323 Space: The Final Archaeological Frontier 28. E 29. B 30. H 31. A 32. F 33. D 34. sneezed 35. 2 36. removed 37. analysis 38. life 39. 40. C, D in either order 324 Dino discoveries 1. FALSE 2. TRUE 3. NOT GIVEN 4. TRUE 5. NOT GIVEN 6. FALSE 7. three metres 8. birdlike beak 9. curved claws 10. asymmetrical vanes 11. dusk 12. warmer 13. food chain 325 Art to the aid of technology 14. C 15. G 16. D 17. B 18. F 19. D 20. B 21. C 22. B 23. A 24. Hirschfeld attributes 25. automated system 26. exaggerated 326 Mind readers 27. NOT GIVEN 28. YES 29. NO 30. NO 31. NOT GIVEN 32. YES 33. F 34. C 35. A 36. E 37. D 38. B 39. B 40. A 327 Britain needs strong TV industry 1. TRUE 2. FALSE 3. NOT GIVEN 4. TRUE 5. FALSE 6. A 7. C 8. A 9. B 10. commercially abroad 11. subscription channels 12. icky 13. more ambitious 14. speculation 328 EcoResort Management 1. B 2. B 3. D 4. D 5. B 6. ferry 7. bicycle 8. fanceiling fan 9. air conditioner 10. mosquitosmosquito 11. 12. 13. A, C, E in any order 329 Foot Pedal Irrigation 1. FALSE 2. NOT GIVEN 3. FALSE 4. NOT GIVEN 5. TRUE 6. TRUE 7. bamboo 8. cylinders 9. Piston 10. 7 11. 12 an acrehalf an acre 12. corrugated tin 13. 37.5 million37.5 million dollars 330 Stress of Workplace 14. A 15. D 16. B 17. D 18. C 19. B 20. D 21. A 22. workplace injury 23. 16.6 weeks 24. 7% 25. golf 26. massage 27. workloads 331 SOSUS: Listening to the Ocean 1. TRUE 2. FALSE 3. NOT GIVEN 4. TRUE 5. D 6. G 7. F 8. D 9. D 10. A 11. A 12. B 13. C 332 Monkeys and Forests 14. G 15. A 16. C 17. B 18. H 19. D 20. C 21. A 22. B 23. fruit the fruit 24. plant toxin toxin 25. reproduction reproduce 26. water 27. drough 333 Ageproofing our brains 28. C 29. D 30. F 31. G 32. D 33. F 34. C 35. G 36. B 37. A 38. C 39. E 40. A 334 Sugar and other sweeteners 1. 2. fructose, glucose in either order 3. white sugar sucrose. 4. 5. Aspartame (NutraSweet), Cyclamate. 6. mystery 7. fructose 8. fruit 9. glucose 10. technologists 11. substances 12. discovered 13. maximum 14. similar 15. chemical 335 The Dover BronzeAge Boat 1. road 2. conference 3. proposals 4. launch 5. exhibition 6. TRUE 7. FALSE 8. FALSE 9. NOT GIVEN 10. 6six metersmetersm 11. (pads of) moss 12. (the) hull (shape) 13. cost and time 336 The changing role of airports 14. E 15. B 16. G 17. A 18. C 19. security procedure 20. final destination 21. airlines 22. competitive advantage 23. economic downturnclimate 24. five years 25. local (people) 26. flights 337 Is Photography Art? 27. C 28. D 29. D 30. A 31. E 32. G 33. A 34. C 35. B 36. E 37. A 38. D 39. A 40. C 338 Tickling and Laughter 1. G 2. C 3. F 4. E 5. D 6. B 7. G 8. A 9. C 10. F 11. D 12. imaging equipment 13. cognitive processing 14. wrong punch lines 339 The Ingenuity Gap 15. C 16. A 17. D 18. B 19. B 20. B 21. C 22. TRUE 23. TRUE 24. TRUE 25. FALSE 26. NOT GIVEN 27. TRUE 28. FALSE 340 Bright Children 29. YES 30. NO 31. YES 32. NOT GIVEN 33. NO 34. YES 35. C 36. A 37. B 38. D 39. A 40. C 41. E 341 The importance of children’s play 1. creativity 2. rules 3. cities 4 5. traffic, crime In either order 6. competition 7. evidence 8. life 9. TRUE 10. TRUE 11. NOT GIVEN 12. FALSE 13. TRUE 342 The growth of bikesharing schemes around the world 14. E 15. C 16. F 17. C 18. A 19 20. B D 21 22. D E 23. activists 24. consumerism 25. leaflets 26. police
Academic IELTS Reading Sample 323 - Space: The Final Archaeological Frontier Last Updated: Monday, 11 September 2017 16:00 Written by IELTS Mentor Hits: 60004 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28 - 40, which are based on Passage 323 below Space: The Final Archaeological Frontier Space travel may still have a long way to go, but the notion of archaeological research and heritage management in space is already concerning scientists and environmentalists In 1993, University of Hawaii’s anthropologist Ben Finney, who for much of his career has studied the technology once used by Polynesians to colonize islands in the Pacific, suggested that it would not be premature to begin thinking about the archaeology of Russian and American aerospace sites on the Moon and Mars Finney pointed out that just as today's scholars use archaeological records to investigate how Polynesians diverged culturally as they explored the Pacific, archaeologists will someday study off-Earth sites to trace the development of humans in space He realized that it was unlikely anyone would be able to conduct fieldwork in the near future, but he was convinced that one day such work would be done There is a growing awareness, however, that it won’t be long before both corporate adventurers and space tourists reach the Moon and Mars There is a wealth of important archaeological sites from the history of space exploration on the Moon and Mars and measures need to be taken to protect these sites In addition to the threat from profit- seeking corporations, scholars cite other potentially destructive forces such as souvenir hunting and unmonitored scientific sampling, as has already occurred in explorations of remote polar regions Already in 1999 one company was proposing a robotic lunar rover mission beginning at the site of Tranquility Base and rumbling across the Moon from one archaeological site to another, from the wreck of the Ranger S probe to Apollo 17 s landing site The mission, which would leave vehicle tyre- marks all over some of the most famous sites on the Moon, was promoted as a form of theme-park entertainment According to the vaguely worded United Motions Outer Space Treaty of 1967 what it terms ‘space junk’ remains the property of the country that sent the craft or probe into space But the treaty doesn’t explicitly address protection of sites like Tranquility Base, and equating the remains of human exploration of the heavens with ‘space junk’ leaves them vulnerable to scavengers Another problem arises through other international treaties proclaiming that land in space cannot be owned by any country or individual This presents some interesting dilemmas for the aspiring manager of extraterrestrial cultural resources Does the US own Neil Armstrong's famous first footprints on the Moon but not the lunar dust in which they were recorded? Surely those footprints are as important in the story of human development as those left by hominids at Laetoli, Tanzania But unlike the Laetoli prints, which have survived for 3.5 million years encased in cement-like ash those at Tranquility Base could be swept away with a casual brush of a space tourist’s hand To deal with problems like these, it may be time to look to innovative international administrative structures for the preservation of historic remains on the new frontier The Moon, with its wealth of sites, will surely be the first destination of archaeologists trained to work in space But any young scholars hoping to claim the mantle of history’s first lunar archaeologist will be disappointed That distinction is already taken On November 19 1969 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean made a difficult manual landing of the Apollo 12 lunar module in the Moon’s Ocean of Storms, just a few hundred feet from an unmanned probe Surveyor J that had landed in a crater on April 19 1967 Unrecognized at the time, this was an important moment in the history of science Bean and Conrad were about to conduct the first archaeological studies on the Moon After the obligatory planting of the American flag and some geological sampling, Conrad and Bean made their way to Surveyor They observed that the probe had bounced after touchdown and carefully photographed the impressions made by its footpads The whole spacecraft was covered in dust, perhaps kicked up by the landing The astronaut-archaeologists carefully removed the probes television camera, remote sampling arm and pieces of tubing They bagged and labelled these artefacts, and stowed them on board their lunar module On their return to Earth, they passed them on to the Daveson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and the Hughes Air and Space Corporation in EI Segundo, California There, scientists analyzed the changes in these aerospace artefacts One result of the analysis astonished them A fragment of the television camera revealed evidence of the bacteria Streptococcus mitis I or a moment it was thought Conrad and Bean had discovered evidence for life on the Moon, but after further research the real explanation became apparent While the camera was being installed in the probe prior to the launch, someone sneezed on it The resulting bacteria had travelled to the Moon, remained in an alternating freezing.' boiling vacuum for more than two years, and returned promptly to life upon reaching the safety of a laboratory back on Earth The finding that not even the vastness of space can stop humans from spreading a sore throat was an unexpected spin-off But the artefacts brought back by Rean and Conrad have a broader significance Simple as they may seem, they provide the first example of extraterrestrial archaeology and perhaps more significant for the history of the discipline formational archaeology, the study of environmental and cultural forces upon the life history of human artefacts in space Questions 28-33 Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-H from the box below Write the correct letter A-H in boxes 28-33 on your answer sheet 28 Ben Finney's main academic work investigates the way that 29 Ben Finney thought that in the long term 30 Commercial pressures mean that in the immediate future 31 Academics are concerned by the fact that in isolated regions on Earth 32 One problem with the 1967 UN treaty is that 33 The wording of legal agreements over ownership of land in space means that A activities of tourists and scientists have harmed the environment B some sites in space could be important in the history of space exploration C vehicles used for tourism have polluted the environment D it may be unclear who has responsibility for historic human footprints E past explorers used technology in order to find new places to live F man-made objects left in space are regarded as rubbish G astronauts may need to work more closely with archaeologists H important sites on the Moon may be under threat Questions 34-38 Complete the flow chart below Choose NO MORE THAN ONE WORD from the passage for each answer During the assembly of the Surveyor probe, someone 34 on a TV camera ↓ The TV Camera was carried to the Moon on Surveyor ↓ The TV Camera remained on the Moon for over 35 years ↓ Apollo 12 astronauts 36 the TV camera ↓ The TV camera was returned to Earth for 37 ↓ The Streptococcus mitis bacteria were found ↓ The theory that this suggested there was 38 on the Moon was rejected ↓ Scientists concluded that the bacteria can survive lunar conditions Questions 39-40 Choose TWO letters A-E The TWO main purposes of the writer of this text are to explain A the reasons why space archaeology is not possible B the dangers that could follow from contamination of objects from space C the need to set up careful controls over space tourism D the need to preserve historic sites and objects in space E the possible cultural effects of space travel Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: 28 E 29 B 30 H 31 A 32 F 33 D 34 sneezed 35 36 removed 37 analysis 38 life 39 & 40 C, D [in either order] Academic IELTS Reading Sample 324 - Dino discoveries Last Updated: Tuesday, 12 September 2017 15:54 Written by IELTS Mentor Hits: 13672 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions - 13, which are based on Passage 324 below Dino discoveries When news breaks of the discovery of a new species of dinosaur, you would be forgiven for thinking that the scientists who set out in search of the fossils are the ones who made die find The reality tells a different story, as Cavan Scott explains The BBC series Planet Dinosaur used state-of-the-art computer graphics to bring to life the most impressive of those dinosaurs whose remains have been discovered in the past decade One of these is Gigantoraptor erlianensis Discovered in 2005 it stands more than three metres high at the hip and is the biggest bird-like dinosaur ever unearthed Yet its discoverer Xu Xing of Beijing's Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Paleoanthropology, was not even looking for it at the time He was recording a documentary in the Gobi Desert Inner Mongolia 'The production team were filming me and a geologist digging out what we thought were sauropod bones.' says Xu 'when I realised the fossils were something else entirely.' Gigantoraptor, as it later became known, turned out to be an oviraptorid, a therapod with a bird-like beak Its size was staggering The largest oviraptorid previously discovered had been comparable in size to an emu: the majority were about as big as a turkey Here was a creature that was probably about eight metres long, if the bone analysis was anything to go by Sometimes it is sheer opportunism that plays a part in the discovery of a new species In 1999 the National Geographic Society announced that the missing link between dinosaurs and modern birds had finally been found Named Archaeoraptor lianoingensis the fossil in question appeared to have the head and body of a bird, with the hind legs and tail of a 124-million-year-old dromaeosaur - a family of small theropods that include the bird-like Velociraptor made famous by Jurassic Park films There was a good reason why the fossil looked half-bird, half-dinosaur CT scans almost immediately proved the specimen was bogus and had been created by an industrious Chinese farmer who had glued two separate fossils together to create a profitable hoax But while the palaeontologists behind the announcement were wiping egg off their faces, others, including Xu were taking note The head and body of the fake composite belonged to Yanornis martini, a primitive fish-eating bird from around 120 million years ago The dromaeosaur tail and hind legs, however, were covered in what looked like fine proto feathers That fossil turned out to be something special In 2000 Xu named it Microraptor and revealed that it had probably lived in the treetops Although it couldn't fly its curved claws provided the first real evidence that dinosaurs could have climbed trees Three years later Xu and his team discovered a closely related Microraptor species which changed everything 'Microraptor had two salient features.' Xu explains, long feathers were attached not just to its forearms but to its legs and claws Then we noticed that these long feathers had asymmetrical vanes, a feature often associated with flight capability This meant that we might have found a flying dinosaur.' Some extraordinary fossils have remained hidden in a collection and almost forgotten For the majority of the 20th century, the palaeontology community had ignored the frozen tundra of north Alaska There was no way, scientists believed that cold-blooded dinosaurs could survive in such bleak, frigid conditions But according to Alaskan dinosaur expert Tony Fiorillo they eventually realised they were missing a trick The first discovery of dinosaurs in Alaska was actually made by a geologist called Robert Liscomb in 1961.' says Fiorillo 'Unfortunately, Robert was killed in a rockslide the following year, so his discoveries languished in a warehouse for the next two decades.' In the mid-1980s, managers at the warehouse stumbled upon the box containing Liscomb's fossils during a spring clean The bones were sent to the United States Geological Survey, where they were identified as belonging to Edmontosaurus a duck-billed hadrosaur Today, palaeontologists roam this frozen treasure trove searching for remains locked away in the permafrost The rewards are worth the effort While studying teeth belonging to the relatively intelligent Troodon therapod Fiorillo discovered the teeth of the Alaskan Troodon were double the size of those of its southern counterpart 'Even though the morphology of individual teeth resembled that of Troodon the size was significantly larger than the Troodon found in warmer climates Fiorillo says that the reason lies in the Troodon's large eyes, which allowed it to hunt at dawn and at dusk - times when other dinosaurs would have struggled to see In the polar conditions of Cretaceous Alaska, where the Sun would all but disappear for months on end, this proved a useful talent Troodon adapted for life in the extraordinary light regimes of the polar world With this advantage, it took over as Alaska's dominant therapod.' explains Fiorillo Finding itself at the top of the food chain, the dinosaur evolved to giant proportions It is true that some of the most staggering of recent developments have come from palaeontologists being in the right place at the right time, but this is no reflection on their knowledge or expertise After all, not everyone knows when they've stumbled upon something remarkable When Argentine sheep farmer Guillermo Heredia uncovered what he believed was a petrified tree Irunk on his Patagonian farm in 1988 he had no way of realising that he'd found a 1.5-metre- long tibia of the largest sauropod ever known to walk the Earth Argenlinosaurus was 24 metres long and weighed 75 tonnes The titanosaur was brought to the attention of the scientific community in 1993 by Rodolfo Coria and Jose Bonaparte of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Buenos Aires Coria points out that most breakthroughs are not made by scientists, but by ordinary folk 'But the real scientific discovery is not the finding; it's what we learn from that finding.' While any one of us can unearth a fossil, it takes dedicated scientists to see beyond the rock Questions 1-6 Do the following statements agree with the information in Reading Passage 324? In boxes 1-6 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 Xu Xing went to the Gobi Desert to check fossil evidence of the existence of Gigantoraptor erlianensis The announcement made by the National Geographic Society in 1999 was based on false evidence Like Gigantoraptor, Yanomis martini was first discovered in China The bones originally discovered by Robert Liscomb changed the attitude of palaeontologists towards north Alaska According to Fiorillo the name Troodon means ‘wounding tooth’ Guillermo Heredia had suspected that his find was a dinosaur fossil Questions 7-13 Complete the labels on the diagrams below Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: FALSE TRUE NOT GIVEN TRUE NOT GIVEN FALSE three metres bird-like beak curved claws 10 asymmetrical vanes 11 dusk 12 warmer 13 food chain Academic IELTS Reading Sample 325 - Art to the aid of technology Last Updated: Tuesday, 12 September 2017 15:51 Written by IELTS Mentor Hits: 15007 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14 - 26, which are based on Passage 325 below Art to the aid of technology A Our brains are incredibly agile machines, and it is hard to think of anything they more efficiently than recognize faces Just hours after birth, the eyes of newborns are drawn to facelike patterns An adult brain knows it is seeing a face within 100 milliseconds, and it takes just over a second to realize that two different pictures of a face, even if they are lit or rotated in very different ways, belong to the same person B Perhaps the most vivid illustration of our gift for recognition is the magic of caricature-the fact that the sparest cartoon of a familiar face, even a single line dashed off in two seconds, can be identified by our brains in an instant It is often said that a good caricature looks more like a person than the person themselves As it happens, this notion, counterintuitive though it may sound, is actually supported by research In the field of vision science, there is even a term for this seeming paradox-the caricature effect-a phrase that hints at how our brains misperceive faces as much as perceive them C Human faces are all built pretty much the same: two eyes above a nose that’s above a mouth, the features varying from person to person generally by mere millimetres So what our brains look for, according to vision scientists, are the outlying features-those characteristics that deviate most from the ideal face we carry around in our heads, the running average of every "visage" we have ever seen We code each new face we encounter not in absolute terms but in the several ways, it differs markedly from the mean In other words, we accentuate what is most important for recognition and largely ignore what is not Our perception fixates on the upturned nose, the sunken eyes or the fleshy cheeks, making them loom larger To better identify and remember people, we turn them into caricatures D Ten years ago, we all imagined that as soon as surveillance cameras had been equipped with the appropriate software, the face of a crime suspect would stand out in a crowd Like a thumbprint, its unique features and configuration would offer a biometric key that could be immediately checked against any database of suspects But now a decade has passed, and face-recognition systems still perform miserably in real-world conditions Just recently, a couple who accidentally swapped passports at an airport in England sailed through electronic gates that were supposed to match their faces to file photos E All this leads to an interesting question What if, to secure our airports and national landmarks, we need to learn more about caricature? After all, it's the skill of the caricaturist-the uncanny ability to quickly distill faces down to their most salient features-that our computers most desperately need to acquire Clearly, better cameras and faster computers simply aren't going to be enough F At the University of Central Lancashire in England, Charlie Frowd, a senior lecturer in psychology, has used insights from caricature to develop a better police-composite generator His system, called EvoFIT, produces animated caricatures, with each successive frame showing facial features that are more exaggerated than the last Frowd's research supports the idea that we all store memories as caricatures, but with our own personal degree of amplification So, as an animated composite depicts faces at varying stages of caricature, viewers respond to the stage that is most recognizable to them In tests, Frowd's technique has increased positive identifications from as low as percent to upwards of 30 percent G To achieve similar results in computer face recognition, scientists would need to When we enhance the performance of any system, from our cars to the planet’s network of financial institutions, we tend to make it more complex Many of the natural systems critical to our well-being, like the global climate and the oceans, are extraordinarily complex, to begin with We often can’t predict or manage the behavior of complex systems with much precision, because they are often very sensitive to the smallest of changes and perturbations, and their behavior can flip from one mode to another suddenly and dramatically In general, as the human-made and natural systems, we depend upon becoming more complex, and as our demands on them increase, the institutions and technologies we use to manage them must become more complex too, which further boosts our need for ingenuity The good news, though, is that the last century’s stunning changes in our societies and technologies have not just increased our need for ingenuity; they have also produced a huge increase in its supply The growth and urbanization of human populations have combined with astonishing new communication and transportation technologies to expand interactions among people and produce larger, more integrated, and more efficient markets These changes have, in turn, vastly accelerated the generation and delivery of useful ideas But—and this is the critical “but”—we should not jump to the conclusion that the supply of ingenuity always increases in lockstep with our ingenuity requirement: while it’s true that necessity is often the mother of invention, we can’t always rely on the right kind of ingenuity appearing when and where we need it In many cases, the complexity and speed of operation of today’s vital economic, social, and ecological systems exceed the human brain’s grasp Very few of us have more than a rudimentary understanding of how these systems work They remain fraught with countless “unknown unknowns,” which makes it hard to supply the ingenuity we need to solve problems associated with these systems In this book, I explore a wide range of other factors that will limit our ability to supply the ingenuity required in the coming century For example, many people believe that new communication technologies strengthen democracy and will make it easier to find solutions to our societies’ collective problems, but the story is less clear than it seems The crush of information in our everyday lives is shortening our attention span, limiting the time we have to reflect on critical matters of public policy, and making policy arguments more superficial Modern markets and science are an important part of the story of how we supply ingenuity Markets are critically important because they give entrepreneurs an incentive to produce knowledge As for science, although it seems to face no theoretical limits, at least in the foreseeable future, practical constraints often slow its progress The cost of scientific research tends to increase as it delves deeper into nature And science’s rate of advance depends on the characteristic of the natural phenomena it investigates, simply because some phenomena are intrinsically harder to understand than others, so the production of useful new knowledge in these areas can be very slow Consequently, there is often a critical time lag between the recognition between a problem and the delivery of sufficient ingenuity, in the form of technologies, to solve that problem Progress in the social sciences is especially slow, for reasons we don’t yet understand; but we desperately need better social scientific knowledge to build the sophisticated institutions today’s world demands Questions 15-18 Complete each sentence with the appropriate answer, A, B, C, or D Write the correct answer in boxes 15-18 on your answer sheet 15 The definition of ingenuity 16 The requirement for ingenuity 17 The creation of social wealth 18 The stability of society A depends on many factors including climate B depends on the management and solution of disputes C is not only of technological advance but more of institutional renovation D also depends on the availability of some traditional resources Questions 19-21 Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D Write your answers in boxes 19-21 on your answer sheet 19 What does the author say about the incremental change of the last 100 years? A It has become a hot scholastic discussion among environmentalists B Its significance is often not noticed.= C It has reshaped the natural environments we live in D It benefited a much larger population than ever 20 The combination of changes has made life: A easier B faster C slower D less sophisticated 21 What does the author say about the natural systems? A New technologies are being developed to predict change with precision B Natural systems are often more sophisticated than other systems C Minor alterations may cause natural systems to change dramatically D Technological developments have rendered human being more independent of natural systems Questions 22-28 Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage? In boxes 22-28 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 22 The demand for ingenuity has been growing during the past 100 years 23 The ingenuity we have may be inappropriate for solving problems at hand 24 There are very few who can understand the complex systems of the present world 25 More information will help us to make better decisions 26 The next generation will blame the current government for their conduct 27 Science tends to develop faster in certain areas than others 28 Social science develops especially slowly because it is not as important as natural science Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: 15 C 16 A 17 D 18 B 19 B 20 B 21 C 22 TRUE 23 TRUE 24 TRUE 25 FALSE 26 NOT GIVEN 27 TRUE 28 FALSE Academic Reading Passage 340 - Bright Children Last Updated: Wednesday, 25 December 2019 00:30 Written by IELTS Mentor Hits: 17800 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 29–41, which are based on the reading passage below Write answers to questions in boxes 29-41 on your answer sheet Bright Children A By the time Laszlo Polgar’s first baby was born in 1969 he already had firm views on child-rearing An eccentric citizen of communist Hungary, he had written a book called “Bring up Genius!” and one of his favourite sayings was “Geniuses are made, not born” An expert on the theory of chess, he proceeded to teach little Zsuzsa at home, spending up to ten hours a day on the game Two more daughters were similarly hot-housed All three obliged their father by becoming world-class players The youngest, Judit, is currently ranked 13th in the world, and is by far the best female chess player of all time Would the experiment have succeeded with a different trio of children? If any child can be turned into a star, then a lot of time and money are being wasted worldwide on trying to pick winners B America has long held “talent searches”, using test results and teacher recommendations to select children for advanced school courses, summer schools and other extra tuition This provision is set to grow In his state-of-theunion address in 2006, President George Bush announced the “American Competitiveness Initiative”, which, among much else, would train 70,000 highschool teachers to lead advanced courses for selected pupils in mathematics and science Just as the superpowers’ space race made Congress put money into science education, the thought of China and India turning out hundreds of thousands of engineers and scientists is scaring America into prodding its brightest to their best C The philosophy behind this talent search is that ability is innate; that it can be diagnosed with considerable accuracy; and that it is worth cultivating In America, bright children are ranked as “moderately”, “highly”, “exceptionally” and “profoundly” gifted The only chance to influence innate ability is thought to be in the womb or the first couple of years of life Hence the fad for “teaching aids” such as videos and flashcards for newborns, and “whale sounds” on tape which a pregnant mother can strap to her belly D In Britain, there is a broadly similar belief in the existence of innate talent, but also an egalitarian sentiment which makes people queasy about the idea of investing resources in grooming intelligence Teachers are often opposed to separate provision for the best-performing children, saying any extra help should go to stragglers In 2002, in a bid to help the able while leaving intact the ban on most selection by ability in state schools, the government set up the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth This outfit runs summer schools and master classes for children nominated by their schools To date, though, only seven in ten secondary schools have nominated even a single child Last year all schools were told they must supply the names of their top 10% E Picking winners is also the order of the day in ex-communist states, a hangover from the times when talented individuals were plucked from their homes and ruthlessly trained for the glory of the nation But in many other countries, opposition to the idea of singling out talent and grooming it runs deep In Scandinavia, a belief in virtues like modesty and social solidarity makes people flinch from the idea of treating brainy children differently F And in Japan, there is a widespread belief that all children are born with the same innate abilities – and should, therefore, be treated alike All are taught together, covering the same syllabus at the same rate until they finish compulsory schooling Those who learn quickest are expected then to teach their classmates In China, extra teaching is provided, but to a self-selected bunch “Children’s palaces” in big cities offer a huge range of after-school classes Anyone can sign up; all that is asked is excellent attendance G Statistics give little clue as to which system is best The performance of the most able is heavily affected by factors other than state provision Most state education in Britain is nominally non-selective, but middle-class parents try to live near the best schools Ambitious Japanese parents have made private, out-of- school tuition a thriving business And Scandinavia’s egalitarianism might work less well in places with more diverse populations and less competent teachers For what it’s worth, the data suggest that some countries – like Japan and Finland, see table – can eschew selection and still thrive But that does not mean that any country can ditch selection and as well H Mr Polgar thought any child could be a prodigy given the right teaching, an early start and enough practice At one point he planned to prove it by adopting three baby boys from a poor country and trying his methods on them (His wife vetoed the scheme.) Some say the key to success is simply hard graft Judit, the youngest of the Polgar sisters, was the most driven, and the most successful; Zsofia, the middle one, was regarded as the most talented, but she was the only one who did not achieve the status of grandmaster “Everything came easiest to her,” said her older sister “But she was lazy.” Questions 29-34 Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage? In boxes 29-34 on your answer sheet, write YES if the statement agrees with the view of the writer NO if the statement contradicts the view of the writer NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this 29 America has a long history of selecting talented students into different categories 30 Teachers and schools in Britain held welcome attitude towards the government’s selection of gifted students 31 Some parents agree to move near reputable schools in Britain 32 Middle-class parents participate in their children’s education 33 Japan and Finland comply with selected student’s policy 34 Avoiding-selection-policy only works in a specific environment Questions 35-36 Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D Write your answers in boxes 35-36 on your answer sheet 35 What’s Laszlo Polgar’s point of view towards geniuses of children A) Chess is the best way to train geniuses B) Genius tends to happen on first child C) Geniuses can be educated later on D) Geniuses are born naturally 36 What is the purpose of citing Zsofia’s example in the last paragraph A) Practice makes genius B) Girls are not good at chess C) She was an adopted child D) Middle child is always the most talented Questions 37-41 Use the information in the passage to match the countries (listed A-E) with correct connection below Write the appropriate letters, A-E, in boxes 37-41 on your answer sheet 37 38 39 40 41 A B C D E Less gifted children get help from other classmates Attending extra teaching is open to anyone People are reluctant to favor gifted children due to social characteristics Both views of innate and egalitarian co-existed Craze of audio and video teaching for pregnant women Scandinavia Japan Britain China America Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: 29 YES 30 NO 31 YES 32 NOT GIVEN 33 NO 34 YES 35 C 36 A 37 B 38 D 39 A 40 C 41 E Academic Reading Passage 341 - The importance of children’s play Last Updated: Thursday, 26 December 2019 18:27 Written by IELTS Mentor Hits: 15544 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–13, which are based on the reading passage below THE IMPORTANCE OF CHILDREN’S PLAY Brick by brick, six-year-old Alice is building a magical kingdom Imagining fairytale turrets and fire-breathing dragons, wicked witches and gallant heroes, she’s creating an enchanting world Although she isn’t aware of it, this fantasy is helping her take her first steps towards her capacity for creativity and so it will have important repercussions in her adult life Minutes later, Alice has abandoned the kingdom in favour of playing schools with her younger brother When she bosses him around as his ‘teacher’, she’s practising how to regulate her emotions through pretence Later on, when they tire of this and settle down with a board game, she’s learning about the need to follow rules and take turns with a partner ‘Play in all its rich variety is one of the highest achievements of the human species,’ says Dr David Whitebread from the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, UK ‘It underpins how we develop as intellectual, problem-solving adults and is crucial to our success as a highly adaptable species.’ Recognising the importance of play is not new: over two millennia ago, the Greek philosopher Plato extolled its virtues as a means of developing skills for adult life, and ideas about play-based learning have been developing since the 19th century But we live in changing times, and Whitebread is mindful of a worldwide decline in play, pointing out that over half the people in the world now live in cities ‘The opportunities for free play, which I experienced almost every day of my childhood, are becoming increasingly scarce,’ he says Outdoor play is curtailed by perceptions of risk to with traffic, as well as parents’ increased wish to protect their children from being the victims of crime, and by the emphasis on ‘earlier is better’ which is leading to greater competition in academic learning and schools International bodies like the United Nations and the European Union have begun to develop policies concerned with children’s right to play, and to consider implications for leisure facilities and educational programmes But what they often lack is the evidence to base policies on ‘The type of play we are interested in is child-initiated, spontaneous and unpredictable – but, as soon as you ask a five-year-old “to play”, then you as the researcher have intervened,’ explains Dr Sara Baker ‘And we want to know what the long-term impact of play is It’s a real challenge.’ Dr Jenny Gibson agrees, pointing out that although some of the steps in the puzzle of how and why play is important have been looked at, there is very little data on the impact it has on the child’s later life Now, thanks to the university’s new Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL), Whitebread, Baker, Gibson and a team of researchers hope to provide evidence on the role played by play in how a child develops ‘A strong possibility is that play supports the early development of children’s self control,’ explains Baker ‘This is our ability to develop awareness of our own thinking processes – it influences how effectively we go about undertaking challenging activities.’ In a study carried out by Baker with toddlers and young pre-schoolers, she found that children with greater self-control solved problems more quickly when exploring an unfamiliar set-up requiring scientific reasoning ‘This sort of evidence makes us think that giving children the chance to play will make them more successful problemsolvers in the long run.’ If playful experiences facilitate this aspect of development, say the researchers, it could be extremely significant for educational practices, because the ability to self regulate has been shown to be a key predictor of academic performance Gibson adds: ‘Playful behaviour is also an important indicator of healthy social and emotional development In my previous research, I investigated how observing children at play can give us important clues about their well-being and can even be useful in the diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.’ Whitebread’s recent research has involved developing a play-based approach to supporting children’s writing ‘Many primary school children find writing difficult, but we showed in a previous study that a playful stimulus was far more effective than an instructional one.’ Children wrote longer and better-structured stories when they first played with dolls representing characters in the story In the latest study, children first created their story with Lego *, with similar results ‘Many teachers commented that they had always previously had children saying they didn’t know what to write about With the Lego building, however, not a single child said this through the whole year of the project.’ Whitebread, who directs PEDAL, trained as a primary school teacher in the early 1970s, when, as he describes, ‘the teaching of young children was largely a quiet backwater, untroubled by any serious intellectual debate or controversy.’ Now, the landscape is very different, with hotly debated topics such as school starting age ‘Somehow the importance of play has been lost in recent decades It’s regarded as something trivial, or even as something negative that contrasts with “work” Let’s not lose sight of its benefits, and the fundamental contributions it makes to human achievements in the arts, sciences and technology Let’s make sure children have a rich diet of play experiences.’ * Lego: coloured plastic building blocks and other pieces that can be joined together 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 Children's play: Uses of children’s play · · building a ‘magical kingdom’ may help develop board games involve and turn-taking Recent changes affecting children’s play · populations of have grown · opportunities for free play are limited due to: - fear of - fear of - increased in schools International policies on children’s play: · it is difficult to find to support new policies · research needs to study the impact of play on the rest of the child’s Questions 9-13: Do the following statements agree with the information given on the reading passage? 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 Children with good self-control are known to be likely to well at school later on 10 The way a child plays may provide information about possible medical problems 11 Playing with dolls was found to benefit girls’ writing more than boys’ writing 12 Children had problems thinking up ideas when they first created the story with Lego 13 People nowadays regard children’s play as less significant than they did in the past Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: creativity rules cities & traffic, crime [In either order] competition evidence life TRUE 10 TRUE 11 NOT GIVEN 12 FALSE 13 TRUE Academic Reading Passage 342 - The growth of bikesharing schemes around the world Last Updated: Thursday, 26 December 2019 18:47 Written by IELTS Mentor Hits: 16556 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14–26, which are based on the reading passage below The growth of bike-sharing schemes around the world How Dutch engineer Luud Schimmelpennink helped to devise urban bike-sharing schemes A - The original idea for an urban bike-sharing scheme dates back to a summer’s day in Amsterdam in 1965 Provo, the organisation that came up with the idea, was a group of Dutch activists who wanted to change society They believed the scheme, which was known as the Witte Fietsenplan, was an answer to the perceived threats of air pollution and consumerism In the centre of Amsterdam, they painted a small number of used bikes white They also distributed leaflets describing the dangers of cars and inviting people to use the white bikes The bikes were then left unlocked at various locations around the city, to be used by anyone in need of transport B - Luud Schimmelpennink, a Dutch industrial engineer who still lives and cycles in Amsterdam, was heavily involved in the original scheme He recalls how the scheme succeeded in attracting a great deal of attention — particularly when it came to publicising Provo’s aims — but struggled to get off the ground The police were opposed to Provo’s initiatives and almost as soon as the white bikes were distributed around the city, they removed them However, for Schimmelpennink and for bike-sharing schemes in general, this was just the beginning ‘The first Witte Fietsenplan was just a symbolic thing,’ he says ‘We painted a few bikes white, that was all Things got more serious when | became a member of the Amsterdam city council two years later.’ C - Schimmelpennink seized this opportunity to present a more elaborate Witte Fietsenplan to the city council ‘My idea was that the municipality of Amsterdam would distribute 10,000 white bikes over the city, for everyone to use,’ he explains ‘| made serious calculations It turned out that a white bicycle — per person, per kilometre — would cost the municipality only 10% of what it contributed to public transport per person per kilometre.’ Nevertheless, the council unanimously rejected the plan ‘They said that the bicycle belongs to the past They saw a glorious future for the car,’ says Schimmelpennink But he was not in the least discouraged D - Schimmelpennink never stopped believing in bike-sharing, and in the mid90s, two Danes asked for his help to set up a system in Copenhagen The result was the world’s first large-scale bike-share programme It worked on a deposit: ‘You dropped a coin in the bike and when you returned it, you got your money back.’ After setting up the Danish system, Schimmelpennink decided to try his luck again in the Netherlands — and this time he succeeded in arousing the interest of the Dutch Ministry of Transport ‘Times had changed,’ he recalls ‘People had become more environmentally conscious, and the Danish experiment had proved that bike-sharing was a real possibility.’ A new Witte Fietsenplan was launched in 1999 in Amsterdam However, riding a white bike was no longer free; it cost one guilder per trip and payment was made with a chip card developed by the Dutch bank Postbank Schimmelpennink designed conspicuous, sturdy white bikes locked in special racks which could be opened with the chip card — the plan started with 250 bikes, distributed over five stations E - Theo Molenaar, who was a system designer for the project, worked alongside Schimmelpennink ‘| remember when we were testing the bike racks, he announced that he had already designed better ones But of course, we had to go through with the ones we had.’ The system, however, was prone to vandalism and theft ‘After every weekend there would always be a couple of bikes missing,’ Molenaar says.‘| really have no idea what people did with them, because they could instantly be recognised as white bikes.’ But the biggest blow came when Postbank decided to abolish the chip card, because it wasn’t profitable ‘That chip card was pivotal to the system,’ Molenaar says ‘To continue the project we would have needed to set up another system, but the business partner had lost interest.’ F - Schimmelpennink was disappointed, but — characteristically — not for long In 2002 he got a call from the French advertising corporation JC Decaux, who wanted to set up his bike-sharing scheme in Vienna ‘That went really well After Vienna, they set up a system in Lyon Then in 2007, Paris followed That was a decisive moment in the history of bike-sharing.’ The huge and unexpected success of the Parisian bike-sharing programme, which now boasts more than 20,000 bicycles, inspired cities all over the world to set up their own schemes, all modelled on Schimmelpennink’s ‘It’s wonderful that this happened,’ he says ‘But financially | didn’t really benefit from it, because | never filed for a patent.’ G - In Amsterdam today, 38% of all trips are made by bike and, along with Copenhagen, it is regarded as one of the two most cycle-friendly capitals in the world — but the city never got another Witte Fietsenplan Molenaar believes this may be because everybody in Amsterdam already has a bike Schimmelpennink, however, cannot see that this changes Amsterdam’s need for a bike-sharing scheme ‘People who travel on the underground don’t carry their bikes around But often they need additional transport to reach their final destination.’ Although he thinks it is strange that a city like Amsterdam does not have a successful bikesharing scheme, he is optimistic about the future ‘In the 60s we didn’t stand a chance because people were prepared to give their lives to keep cars in the city But that mentality has totally changed Questions 14 – 18 The Reading Passage has seven paragraphs, A-G Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet NB You may use any letter more than once 14 a description of how people misused a bike-sharing scheme 15 an explanation of why a proposed bike-sharing scheme was turned down 16 a reference to a person being unable to profit from their work 17 an explanation of the potential savings a bike-sharing scheme would bring 18 a reference to the problems a bike-sharing scheme was intended to solve Questions 19 and 20 Choose TWO letters, A-E Write the correct letters in boxes 19 and 20 on your answer sheet Which TWO of the following statements are made in the text about the Amsterdam bike-sharing scheme of 1999? A It was initially opposed by a government department B It failed when a partner in the scheme withdrew support C It aimed to be more successful than the Copenhagen scheme D It was made possible by a change in people’s attitudes E It attracted interest from a range of bike designers Questions 21 and 22 Choose TWO letters, A-E Write the correct letters in boxes 21 and 22 on your answer sheet Which TWO of the following statements are made in the text about Amsterdam today? A The majority of residents would like to prevent all cars from entering the city B There is little likelihood of the city having another bike-sharing scheme C More trips in the city are made by bike than by any other form of transport D A bike-sharing scheme would benefit residents who use public transport E The city has a reputation as a place that welcomes cyclists Questions 23 – 26 Complete the summary below Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer Write your answers in boxes 23-26 on your answer sheet The first urban bike-sharing scheme The first bike-sharing scheme was the idea of the Dutch group Provo The people who belonged to this group were (23)…….………… They were concerned about damage to the environment and about (24)…….……………, and believed that the bike-sharing scheme would draw attention to these issues As well as painting some bikes white, they handed out (25)………….……… that condemned the use of cars However, the scheme was not a great success: almost as quickly as Provo left the bikes around the city, the (26)……… ……… took them away According to Schimmelpennink, the scheme was intended to be symbolic The idea was to get people thinking about the issues Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers Answer: 14 E 15 C 16 F 17 C 18 A 19 & 20 B & D 21 & 22 D & E 23 activists 24 consumerism 25 leaflets 26 police ... encode the face,' he says In preliminary tests, the lab has already isolated important areas-for example, the ratio of the height of the forehead to the distance between the top of the nose and the. .. with the claims of the writer in the Reading Passage? In boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet, write YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer NO if the statement contradicts the claims... pressure in the lower depths At the surface is a sun-warmed upper layer, the actual temperature and thickness of which varies with the season At mid-latitudes, this layer tends to be isothermal,