 21. exotic flowers 22. (domestic) cats 23. 81 24. 25. 26. C, E, G in any order 314 Running on empty 27. C 28. iii 29. vi 30. ii 31. vii 32. viii 33. iv 34. C 35. A 36. B 37. C 38. B 39. A 40. B 315 The construction of roads and bridges 1. hot tar 2. 5 cm 3. water 4. FALSE 5. NOT GIVEN 6. TRUE 7. NOT GIVEN 8. Romans 9. stone 10. light 11. longest 12. steel 13. stable 316 Neanderthals and modern humans 14. C 15. B 16. A 17. C 18. A 19. D 20. B 21. G 22. A 23. E 24. crossbreeding 25. growth 26. littlefinger bone 317 The Future of fish 27. YES 28. YES 29. NO 30. NOT GIVEN 31. NO 32. D 33. C 34. A 35. B 36. F 37. D 38. I 39. H 40. C 318 Geoff Brash 1. TRUE 2. FALSE 3. TRUE 4. TRUE 5. NOT GIVEN 6. (a) share scheme 7. Roland Roland group the Roland group 8. (a) trade fair 9. jazz 10. 1998 11. education 12. technology 13. branches 319 Early occupations around the river Thames 14. iii 15. vi 16. ix 17. iv 18. ii 19. vii 20. 21. C, E in either order 22. 23. A, C in either order 24. regular wage 25. steam power 26. picturesque 320 Video game research 27. NOT GIVEN 28. YES 29. NOT GIVEN 30. NO 31. YES 32. C 33. E 34. F 35. A 36. I 37. B 38. C 39. A 40. B 321 A song on the brain 1. B 2. A 3. D 4. E 5. D 6. F 7. B 8. I 9. G 10. E 11. D 12. A 13. F 322 Worldly Wealth 14. NOT GIVEN, 15. YES, 16. NO, 17. YES, 18. NOT GIVEN, 19. YES, 20. agriculture farms farmland, 21. Parks, 22. Productivity, 23. Protein, 24. DNA, 25. Game, 26. A, 27. D

Academic IELTS Reading Sample 311 - Learning lessons from the past You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27 - 40, which are based on Passage 311 below Learning lessons from the past Many past societies collapsed or vanished, leaving behind monumental ruins such as those that the poet Shelley imagined in his sonnet, Ozymandias By collapse, I mean a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time By those standards, most people would consider the following past societies to have been famous victims of full-fledged collapses rather than of just minor declines: the Anasazi and Cahokia within the boundaries of the modern US, the Maya cities in Central America, Moche and Tiwanaku societies in South America, Norse Greenland, Mycenean Greece and Minoan Crete in Europe, Great Zimbabwe in Africa, Angkor Wat and the Harappan Indus Valley cities in Asia, and Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean The monumental ruins left behind by those past societies hold a fascination for all of us We marvel at them when as children we first learn of them through pictures When we grow up, many of us plan vacations in order to experience them at first hand We feel drawn to their often spectacular and haunting beauty, and also to the mysteries that they pose The scales of the ruins testify to the former wealth and power of their builders Yet these builders vanished, abandoning the great structures that they had created at such effort How could a society that was once so mighty end up collapsing? It has long been suspected that many of those mysterious abandonments were at least partly triggered by ecological problems: people inadvertently destroying the environmental resources on which their societies depended This suspicion of unintended ecological suicide (ecocide) has been confirmed by discoveries made in recent decades by archaeologists, climatologists, historians, paleontologists, and palynologists (pollen scientists) The processes through which past societies have undermined themselves by damaging their environments fall into eight categories, whose relative importance differs from case to case: deforestation and habitat destruction, soil problems, water management problems, overhunting, overfishing, effects of introduced species on native species, human population growth, and increased impact of people Those past collapses tended to follow somewhat similar courses constituting variations on a theme Writers find it tempting to draw analogies between the course of human societies and the course of individual human lives - to talk of a society’s birth, growth, peak, old age and eventual death But that metaphor proves erroneous for many past societies: they declined rapidly after reaching peak numbers and power, and those rapid declines must have come as a surprise and shock to their citizens Obviously, too, this trajectory is not one that all past societies followed unvaryingly to completion: different societies collapsed to different degrees and in somewhat different ways, while many societies did not collapse at all Today many people feel that environmental problems overshadow all the other threats to global civilisation These environmental problems include the same eight that undermined past societies, plus four new ones: human-caused climate change, build up of toxic chemicals in the environment, energy shortages, and full human utilisation of the Earth’s photosynthetic capacity But the seriousness of these current environmental problems is vigorously debated Are the risks greatly exaggerated, or conversely are they underestimated? Will modern technology solve our problems, or is it creating new problems faster than it solves old ones? When we deplete one resource (e.g wood, oil, or ocean fish), can we count on being able to substitute some new resource (e.g plastics, wind and solar energy, or farmed fish)? Isn’t the rate of human population growth declining, such that we’re already on course for the world’s population to level off at some manageable number of people? Questions like this illustrate why those famous collapses of past civilisations have taken on more meaning than just that of a romantic mystery Perhaps there are some practical lessons that we could learn from all those past collapses But there are also differences between the modern world and its problems, and those past societies and their problems We shouldn't be so naive as to think that study of the past will yield simple solutions, directly transferable to our societies today We differ from past societies in some respects that put us at lower risk than them; some of those respects often mentioned include our powerful technology (i.e its beneficial effects), globalisation, modern medicine, and greater knowledge of past societies and of distant modern societies We also differ from past societies in some respects that put us at greater risk than them: again, our potent technology (i.e., its unintended destructive effects), globalisation (such that now a problem in one part of the world affects all the rest), the dependence of millions of us on modern medicine for our survival, and our much larger human population Perhaps we can still learn from the past, but only if we think carefully about its lessons Questions 27-29 Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D Write the correct answers in boxes 27-29 on your answer sheet 27 When the writer describes the impact of monumental ruins today, he emphasises A the income they generate from tourism B the area of land they occupy C their archaeological value D their romantic appeal 28 Recent findings concerning vanished civilisations have A overturned long-held beliefs B caused controversy amongst scientists C come from a variety of disciplines D identified one main cause of environmental damage 29 What does the writer say about ways in which former societies collapsed? A The pace of decline was usually similar B The likelihood of collapse would have been foreseeable C Deterioration invariably led to total collapse D Individual citizens could sometimes influence the course of events Questions 30-34 Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 30-34 on your answer sheet, write YES NO if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this 30 It is widely believed that environmental problems represent the main danger faced by the modern world 31 The accumulation of poisonous substances is a relatively modern problem 32 There is general agreement that the threats posed by environmental problems are very serious 33 Some past societies resembled present-day societies more closely than others 34 We should be careful when drawing comparisons between past and present Questions 35-39 Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-F, below Write the correct letter, A-F in boxes 35 -39 on your answer sheet 35 Evidence of the greatness of some former civilisations 36 The parallel between an individual’s life and the life of a society 37 The number of environmental problems that societies face 38 The power of technology 39 A consideration of historical events and trends A is not necessarily valid B provides grounds for an optimistic outlook C exists in the form of physical structures D is potentially both positive and negative E will not provide direct solutions for present problems F is greater now than in the past Question 40 Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D 40 What is the main argument of Reading Passage 311? A There are differences as well as similarities between past and present societies B More should be done to preserve the physical remains of earlier civilisations C Some historical accounts of great civilisations are inaccurate D Modern societies are dependent on each other for their continuing survival Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: 27 C 28 D 29 A 30 YES 31 YES 32 NO 33 NOT GIVEN 34 YES 35 C 36 A 37 F 38 D 39 E 40 A Academic IELTS Reading Sample 312 - Astronaut ice cream, anyone? You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Passage 312 below Astronaut ice cream, anyone? Breeze-drying is a technique that can help to provide food for astronauts But it also has other applications nearer home Freeze-drying is like suspended animation for food: you can store a freeze-dried meal for years, and then, when you’re finally ready to eat it, you can completely revitalise it with a little hot water Even after several years, the original foodstuff will be virtually unchanged The technique basically involves completely removing the water from some material, such as food while leaving the rest of the material virtually intact The main reason for doing this is either to preserve the food or to reduce its weight Removing the water from food keeps it from spoiling, because the microorganisms such as bacteria that cause spoiling cannot survive without it Similarly, the enzymes which occur naturally in food cannot cause ripening without water, so removing water from food will also stop the ripening process Freeze-drying significantly reduces the total weight of the food because most food is largely made up of water; for example, many fruits are more than 80.00% water Removing this makes the food much lighter and therefore makes transportation less difficult The military and camping-supply companies freezedry foods to make them easier for an individual to carry and NASA has also freeze-dried foods for the cramped quarters on board spacecraft The process is also used to preserve other sorts of material, such as pharmaceuticals Chemists can greatly extend pharmaceutical shelf life by freezedrying the material and storing it in a container free of oxygen and water Similarly, research scientists may use freeze-drying to preserve biological samples for long periods of time Even valuable manuscripts that had been water damaged have been saved by using this process Freeze-drying is different from simple drying because it is able to remove almost all the water from materials, whereas simple drying techniques can only remove 90-95% This means that the damage caused by bacteria and enzymes can virtually be stopped rather than just slowed down In addition, the composition and structure of the material is not significantly changed, so materials can be revitalised without compromising the quality of the original This is possible because in freeze-drying, solid water - ice - is converted directly into water vapour, missing out the liquid phase entirely This is called ‘sublimation’, the shift from a solid directly into a gas Just like evaporation, sublimation occurs when a molecule gains enough energy to break free from the molecules around it Water will sublime from a solid (ice) to a gas (vapour) when the molecules have enough energy to break free but the conditions aren't right for a liquid to form These conditions are determined by heat and atmospheric pressure When the temperature is above freezing point, so that ice can thaw, but the atmospheric pressure is too low for a liquid to form (below 0.06 atmospheres (ATM)) then it becomes a gas Th is is the principle on which a freeze-drying machine is based The material to be preserved is placed in a freeze-drying chamber which is connected to a freezing coil and refrigerator compressor When the chamber is sealed the compressor lowers the temperature inside it The material is frozen solid, which separates the water from everything around it on a molecular level, even though the water is still present Next, a vacuum pump forces air out of the chamber, lowering the atmospheric pressure below to 0.06 ATM The heating units apply a small amount of heat to the shelves in the chamber, causing the ice to change phase Since the pressure in the chamber is so low, the ice turns directly into water vapour, which leaves the freeze-drying chamber, and flows past the freezing coil The water vapour condenses onto the freezing coil in the form of solid ice, in the same way that water condenses as frost on a cold day The process continues for many hours (even days) while the material gradually dries out This time is necessary to avoid overheating, which might affect the structure of the material Once it has dried sufficiently, it is sealed in a moisturefree package As long as the package is secure, the material can sit on a shelf for years and years without degrading, until it is restored to its original form with a little hot water If everything works correctly, the material will go through the entire process almost completely unscathed In fact, freeze-drying, as a general concept, is not new but has been around for centuries The ancient Incas of Peru used mountain peaks along the Andes as natural food preservers The extremely cold temperatures and low pressure at those high altitudes prevented food from spoiling in the same basic way as a modern freeze-drying machine and a freezer Questions 1-5 Complete the notes below Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer Write your answers in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet Uses of freeze-drying: • food preservation • easy of food items • long-term storage of and biological samples • preservation of precious Freeze-drying • is based on process of is more efficient than Questions 6-9 Label the diagram below Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer Write your answers in boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet A simplified freeze-drying machine Questions 10-13 Complete the summary below Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet Freeze-drying prevents food from going bad by stopping the activity of microorganisms or 10 Its advantages are that the food tastes and feels the same as the original because both the 11 and structure are preserved The process is carried out slowly in order to ensure that 12 does not take place The people of one ancient mountain civilisation were able to use this method of food preservation because the conditions needed were present at 13 Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: transportation pharmaceuticals manuscripts sublimation simple drying (techniques) (freeze-drying) chamber shelves freezing coil (refrigerator) compressor 10 enzymes 11 composition 12 overheating 13 high altitudes Academic IELTS Reading Sample 313 - The wild side of town You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Passage 313 below THE WILD SIDE OF TOWN The countryside is no longer the place to see wildlife, according to Chris Barnes These days you are more likely to find impressive numbers of skylarks, dragonflies and toads in your own back garden The past half century has seen an interesting reversal in the fortunes of much of Britain's wildlife Whilst the rural countryside has become poorer and poorer, wildlife habitat in towns has burgeoned Now, if you want to hear a deafening dawn chorus of birds or familiarise yourself with foxes, you can head for the urban forest Whilst species that depend on wide open spaces such as the hare, the eagle and the red deer may still be restricted to remote rural landscapes, many of our wild plants and animals find the urban ecosystem ideal This really should be no surprise, since it is the fragmentation and agrochemical pollution in the farming lowlands that has led to the catastrophic decline of so many species By contrast, most urban open spaces have escaped the worst of the pesticide revolution, and they are an intimate mosaic of interconnected habitats Over the years, the cutting down of hedgerows on farmland has contributed to habitat isolation and species loss In towns, the tangle of canals, railway embankments, road verges and boundary hedges lace the landscape together, providing first-class ecological corridors for species such as hedgehogs, kingfishers and dragonflies Urban parks and formal recreation grounds are valuable for some species, and many of them are increasingly managed with wildlife in mind But in many places, their significance is eclipsed by the huge legacy of post-industrial land demolished factories, waste tips, quarries, redundant railway yards and other so-called ‘brownfield’ sites In Merseyside, South Yorkshire and the West Midlands, much of this has been spectacularly colonised with birch and willow woodland, herbrich grassland and shallow wetlands As a consequence, there are song birds and predators in abundance over these once-industrial landscapes There are fifteen million domestic gardens in the UK and whilst some are still managed as lifeless chemical war zones, most benefit the local wildlife, either through benign neglect or positive encouragement Those that best tend to be woodland species, and the garden lawns and flower borders, climber-covered fences, shrubberies and fruit trees are a plausible alternative Indeed, in some respects, gardens are rather better than the real thing, especially with exotic flowers extending the nectar season Birdfeeders can also supplement the natural seed supply, and only the millions of domestic cats may spoil the scene As Britain’s gardeners have embraced the idea of ‘gardening with nature’, wildlife’s response has been spectacular Between 1990 and the year 2000 the number of different bird species seen at artificial feeders in gardens increased from 17 to an amazing 81 The BUGS project (Biodiversity in Urban Gardens in Sheffield) calculates that there are 25.000 garden ponds and 100.000 nest boxes in that one city alone We are at last acknowledging that the wildlife habitat in towns provides a valuable life support system The canopy of the urban forest is filtering air pollution, and intercepting rainstorms, allowing the water to drip more gradually to the ground Sustainable urban drainage relies on ponds and wetlands to contain storm water runoff, thus reducing the risk of flooding, whilst reed beds and other wetland wildlife communities also help to clean up the water We now have scientific proof that contact with wildlife close to home can help to reduce stress and anger Hospital patients with a view of natural green space make a more rapid recovery and suffer less pain Traditionally, nature conservation in the UK has been seen as marginal and largely rural Now we are beginning to place it at the heart of urban environmental and economic policy There are now dozens of schemes to create new habitats and restore old ones in and around our big cities Biodiversity is big in parts of London thanks to schemes such as the London Wetland Centre in the south west of the city This is a unique scheme masterminded by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust to create a wildlife reserve out of a redundant Victorian reservoir Within five years of its creation, the Centre has been hailed as one of the top sites for nature in England and made a Site of Special Scientific Interest It consists of a 105-acre wetland site, which is made up of different wetland habitats of shallow, open water and grazing marsh The site attracts more than 104 species of bird, including nationally important rarities like the bittern We need to remember that if we work with wildlife, then wildlife will work for us and this is the very essence of sustainable development patricians of dockside labour However, there were some 2,500 casual workers who were hired by the shift The work for which they competed fiercely had become ever more unpleasant Steam power could not be used for the cranes, for example, because of the danger of fire So the cranes were powered by treadmills Six to eight men entered a wooden cylinder and, laying hold of ropes, would tread the wheel round They could lift nearly 20 tonnes to an average height of 27 feet (8.2 metres), forty times in an hour This was part of the life of the river unknown to those who were intent upon its more picturesque aspects Questions 14-19 Reading Passage 319 has SIX paragraphs, A-F Choose the correct heading, A-F, from the list of headings below Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet List of Headings i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix A mixture of languages and nationalities The creation of an exclusive identity The duties involved in various occupations An unprecedented population density Imports and exports transported by river Transporting heavy loads manually Temporary work for large numbers of people Hazards associated with riverside work The changing status of riverside occupations 14 Paragraph A 15 Paragraph B 16 Paragraph C 17 Paragraph D 18 Paragraph E 19 Paragraph F Questions 20-21 Choose TWO letters, A-E Write the correct letters, A-E, in boxes 20 & 21 on your answer sheet Which TWO statements are made about work by the River Thames before the eighteenth century? A Goods were transported from the river by cart B The workforce was very poorly paid C Occupations were specialised D Workers were generally looked down upon E Physical strength was required Questions 22-23 Choose TWO letters, A-E Write the correct letters, A-E, in boxes 22 & 23 on your answer sheet Which TWO statements are made about life by the River Thames in the early nineteenth century? A The area was very crowded B There was an absence of crime C Casual work was in great demand D Several different languages were in use E Inhabitants were known for their friendliness Questions 24-26 Complete the sentences below Use NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer 24 In the nineteenth century, only a minority of dock workers received a 25 Cranes were operated manually because created a risk of fire 26 Observers who were unfamiliar with London’s docks found the River Thames Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: 14 iii 15 vi 16 ix 17 iv 18 ii 19 vii 20 & 21 C, E [in either order] 22 & 23 A, C [in either order] 24 regular wage 25 steam power 26 picturesque Academic IELTS Reading Sample 320 - Video game research Last Updated: Monday, 11 September 2017 14:27 Written by IELTS Mentor Hits: 31092 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27- 40, which are based on Passage 320 below Video game research Although video games were first developed for adults, they are no longer exclusively reserved for the grown ups in the home In 2006, Rideout and Hamel reported that as many as 29 percent of preschool children (children between two and six years old) in the United States had played console video games, and 18 percent had played hand-held ones Given young children’s insatiable eagerness to learn, coupled with the fact that they are clearly surrounded by these media, we predict that preschoolers will both continue and increasingly begin to adopt video games for personal enjoyment Although the majority of gaming equipment is still designed for a much older target audience, once a game system enters the household it is potentially available for all family members, including the youngest Portable systems have done a particularly good job of penetrating the younger market Research in the video game market is typically done at two stages: some time close to the end of the product cycle, in order to get feedback from consumers, so that a marketing strategy can be developed; and at the very end of the product cycle to ‘fix bugs’ in the game While both of those types of research are important, and may be appropriate for dealing with adult consumers, neither of them aids in designing better games, especially when it comes to designing for an audience that may have particular needs, such as preschoolers or senior citizens Instead, exploratory and formative research has to be undertaken in order to truly understand those audiences, their abilities, their perspective, and their needs In the spring of 2007, our preschool-game production team at Nickelodeon had a hunch that the Nintendo DS - with its new features, such as the microphone, small size and portability, and its relatively low price point - was a ripe gaming platform for preschoolers There were a few games on the market at the time which had characters that appealed to the younger set, but our game producers did not think that the game mechanics or design were appropriate for preschoolers What exactly preschoolers could with the system, however, was a bit of a mystery So we set about doing a study to answer the query: What could we expect preschoolers to be capable of in the context of hand-held game play, and how might the child development literature inform us as we proceeded with the creation of a new outlet for this age group? Our context, in this case, was the United States, although the games that resulted were also released in other regions, due to the broad international reach of the characters In order to design the best possible DS product for a preschool audience, we were fully committed to the ideals of a ‘user-centered approach’, which assumes that users will be at least considered, but ideally consulted during the development process After all, when it comes to introducing a new interactive product to the child market, and particularly such a young age group within it, we believe it is crucial to assess the range of physical and cognitive abilities associated with their specific developmental stage Revelle and Medoff (2002) review some of the basic reasons why home entertainment systems, computers, and other electronic gaming devices, are often difficult for preschoolers to use In addition to their still developing motor skills (which make manipulating a controller with small buttons difficult), many of the major stumbling blocks are cognitive Though preschoolers are learning to think symbolically, and understand that pictures can stand for real-life objects, the vast majority are still unable to read and write Thus, using text-based menu selections is not viable Mapping is yet another obstacle since preschoolers may be unable to understand that there is a direct link between how the controller is used and the activities that appear before them on screen Though this aspect is changing, in traditional mapping systems real life movements not usually translate into game-based activity Over the course of our study, we gained many insights into how preschoolers interact with various platforms, including the DS For instance, all instructions for preschoolers need to be in voice-over, and include visual representations, and this has been one of the most difficult areas for us to negotiate with respect to game design on the DS Because the game cartridges have very limited memory capacity, particularly in comparison to console or computer games, the ability to capture large amounts of voice-over data via sound files or visual representations of instructions becomes limited Text instructions take up minimal memory, so they are preferable from a technological perspective Figuring out ways to maximise sound and graphics files, while retaining the clear visual and verbal cues that we know are critical for our youngest players, is a constant give and take Another of our findings indicated that preschoolers may use either a stylus, or their fingers, or both although they are not very accurate with either One of the very interesting aspects of the DS is that the interface, which is designed to respond to stylus interactions, can also effectively be used with the tip of the finger This is particularly noteworthy in the context of preschoolers for two reasons Firstly, as they have trouble with fine motor skills and their hand-eye coordination is still in development, they are less exact with their stylus movements; and secondly, their fingers are so small that they mimic the stylus very effectively, and therefore by using their fingers they can often be more accurate in their game interactions Questions 27-31 Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 320? In boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet, write YES NO if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this 27 Video game use amongst preschool children is higher in the US than in other countries 28 The proportion of preschool children using video games is likely to rise 29 Parents in the US who own gaming equipment generally allow their children to play with it 30 The type of research which manufacturers usually is aimed at improving game design 31 Both old and young games consumers require research which is specifically targeted Questions 32-36 Complete the summary using the list of words/phrases, A-l, below Problems for preschool users of video games Preschool children find many electronic games difficult, because neither their motor skills nor their 32 are sufficiently developed Certain types of control are hard for these children to manipulate, for example, 33 can be more effective than styluses Also, although they already have the ability to relate 34 to real-world objects, preschool children are largely unable to understand the connection between their own 35 and the movements they can see on the screen Finally, very few preschool children can understand 36 A actions B buttons C cognitive skills D concentration E fingers F pictures G sounds H spoken instructions I.written menus Questions 37- 40 Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D and white them in boxes 37- 40 on your answer sheet 37 In 2007, what conclusion did games producers at Nickelodeon come to? A The preschool market was unlikely to be sufficiently profitable B One of their hardware products would probably be suitable for preschoolers C Games produced by rival companies were completely inappropriate for preschoolers D They should put their ideas for new games for preschoolers into practice 38 The study carried out by Nickelodeon A was based on children living in various parts of the world B focused on the kinds of game content which interests preschoolers C investigated the specific characteristics of the target market D led to products which appealed mainly to the US consumers 39 Which problem the writers highlight concerning games instructions for young children? A Spoken instructions take up a lot of the available memory B Written instructions have to be expressed very simply C The children not follow instructions consistently D The video images distract attention from the instructions 40 Which is the best title for Reading Passage 320? A An overview of video games software for the preschool market B Researching and designing video games for preschool children C The effects of video games on the behaviour of young children D Assessing the impact of video games on educational achievement Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: 27 NOT GIVEN 28 YES 29 NOT GIVEN 30 NO 31 YES 32 C 33 E 34 F 35 A 36 I 37 B 38 C 39 A 40 B Academic IELTS Reading Sample 321 - A song on the brain Last Updated: Monday, 11 September 2017 15:02 Written by IELTS Mentor Hits: 31592 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1- 13, which are based on Passage 321 below A song on the brain Some songs just won't leave you alone But this may give us clues about how our brain works A Everyone knows the situation where you can't get a song out of your head You hear a pop song on the radio - or even just read the song's title and it haunts you for hours, playing over and over in your mind until you're heartily sick of it The condition now even has a medical name 'song-in-head syndrome' В But why does the mind annoy us like this? No one knows for sure, but it's probably because the brain is better at holding onto information than it is at knowing what information is important Roger Chaffin, a psychologist at the University of Connecticut says, 'It's a manifestation of an aspect of memory which is normally an asset to us, but in this instance, it can be a nuisance.' С This eager acquisitiveness of the brain may have helped our ancestors remember important information in the past Today, students use it to learn new material, and musicians rely on it to memorise complicated pieces But when this useful function goes awry it can get you stuck on a tune Unfortunately, superficial, repetitive pop tunes are, by their very nature, more likely to stick than something more inventive D The annoying playback probably originates in the auditory cortex Located at the front of the brain, this region handles both listening and playback of music and other sounds Neuroscientist Robert Zatorre of McGill University in Montreal proved this some years ago when he asked volunteers to replay the theme from the TV show Dallas in their heads Brain imaging studies showed that this activated the same region of the auditory cortex as when the people actually heard the song E Not every stored musical memory emerges into consciousness, however The frontal lobe of the brain gets to decide which thoughts become conscious and which ones are simply stored away But it can become fatigued or depressed, which is when people most commonly suffer from song-in-head syndrome and other intrusive thoughts, says Susan Ball, a clinical psychologist at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis And once the unwanted song surfaces, it's hard to stuff it back down into the subconscious 'The more you try to suppress a thought, the more you get it,' says Ball 'We call this the pink elephant phenomenon Tell the brain not to think about pink elephants, and it's guaranteed to so,' she says F For those not severely afflicted, simply avoiding certain kinds of music can help 'I know certain pieces that are kind of "sticky" to me, so I will not play them in the early morning for fear that they will run around in my head all day,' says Steven Brown, who trained as a classical pianist but is now a neuroscientist at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio He says he always has a song in his head and, even more annoying, his mind never seems to make it all the way through 'It tends to involve short fragments between, say, or 15 seconds They seem to get looped, for hours sometimes,' he says G Brown's experience of repeated musical loops may represent a phenomenon called 'chunking', in which people remember musical phrases as a single unit of memory, says Caroline Palmer, a psychologist at Ohio State University in Columbus Most listeners have little choice about what chunks they remember Particular chunks may be especially 'sticky' if you hear them often or if they follow certain predictable patterns, such as the chord progression of rock 'n' roll music Palmer's research shows that the more a piece of music conforms to these patterns, the easier it is to remember That's why you're more likely to be haunted by the tunes of pop music than by those of a classical composer such as J S Bach H But this ability can be used for good as well as annoyance Teachers can tap into memory reinforcement by setting their lessons to music For example, in one experiment students who heard a history text set as the lyrics to a catchy song remembered the words better than those who simply read them, says Sandra Calvert, a psychologist at Georgetown University in Washington DC I This sort of memory enhancement may even explain the origin of music Before the written word could be used to record history, people memorised it in songs, says Leon James, a psychologist at the University of Hawaii And music may have had an even more important role ‘All music has a message.' he says ‘This message functions to unite society and to standardise the thought processes of people in society.’ Questions 1-3 Choose the correct answer, A, B, C or D Write your answers in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet The writer says that song-in-head syndrome' may occur because the brain A confuses two different types of memory B cannot decide what information it needs to retain C has been damaged by harmful input D cannot hold onto all the information it processes A tune is more likely to stay in your head if A it is simple and unoriginal B you have musical training C it is part of your culture D you have a good memory Robert Zatorre found that a part of the auditory cortex was activated when volunteers A listened to certain types of music B learned to play a tune on an instrument C replayed a piece of music after several years D remembered a tune they had heard previously Questions 4-7 Look at the following theories (Questions 4-7) and the list of people below Match each theory with the person it is credited to Write the correct letter A-F in boxes 4-7 on your answer sheet The memorable nature of some tunes can help other learning processes Music may not always be stored in the memory in the form of separate notes People may have started to make music because of their need to remember things Having a song going round your head may happen to you more often when one part of the brain is tired List of people A B C D E F Roger Chaffin Susan Ball Steven Brown Caroline Palmer Sandra Calvert Leon James Questions 8-13 Reading Passage 321 has nine paragraphs labelled A-l Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter A-l in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet NB You may use any letter more than once a claim that music strengthens social bonds two reasons why some bits of music tend to stick in your mind more than others 10 an example of how the brain may respond in opposition to your wishes 11 the name of the part of the brain where song-in-head syndrome begins 12 examples of two everyday events that can set off song-m-head syndrome 13 a description of what one person does to prevent song-in-head syndrome Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: B A D E D F B I G 10 E 11 D 12 A 13 F Academic IELTS Reading Sample 322 - Worldly Wealth You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14- 27, which are based on Passage 322 below Worldly Wealth Can the future population of the world enjoy a comfortable lifestyle, with possessions, space and mobility, without crippling the environment? The world's population is expected to stabilize at around nine billion Will it be possible for nine billion people to have the lifestyle enjoyed today only by the wealthy? One school of thought says no: not only should the majority of the world's people resign themselves to poverty forever, but rich nations must also revert to simpler lifestyles in order to save the planet Admittedly, there may be political or social barriers to achieving a rich world But in fact, there seems to be no insuperable physical or ecological reason why nine billion people should not achieve a comfortable lifestyle, using technology only slightly more advanced than that which we now possess In thinking about the future of civilization, we ought to start by asking what people want The evidence demonstrates that as people get richer they want a greater range of personal technology, they want lots of room (preferably near or in natural surroundings) and they want greater speed in travel More possessions, more space, more mobility In the developed world, the personal technologies of the wealthy, including telephones, washing machines and ears, have become necessities within a generation or two Increasing productivity that results in decreasing costs for such goods has been responsible for the greatest gains in the standard of living, and there is every reason to believe that this will continue As affluence grows, the amount of energy and raw materials used for the production of machinery will therefore escalate But this need not mean an end to the machine age Rather than being thrown away, materials from old machinery can be recycled by manufacturers And long before all fossil fuels are exhausted, their rising prices may compel industrial society not only to become more energy efficient but also to find alternative energy sources sufficient for the demands of an advanced technological civilization nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, solar energy, chemical photosynthesis, geothermal, biomass or some yet unknown source of energy The growth of cities and suburbs is often seen as a threat to the environment However, in fact, the increasing amount of land consumed by agriculture is a far greater danger than urban sprawl Stopping the growth of farms is the best way to preserve many of the world's remaining wild areas But is a dramatic downsizing of farmland possible? Thanks to the growth of agricultural productivity, reforestation and ‘re-wilding’ have been underway in the industrial countries for generations Since 1950 more land in the US has been set aside in parks than has been occupied by urban and suburban growth And much of what was farmland in the nineteenth century is now forest again Taking the best Iowa maize growers as the norm for world food productivity, it has been calculated that less than a tenth of present cropland could support a population of 10 billion In The Environment Game, a vision of a utopia that would be at once high-tech and environmentalist Nigel Calder suggested that ‘nourishing but unpalatable primary food produced by industrial techniques - like yeast from petroleum may be fed to animals, so that we can continue to eat our customary meat, eggs, milk, butter, and cheese and so that people in underdeveloped countries can have adequate supplies of animal protein for the first time.' In the long run tissue-cloning techniques could be used to grow desired portions of meat by themselves Once their DNA has been extracted to create cowless steaks and chickenless drumsticks, domesticated species of livestock, bred for millennia to be stupid or to have grotesquely enhanced traits, should be allowed to become extinct, except for a few specimens in zoos However, game such as wild deer, rabbits and wild ducks will be ever more abundant as farms revert to wilderness, so this could supplement the laboratory-grown meat in the diets of tomorrow's affluent With the rising personal incomes come rising expectations of mobility This is another luxury of today’s rich that could become a necessity of tomorrow’s global population - particularly if its members choose to live widely dispersed in a post-agrarian wilderness In his recent book Free Flight, James Fallows, a pilot as well as a writer, describes serious attempts by both state and private entrepreneurs in the USA to promote an ‘air taxi' system within the price range of today’s middle class and perhaps tomorrow’s global population Two of the chief obstacles to the science fiction fantasy of the personal plane or hover car are price and danger While technological improvements are driving prices down, piloting an aircraft in three dimensions is still more difficult than driving a car in two and pilot error causes more fatalities than driver error But before long our aircraft and cars will be piloted by computers which are never tired or stressed So perhaps there are some grounds for optimism when viewing the future of civilization With the help of technology, and without putting serious strains on the global environment, possessions, space and mobility can be achieved for all the projected population of the world Questions 14-19 Do the following statements reflect the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 322? In boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet, write - YES if the statement reflects the writer's claims NO if the statement contradicts the writer's claims NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this 14 Today's wealthy people ignore the fact that millions are living in poverty 15 There are reasons why the future population of the world may not enjoy a comfortable lifestyle 16 The first thing to consider when planning for the future is environmental protection 17 As manufactured goods get cheaper, people will benefit more from them 18 It may be possible to find new types of raw materials for use in the production of machinery 19 The rising prices of fossil fuels may bring some benefits Questions 20-25 Complete the summary below Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer Write your answers in boxes 20-25 on your answer sheet Space for an increased population According to the writer, the use of land for 20 is the most serious threat to the environment However, in the US there has already been an increase in the amount of land used for 21 and forests Far less land would be required to feed the world's population if the 22 of the land could be improved worldwide It has also been claimed that the industrial production of animal foods could allow greater access to animal 23 by the entire world’s population Scientists could use 24 from domesticated animals to help produce meat by tissue cloning, and these species could then be allowed to die out In addition to this type of meat 25 will also be widely available Questions 26-27 Choose the correct answer, A B, C or D Write your answers in boxes 26-27 on your answer sheet 26 Greater mobility may be a feature of the future because of changes in A the location of housing B patterns of employment C centres of transport D the distribution of wealth 27 Air transport will be safe because of A new types of aircraft B better training methods C three-dimensional models D improved technology Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: 14 NOT GIVEN 15 YES 16 NO 17 YES 18 NOT GIVEN 19 YES 20 agriculture / farms / farmland 21 parks 22 productivity 23 protein 24 DNA 25 game 26 A 27 D ... in which the top layer was concrete, 15 to 30 centimetres thick, laid on a prepared bed Nowadays steel bars are laid within the concrete This not only restrains shrinkage during setting, but also... using this process Freeze-drying is different from simple drying because it is able to remove almost all the water from materials, whereas simple drying techniques can only remove 90-95% This... quality of the original This is possible because in freeze-drying, solid water - ice - is converted directly into water vapour, missing out the liquid phase entirely This is called ‘sublimation’,