IELTS Reading Practice Test: With Answers

IELTS Reading
Practice Test with

Answers
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Adam’s Wine
A. Water is a life-giver as well as a life-taker. It spans the majority of our planet's surface
and has had a significant role in human evolution. According to current projections, it
is a factor that will become even more important.
B. Water has played a vital role in our lives throughout history. Water has always had a
thorny relationship with humanity, on the one hand providing immense benefits not
only as a supply of drinking water, but also as a source of food, a means of
transportation, and a means of trade. However, because people have been obliged to
live near water in order to survive and thrive, the relationship has not always been
pleasant or productive. Contrary to popular belief, it has been the exact opposite.
What started out as a survival necessity has turned out to have a highly destructive
and life-threatening side in many cases.
C. People and their environment have been hit by big floods and long droughts
throughout history, making it harder for them to fight for their lives. The dramatic
changes in the environment that we hear about in the news every day are not new.
Fields that used to be green and full of life are now empty. Lakes and rivers that used
to be full of life are now empty. Savannas have become deserts. What might be new
is our childlike amazement at the forces of nature.
D. Today, we know more about how climates change around the world. Floods in
faraway places have an immediate effect on the whole world. Maybe these things
make us feel better when floods and other natural disasters are destroying our own
property.
E. In 2002, floods in several parts of Europe caused a lot of damage that cost billions of
euros to fix. Properties all over the continent fell into the sea as waves thumped the
coast and destroyed sea defenses. But it was not just the sea. Rivers that were
deformed by heavy rains and the loss of trees carried large amounts of water that
ruined many communities.
F. The costly short-term solution is to build better and more sophisticated flood
defences along rivers. There are less complicated options. Tree planting in highland
areas, not just in Europe, but also in locations like the Himalayas, to safeguard
people living in low-lying areas like the Ganges Delta, is a less expensive and more
appealing alternative. Countries are already being persuaded that the release of
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is affecting significant environmental
damage. In this area, however, further work is needed.
G. What about the future? According to projections, two-thirds of the world's population
would be without fresh water by 2025. However, the future has arrived in a rising
number of parts of the planet. While floods have wreaked havoc in certain areas,
water scarcity is generating strife in others. The Rio Grande failed to reach the Gulf
of Mexico for the first time in 50 years in the spring of 2002, pitting the region against
the region as they compete for water supplies. Due to drought and growing water
usage in many regions of the world, there is currently discussion of water becoming
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the new oil.
H. Other doom-laden predictions claim that, as the polar ice caps melt, coastal regions
and some low-lying islands will almost certainly be drowned by the water. Popular
exotic sites, which are today frequented by tens of thousands of tourists, will become
no-go zones. Today's vacation attractions in southern Europe and others will literally
become hotspots, making them too hot to live in or visit. It's impossible not to despair
in light of the current weather's irregular behavior.
I. Some may argue that this pessimism is unfounded, but there has been plenty of
evidence that something is wrong with the climate. Flooding has been destructive in
many regions of the globe. The catastrophe shifts from one continent to the next as
the seasons change. The cost of living is sad, and the environmental impact is
worrying. We'll have to get used to it.
Questions 1-8
This reading passage has eight paragraphs labeled A-I.

Choose the most suitable headings for paragraphs B-I from the list of headings below.
Write the appropriate numbers (i-xii) in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.
Note: There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use all of them.
List of Headings
I. Change in the environment has always been a part of our lives.

II.Water shortages
III.Rivers and waves wreak havoc.
IV.Is it reasonable to be pessimistic? Or is it more realistic?
V.Climate disasters make us feel better.
VI.Water, the source of nourishment
VII.How to deal with a flood
VIII.Widespread floods
IX.Relationship between humans and water
X.Water's devastation in the past
XI.Future flooding
XII.A negative outlook on the future
1. Paragraph B
2. Paragraph C
3. Paragraph D
4. Paragraph E
5. Paragraph F
6. Paragraph G
7. Paragraph H
8. Paragraph I

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Questions 9-11
Choose the appropriate letters A-D
9. The author contends that

A.every day, the news we read and watch on TV amazes us.
B.We’re petrified in the face of environmental changes.
C.every day, the news we read and watch on TV should not amaze us.
D.Nature has surprised us with its ability to alter the surroundings.
10 According to the writer,

A.People do not need to become habituated to environmental destruction.
B.People will have to adapt to climate changes than harm the environment.
C.People are currently more accustomed to environmental devastation than in the past.
D.The widespread pessimism over environmental transformations is unjustified.
Questions 11-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage?
Write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this in the passage
11. Humanity's connection with water has always been fraught.

12. Half of the world's population will lack access to clean water in the year 2025.
13. As the seasons change, the disaster moves from one continent to another.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/adams-wine-reading-answers/
Bring back the big cats
John Vesty says that the time for returning vanished native animals to Britain has arrived.
Around 598 AD, there is a poem that describes the hunting of a mystery animal called
llewyn. What is it? Nothing got fitted until 2006, an animal bone was found in the Kinsey
Cave in northern England, dating from around the same period. Until this discovery, the lynx
which is a large spotted cat with tassel led ears was assumed to have died in Britain at least
6000 years ago. It happens before the inhabitants of these islands do farming. But in 2006,
in Yorkshire and Scotland it is evident that the lynx and mysterious llewyn both are the same.
If so, the estimated extinction date of tassel-eared cats is 5000 years.
However, in British culture this is not the last glimpse of the animal. A 9th century stone
cross from the Isle of Eigg shows along the deer, pig, aurochs, a speckled cat with tasselled
ears is pursued by a mounted hunter. We are sure that the animal’s backside hasn't been
damaged over time as the lynx’s stubby tail is unmistakable. It’s difficult to know about the

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creature even without this feature. Now, lynx has become the totemic animal of a movement
that transforms British environmentalism - rewilding.
Rewilding is the huge restoration of damaged ecosystems. It involves replacing the trees to
areas that have been stripped, making seabed parts to recover from trawling and dredging
and making rivers to freely flow. These things are to bring back the missing species. In
modern ecology, one of the top findings is ecosystems without large predators which behave
differently than those that retain them. Some drive dynamic processes that resonate the
complete food chain and provide niches for hundreds of species that might struggle to
survive. The killers will turn as life bringers.
For British conservation, these findings give a great challenge, which is often selected as
arbitrary assemblages of plants and animals by putting huge effort and investment to prevent
them from changing. As the jar of pickles, it has preserved the living world by not letting
anything in and out and keeping nature in an arrested state. But ecosystems are not only
based on the collection of species, it also depends on the dynamic and changing relationship
between them. The dynamism often varies based on the large predators.
When it comes to sea, it is even greater, the larger areas of commercial fishing need to be
protected. 18th century literature describes that the vast shoals of fish are chased by fin and
sperm whales within sight of the English shore. This method will greatly increase catches in
the surrounding seas; the fishing industry’s insistence on clearing every seabed without
leaving any breeding reserves couldn’t be damaging to its own interests.
Rewilding is one of the rare examples of environmental movement where campaigners

communicate what they are for rather than what they are against. The reason for enthusiasm
for rewilding is spreading fastly in Britain, is to create a more inspiring vision than the green
movements’ promise of Follow us and the world will be less awful than it would be.
There will be no threat to human beings by the lynx: there is no instance of a lynx preying on
people. It is a specialist predator of roe deer that has exploded in Britain in recent decades
which holds back the intensive browsing and planning to re-establish forests. It will also
winkle out sika deer, an exotic species that is impossible for human beings to control as it
hides in impenetrable plantations of young trees. Reintroducing this predator comes with the
aim of bringing back the forests to the parts of our bare and barren uplands. The lynx needs
deep cover thus giving little risk to sheep and other livestock which need to be in a condition
of farm subsidies that are kept out of the woods.
Several conservationists suggested that the lynx can be reintroduced within 20 years in the
recent trip of the Cairngorm Mountains. If trees return to the bare hills anywhere in Britain,
the big cats will follow. If it is seen from the perspective of anywhere else in Europe, there
will be nothing extraordinary about the proposals. Now, the lynx has been reintroduced to the
Mountains, Alps in eastern France and mountains in Germany and re-established in many
places. Since 1970, the European population has tripled to nearly 10, 000. Like wolves,
bears, pigs, bison, moose and other species, the lynx will spread as farming, left the hills and
then people discover that it is much needed to protect wildlife than to hunt it as tourists will
pay to see it. Large scale rewilding will happen everywhere except Britain.

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Here, there are many changes in attitudes. Conservationists started to accept the jar model
is failing even on its own terms. Projects like Trees for life in the Highlands give hints of what
is expected to come. There is an organisation set up that seeks to catalyse the rewilding of
land and sea across Britain, its aim is to reintroduce the rarest species to British
ecosystems: hope.
Bring back the big cats IELTS reading questions
Questions (1-5)
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
1. What did the discovery of animal bone say about the lynx?
a. It has distinctive physical appearance

b. The spread of farming is linked to its extinction
c. It survived in Britain longer than the prediction
d. Thousand years ago it disappeared from Britain
2. What does the writer point out about the large predators?
a. Biodiversity will increase by its presence

b. It will create damage to the ecosystems
c. Based on the environment, their behaviour might change
d. Only in their native places they should be reintroduced.
3. What is suggested by the writer about British conservation?
a. The target was missed to achieve

b. The path has begin to change
c. The misguided approach was held
d. It targeted only the most widespread species.
4. Protecting the large are of sea from commercial fishing will end up in
a. Loss for the fishing industry

b. Benefits for the fishing industry
c. Opposition from the fishing industry
d. Changes in techniques in fishing industry
5. What is the difference between rewilding from other campaigns according to the writer?
a. The message is appealing and positive.

b. The objective is achievable
c. Supporters are more involved
d. It is based on the scientific principles

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Questions (6-9)
Complete the summary below
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each
answer.
The advantages of reintroducing the lynx to Britain are many. There is no such evidence that
lynx put ______________ 6 in danger which would reduce the population of ____________7
which increased rapidly in the recent decades. It gives only minimum threat to ___________
8, if it were kept away from the lynx habitats. Further, the reintroduction concept has been
linked with initiatives to return native ____________ 9 to certain places of the country.
Questions (10-14)
Do the following statements match the information with the passage?
Write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

FALSE if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
10. Reintroducing the lynx is done by the Britain which is the first European country
11. The conservationists' expectations have increased due to the huge population growth of
European lynx since 1970.
12. The habitat of lynx in Europe extended based on the changes in agricultural practices.
13. Reintroduction of species has commercial advantage
14. The jar of pickle models has come into acceptance by the conservationists.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/bring-back-the-big-cats-reading-answers/
William Gilbert and Magnetism
A. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw 2 great pioneers of modern science:
Gilbert and Galileo. Their eminent findings made a big impact. Gilbert was the
accredited father of the science of electricity and magnetism, the first modern
scientist, a physician at the court of Elizabeth and an Englishman of learning. Before
him, the things known about electricity and magnetism was what the ancients knew,
and nothing more than that. Lodestone had magnetic properties and when amber
and jet were rubbed, it would attract bits of paper or other substances of small
specific gravity. However, he wasn't given the recognition he deserves.

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B. Gilbert was born before Galileo. He was born on 24 May 1544 in an esteemed family
in UK’s Colchester county. After going to grammar school, he went to study medicine
at St. John’s College, Cambridge. He graduated in 1573 and then travelled to the
continent and later settled down in London.
C. He was a very eminent and successful doctor and was elected as the president of
the Royal Science Society. He was appointed to serve the Queen (Elizabeth I) as her
personal physician, and was later knighted by the Queen. He served her faithfully
until her death. But soon after the Queen's death he died on 10th December, 1603. It
was only a few months after his appointment as a personal physician to King James.
D. Although Gilbert was interested in chemistry first he later changed his work because
of a large portion of the mysticism of alchemy involved (such as the transmutation of
metal). Slowly he became interested in physics after the great minds of the ancient,
particularly about the knowledge the ancient Greeks had about lodestones, strange
minerals with the power to attract iron. Meanwhile, in 1588 when the Spanish
Armada was defeated, Britain had become a major seafaring nation, paving the way
to the British settlement of America. British ships relied on the magnetic compass, yet
no one knew why it worked. Was there a magnetic mountain at the pole, as
described in Odyssey’ which ships would never approach or as Columbus said, did
the pole star attract it? William Gilbert conducted ingenious experiments from 1580 to
understand magnetism for almost 20 years.
E. Gilbert’s discoveries were so important to modern physics. He investigated the nature

of electricity and magnetism. He was the one who coined the word “electric”.
Ultimately the beliefs of magnetism were also twisted with superstitions like rubbing
garlic on lodestone can remove its magnetism. Even Sailors believed the smell of
garlic would even interfere with the action of the compass, which is why the steerers
were forbidden to eat it near a ship’s compass. Gilbert also found that metals can be
magnetised by rubbing materials such as plastic, fur, etc. on them. He named the
magnets “north and south pole”. Depending on its polarity magnets can attract or
repel. In addition, however, a magnet always attracts an ordinary iron. Though he
started to study the relationship between electricity and magnetism, he did not finish
it. His research of static electricity using jet and amber only showed that objects with
electrical charges can work like magnets that attract small pieces of paper and stuff.
du Fay, a French guy discovered that there are actually two electrical charges,
negative and positive.
F. He also questioned the traditional astronomical beliefs. He didn’t express in his

quintessential beliefs whether the earth is at the centre of the universe or in orbit
around the sun though he was a Copernican. He believed that stars have their own
earth-like planets orbiting around them and are not equidistant from the earth.
Compasses always point north because the earth is like a giant magnet. The earth’s
polarity and the axis they spin on is aligned. He built an entire magnetic philosophy
on this analogy. He even equated the polarity of the earth to that of magnets. He
explained that magnetism was the soul of the earth and a perfectly spherical
lodestone, when aligned with the earth’s poles, would keep moving by itself in 24
hours. He further believed that suns and other stars wobble just like the earth does

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around a crystal core, and theorised that the moon might also be a magnet that orbits
due to its attraction towards earth. Maybe this was the first proposal saying that a
force might cause a heavenly orbit.
G. In his revolutionary research methods he used experiments instead of reasoning and

pure logic like the ancient Greek philosophers did. It was new in the scientific
investigation. Scientific experiments were not in fashion till then. Because of this
scientific attitude and his contribution to the field of magnetism, the unit of
magnetomotive force, also known as magnetic potential, was named Gilbert in his
honour. He carefully approached it, observed and experimented it rather than the
authoritative or deductive philosophy of others that had laid the very foundation for
modern science.
William Gilbert and Magnetism IELTS Reading questions
IELTS Reading Table Completion Questions 1-5
Complete the table below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the reading passage for each answer.
Year Event
1 ______________ Gilbert was born
2. ______________ Queen Elizabeth died
3. ______________ Spanish Armada was defeated
4. ______________ Gilbert graduated from St. John’s College
1580 William Gilbert conducted 5. ___________ ingenious

experiments
IELTS Reading Locating Information Questions 6-10
This reading passage has eight paragraphs, A–G.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A - G, as your answer to each question.
6. Gilbert was the accredited father of the science of electricity and magnetism.

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7. He used experiments instead of reasoning and pure logic.
8. Gilbert coined the word “electric”.
9. He believed that stars have their own earth-like planets.
10. Gilbert was interested in chemistry first.
IELTS Reading Summary Completion Questions 11-14
Complete the summary below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
The eminent findings of Gilbert made a big impact. He was born on 24 May 1544 in an
esteemed family in UK’s 11_____ county. He investigated the nature of electricity and
12____. Because of his scientific attitude and contribution to the field of magnetism, the unit
of magnetomotive force, also known as 13________, was named Gilbert in his honour. He
died on 10th December, 1603 after a few months of his appointment as a personal physician
to 14______.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/william-gilbert-and-magnetism-reading-answers/
European Transport System
A. It is hard to imagine serious economic development without an efficient transportation

system. Although current information technologies can lower the need for physical
transportation by facilitating teleworking and teleservices, the demand for
transportation continues to grow. There are two main factors behind this trend. With
regard to passenger transport, the decisive factor is the incredible growth in-car
benefit. The number of cars on EU roads increased by three million cars each year
from 1990 to 2010, and over the next decade, the EU will see further significant
growth in its navy.
B. As far as freight is concerned, development is largely due to changes in the

European economy and its mode of production. Over the past 20 years, the EU has
shifted from a “stock” economy to a “flow” economy as internal borders have been
abolished. This event is highlighted by migrating some industries, especially
labor-intensive ones, to lower production expenses, even if the production site is
hundreds or thousands of kilometers away from the final assembly plant or away
from users.
C. Strong economic growth anticipated in countries that are candidates for entry into the
EU will raise traffic flow, especially road traffic. In 1998, some of these countries
already shipped twice as much as 1990 volumes and imported five times more than

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1990 volumes. Although many candidate countries have inherited a rail-promoting
mode of transport, the distribution between modes in favor of road transport has
fallen sharply since the 1990s. Between 1990 and 1998, road traffic expanded by
19.4%, while rail traffic fell by 43.5%, although this would help the expanded EU,
which is on average higher than existing member states.
D. However, a new forced-sustainable growth offers the chance to change the EU's
general transport policy. This goal, agreed by the Gothenburg European Council,
must be attained by combining environmental considerations into social policies and
shifting the balance between transportation systems at the center of its strategy. The
ambitious goal can only be fully accomplished by 2020, although the proposed
measures are the first important step toward a sustainable transport system, which
will take effect in 30 years, by 2040.
E. In 1998, energy consumption in the transportation sector accounted for 28% of CO2
emissions, the top greenhouse gas emissions. According to the latest estimates,
CO2 emissions from transport are hoped to grow by 50% to 1,113 billion tonnes by
2020, compared to the 739 billion tonnes recorded in 1990, if nothing is done to
reverse the development trend. Again, road traffic is the major culprit because it
accounts for only 84% of the CO2 emissions that cause traffic. The use of alternative
fuels and improving energy efficiency is an ecological need and a technical
challenge.
F. Meantime, more efforts must be made to complete a paradigm shift. With roads
continuing to spoil for more than half a century, such a transformation cannot be
accomplished overnight. It has reached a pitch where today freight services face a
margin of just 8% of the market share and international freight trains are battling at
an average speed of 18km / h. Three potential choices have emerged.
G. The first method will concentrate on road traffic only via pricing. This choice is not
compatible with other modes of transportation. In the short period, the growth of road
traffic can be controlled by the optimal loading rate of lorries and occupation rates of
passenger vehicles as an outcome of the growth in transportation costs. Yet, in the
absence of measures to revive other modes of transport, more sustainable modes of
transport are unlikely to take up the baton.
H. The second method focuses on road transport pricing but with measures to improve
the effectiveness of other methods. Nevertheless, this technique does not involve
investments in new infrastructure or ensure better regional integration. This will help
attain greater segregation than the first method but will continue to focus on
saturated arteries, despite having the lion’s share of the road transport market and
most polluting systems. It is therefore not sufficient to ensure the required change in
the balance.
I. The third method, which is not new, involves a series of steps ranging from pricing to
refreshing alternative ways of transportation and targeting investment in the
Trans-European network. This integrated method will permit the market share of
other systems to return to their 1998 levels, thus changing the equilibrium. Given the

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historical inequality in favor of roads over the past fifty years, it is far more ambitious
than it looks to see a significant gap in the link between road traffic growth and
economic growth, without restrictions on the movement of people and goods.
European transport system IELTS reading questions
Questions (1 - 5)
This reading passage has nine paragraphs, A–I.
Write the correct letter, A-I, as your answer to each question.
Note: You may use any letter more than once.
1. The decisive factor is the incredible growth in-car benefit.
2. Many candidate countries have inherited a rail-promoting mode of transport.
3. Development is largely due to changes in the European economy and its mode of
production.
4. Some of these countries already shipped twice as much as 1990 volumes and imported
five times more than 1990 volumes.
5. The number of cars on EU roads increased by three million cars each year.
Questions (6 - 9)
Look at the following questions (6 - 9) and match each statement with the correct option
given.
Write the correct letter A-C with the answer on your answer sheet.
Note: You may use any option more than once.
A. 1990
B. 1998
C. 2020

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6. Some of these countries already shipped twice as much as 1990 volumes and imported
five times more than 1990 volumes.
7. The ambitious goal can only be fully accomplished.
8. The distribution between modes in favor of road transport has fallen sharply.
9. Energy consumption in the transportation sector accounted for 28% of CO2 emissions,
the top greenhouse gas emissions.
Questions (10 - 13)
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?
Write

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
10. CO2 emissions from transport are hoped to grow by 50% to 1,113 billion tonnes by 2020
based on the latest estimates.
11. Road traffic is the major culprit because it accounts for only 84% of the CO2 emissions
that cause traffic.
12. The second method focuses on road transport pricing but with measures to lower the
effectiveness of other methods.
13. Cars are more pricey in some EU candidate countries.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/european-transport-system-reading-answers/
Alternative Energy Sources
A. Alternative energy sources are being pursued for a variety of reasons. Many
countries have signed the Kyoto Protocol, making measures to reduce pollutants and
greenhouse gases a top priority in today's culture. Alternative, or renewable, energy
sources hold a lot of promise for reducing the quantity of pollutants produced as a
result of energy use. Alternative energy not only protects against unwanted
by-products, but it also helps to maintain many of the natural resources that we now
utilise as energy sources. It's crucial to know what sorts of alternative energy are
available in order to comprehend how they can assist protect the planet's delicate
ecological balance and conserve non-renewable energy sources like fossil fuels.

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B. Alternative energy sources are constantly replaced, non-polluting resources. They
are not caused by fossil fuel combustion or atom splitting. Utilisation of renewable
energy helps supplement our energy supply. Alternative energy sources include
biomass energy, geothermal energy, hydroelectric power, solar power, wind power,
fuel cells, ocean thermal energy conversion, tidal energy, and wave energy.
C. Biomass is a type of renewable energy derived from organic matter. Wood, forest and
mill leftovers, animal waste, cereals, agricultural crops, and aquatic plants are all
examples of biomass fuels. These materials are used as fuel to heat water for steam
generation or are processed into liquids and gases that can be burned to achieve the
same result. By 2020, the United States could generate up to four-and-a-half times
more biopower thanks to increased biomass use, cheaper production costs, and
improved technology. It is predicted that biomass would grow at the fastest rate
among renewable energy sources, increasing by 80 percent to 65.7 billion KW by
2020.
D. Geothermal energy extracts heat from the earth's interior. To deliver the hot water or
steam to the surface, wells are bored into geothermal reservoirs. In geothermal
facilities, the steam drives a turbine-generator, which generates energy. This heat is
used to heat homes and greenhouses in some regions, as well as to supply
processed heat for businesses and industries. Iceland's capital, Reykjavik, is heated
by geothermal energy. The majority of geothermal resources are found in the western
United States. Geothermal heat pumps heat and cool homes by tapping into shallow
earth energy, and they may be used practically anyplace. Much more power could be
generated from hydrothermal resources with technical advancements. Scientists
have been experimenting with geothermal power plants by pumping water into the
hot, dry rock 3-6 miles beneath the earth's surface.
E. Hydroelectric (hydropower) energy is produced by driving turbine-generators with the

force of falling water. Hydroelectricity generates more electricity than any other
renewable energy source. Estimates indicate that hydroelectric power in the United
States will decrease from 389 billion KW in 1999 to 298 billion KW in 2020. The
majority of the best hydropower sites have already been developed, and there are
concerns about the environmental impact of large-scale hydroelectric installations,
therefore this decline is anticipated.
F. Solar power is produced without the use of a turbine or an electromagnet.

Photovoltaic cells on special panels catch sunlight and convert it directly into
electricity. A battery is used to store the electricity. Solar energy can also be utilised
to heat domestic water directly (solar thermal technology). The domestic photovoltaic
(PV) industry might supply up to 15% of the new peak electricity capacity required in
the United States by 2020.
G. Electricity can be generated using wind energy. The blades of a windmill spin when
wind blows past them. The shaft connected to the blades rotates, powering a pump
or turning a generator to generate electricity. After that, electricity is stored in
batteries. The amount of energy that can be produced is determined by the wind
speed and the size of the blades. In windier areas of the country, wind energy is

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more efficient. The majority of wind energy is generated by wind farms, which are
enormous clusters of turbines positioned in reliably windy areas. Wind as a source of
energy is both free and non-polluting, with no emissions or chemical waste.
Wind-generated electricity is becoming more prevalent.
H. Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that use a chemical reaction to generate
power. Fuel cells are rechargeable, have no moving parts, are quiet, and have no
moving parts. Scientists are investigating how they could be utilised as a power
source for almost-emission-free autos and as electricity-generating plants. The
exorbitant cost of producing fuel cells has kept this important energy source from
becoming widely used.
I. Ocean sources; Oceans, which span more than 70% of the earth's surface, contain
both thermal and mechanical energy from the sun's heat and tides and waves. Solar
radiation is converted to electricity by ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC). To
create electricity, OTEC power plants employ the temperature difference between
warm surface waters heated by the sun and colder waters found at ocean depths.
The energy of the tides can also be used to generate electricity. The power of
changing tides is harnessed via tidal energy, but considerable tidal variances are
required. The tidal process makes use of the tides' natural motion to fill reservoirs,
which are then progressively emptied through electricity-generating turbines. Wave
energy conversion takes energy from surface waves, pressure variations beneath the
water's surface, or the entire wave. The interaction of winds with the ocean surface is
also used in wave energy. In the United States, this technology is still in the early
stages of development.
Alternative Energy Sources reading questions
Questions (1 - 2)
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.
1. Geothermal Energy is produced by
a. Warming the air beneath the ground surface

b. Utilising the kinetic energy of falling water
c. The extraction of water steam from the earth’s subsurface.
d. Utilising the earth’s inherent energy.
2. The most significant barrier of creating one of these energy sources is
a. Expense
b. Amount of energy dissipated
c. Electricity
d. Fuel cell energy

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Questions (3 - 7)
Write

3. Alternative Energy sources have multiple applications.
4. At Least one of these alternative energy sources needs fossil fuels.
5. The disbursement is the minor factor that is an obstacle to developing one of these forms
of energy.
6. Alternative energy with the highest efficiency is Wind Power.
7. There are numerous sources to generate Wave Energy.
Questions (8 - 13)
Complete the sentences.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER from the passage for each
answer.
8. By utilising Alternative energy sources, we can reduce the __________

generated by conventional energy sources.
9. We currently use __________ as part of our power source, in addition to fossil fuels and
atom-splitting.
10. Biomass is a type of renewable energy that comes from __________.
11. The renewable energy that originates from the earth's interior is known as __________.
12. The __________ of manufacturing is one of the reasons why fuel cells aren't extensively
used.
13. __________ alternative energy source does not utilise turbines.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/alternative-energy-sources-reading-answers/

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Driverless Cars
A. The automotive industry is very used to adapting to automating manufacturing. From

the 1970s the implementation of robotic car manufacture brought significant cost
savings and improvements in the reliability and flexibility of mass production of
vehicles. There is a new challenge to vehicle production on the horizon again and it
comes from automation. But, this time it has nothing to do with the process of
manufacturing, but with the vehicles themselves.
B. Vehicle automation research is not new. For more than 50 years, vehicles with limited
self-driving capabilities have been around, which contributed significantly towards
driver assistance systems. Progress in this field has quickly gathered pace since
Google announced that it had been trialling self-driving cars on the streets of
California in 2010.
C. Technology is advancing so fast due to many reasons. The biggest reason is safety.
UK’s Transport Research Laboratory’s Research has shown that more than 90% of
road collisions occur due to human error, and it is the biggest cause of road
accidents. Automating driving may help to reduce the occurrence of this.
D. Another reason is to reduce the time people use for driving and make use of it for
other purposes. It may be possible to socialise, be productive or relax if the vehicle
can do some or all of the driving, while automation systems have all the responsibility
for your safety. Those who are old or disabled may be able to travel alone if the
vehicle can do the driving.
E. We can look at the wider implications for transport and society apart from these direct
benefits, and how manufacturing processes might need to change as a result. At
present, the average car spends its life parked for more than 90% of its life. Initiatives
for car-sharing become more possible through automation, especially in cities with
more demand for vehicles. Mobility demand can be met by far fewer vehicles if a
significant proportion of the population chooses to use shared automated vehicles.
F. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology investigated automated mobility in

Singapore, and found that less than 30% of the vehicles used presently would be
needed if automated car-sharing could be fully implemented. In that case, it can
mean that we may need to produce far lesser vehicles to meet the demand. The
number of trips being taken may increase, because empty vehicles would have to be
moved from one customer to the next.
G. Modelling work at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute

indicates that automated vehicles might reduce ownership of vehicles by 43%, but as
a result the average annual mileage of vehicles doubles. As a result, the vehicles
would be used more frequently and will require replacement sooner. Due to this fast
turnover the vehicle production may not necessarily decrease.
H. Automation may bring some other modifications in the manufacture of vehicles. If we

move to a model where consumers don't own any vehicles but will get access to

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different vehicles through a mobility provider, drivers will choose to select the vehicle
that best suits their needs for a particular journey, rather than compromising on all
their requirements.
I. Since, most of the seats in most cars are unoccupied most of the time, it can
increase the development of smaller and efficient vehicles that match the needs of
individuals. For going on exceptional journeys like a family trip or to help children
move to a university specialised vehicles may be made available.
J. We should overcome many obstacles before delivering automated vehicles to our

roads. These include the technical difficulties in making sure that the vehicle are
reliable in traffic, different climate, and multiple road situations it might experience;
the regulatory challenges in understanding how liability and enforcement might need
to change when drivers are not needed; and the societal changes that is to be
brought in communities to accept and trust automated vehicles as being a valuable
part of the mobility landscape.
K. There is no doubt that many challenges need to be taken care of but, through
targeted and robust research, these problems can be solved in the next 10 years. In
the coming years mobility will change in many ways and will be associated with so
many other technological developments, such as telepresence and virtual reality,
which is difficult to make proper predictions. However, one thing is clear: change is
for sure, and the flexibility to respond to this will be essential for those involved in
manufacturing the vehicles that will implement future mobility.
Driverless Cars IELTS Reading questions
This reading passage has eleven paragraphs, A–K.
Write the correct letter, A - K, as your answer to each question.
1. Google announced that it had been trialling self-driving cars on the streets of California in
2010.
2. University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute indicates that automated vehicles

might reduce ownership of vehicles by 43%.
3. Automation can increase the development of smaller and efficient vehicles that match the
needs of individuals.
4. Those who are old or disabled may be able to travel alone if the vehicle can do the
driving.

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5. Vehicles would be used more frequently and will require replacement sooner resulting in
fast turnover the vehicle production may not necessarily decrease.
IELTS Reading True/False/Not Given Questions 6-9
Write

6. Safety is the biggest reason for driverless car technology advancement.

7. The average car spends its life parked for more than 90% of its life.
8. Modelling work at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute indicates
that automated vehicles might increase ownership of vehicles.
9. The flexibility to respond to this will be essential for those involved in manufacturing the
vehicles that will implement future mobility.
IELTS Reading Summary Completion Questions 10-14
Write the answer in NOT MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
From the 1970s the implementation of 10_______ manufacture brought significant cost
savings and improvements in the reliability and flexibility of mass production of vehicles.For
more than 50 years, vehicles with limited 11________ capabilities have been around, which
contributed significantly towards driver assistance systems. More than 90% of road collisions
occur due to human error, and it is the biggest cause of 12________. Automating driving
may help to reduce the occurrence of this. One thing is clear: change is for sure, and the
13______ to respond to this will be essential for those involved in manufacturing the vehicles
that will implement future mobility. There is no doubt that many challenges need to be taken
care of but, through targeted and 14________, these problems can be solved in the next 10
years.
Answers : https://www.kanan.co/ielts/driverless-cars-reading-answers/

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Making Time For Science
Chronobiology is something out-of-the-box thinking inspired by a science fiction novel;

moreover - it's a scope of study regarding one of the ancient processes of life on this planet:
short-term time scale and their impact on the existing plants and animals.
It includes many aspects. Sea life, for instance, is based on tidal wave patterns. Animals, on
the other hand, seem to be active or inactive mainly due to the placement of the Sun or
Moon. Millions of species, including humans, are mostly diurnal - that is, they do most of the
activities in the morning. Whereas, nocturnal animals like bats and possums do their
activities in the night time. Apart from these two, a third group known as crepuscular, that are
active in the lowlight of dawn and always not active during other hours.
For human beings, chronobiologists have more interest in what is called the circadian
rhythm. It is a whole cycle of our bodies made to experience within the passage of a full
twenty-four hour day. Besides going to sleep at night and wake up in the morning, each
cycle includes so many aspects like differences in blood pressure and overall temperature of
the body. It is a fact that not all people have the same circadian rhythm. 'Night people' for
instance, mostly illustrate how they feel it is very difficult to perform in the morning, however,
the same people will be alert and active by evening. There is a new type within circadian
rhythms called a chronotype.
Well, scientists use minimal skills to make measurable modifications of chronobiological

requirements. The newly-formed therapeutic advancements for human beings like the
artificial light, machines and robots, melatonin administration, and so on can reinvent our
circadian rhythms, for instance, our human body can communicate the difference in various
ways, and the actual health feels less active when we deviate such natural rhythms for over
a period of time. In this context, plants do not become more malleable, research reveals that
vegetables grown in different climatic conditions and ripened on the tree have more
necessary nutrients and vitamins than those that emerged in greenhouses and ripened by
laser.
Insights of chronobiological variations may have practical consequences in our everyday life.
Here, the modern form of living might seem to subjugate biology - perhaps, who will require
circadian rhythms when we have caffeine tablets, energy waters, work shifts and places that
never stop working? So being in tandem with our body clock is imperative.
On average, residents in the urban area wake up at 6.04 a.m., which studies show that it is
way too early. Likewise, another research found that when residents wake up at 7.00 a.m.,
they will tend to have a negative impact on health unless they do any workout for at least 30
minutes later. After considering all these, the best time to wake up is at 7.22 a.m., when
residents will have fewer muscle aches, headaches, and mood swings. It is proved based on
a study, where respondents reported the same.
Once you are up before the alarm rings what's there to stop then? If you want to lose weight,
some dieticians won't compromise easily, as they mandate breakfast every day. It leads to
misorientation of your circadian rhythm and makes your body starve. The suggested step to

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do is to perform an intense routine workout along with a carbohydrate-filled breakfast; while
the other way and weight reduction ended up as not expected.
Every morning workout is equally important for breaking out the vitamins stored. In addition
to that, adding more supplements to the body is not temporal-dependent, however, the
famous naturopath Pam Stone highlights that more amount during breakfast could assist in
getting energy to do tasks on that day. To absorb more to the body, Stone recommends
additional supplements with a portion of food (mixed and soluble). It must not be with
caffeinated beverages. Beyond this, Stones alerts us about taking storage; when you reach
the high potency, it's good for absorption, whereas, warmth and humidity will lead to
destroying the potency of a supplement.
Post-dinner espressos became like a form of tradition. We must thank the Italian people for
bringing it to us. To have a good night's sleep, we need to stop consuming caffeine as early
as 3 p.m. After crossing a seven-hour half-life, a cup of coffee having 90 mg of caffeine
consumed during this time might still have 45 mg of caffeine in your body's nervous system
at ten o'clock on the same day evening. It is necessary to remove all traces when you go to
bed.
Evening times are essential to process the winding down before going to bed. On the
contrary, dietician Geraldine Georgeou alerts us that post-five carbohydrate fasting is merely
a myth instead of a chronobiological requirement. This will cause deprivation of critical
energy from your body. Similarly, when you consume more than enough, it will lead to
indigestion. It is important to note that our digestive system does not stop working
throughout the night, but it works slowly as our bodies prepare to sleep. Despite all, you can
take a moderate snack, which would be highly sufficient.
Making Time for Science Reading Questions
Questions 1 - 7
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR NUMBER from the passage for each
answer.
To absorb more to the body, 1. __________ recommends additional supplements with a

portion of food (mixed and soluble). It must not be with 2. ____________. Beyond this,
Stones alerts us about taking storage; when you reach the high potency, it's good for 3.
____________, whereas, warmth and humidity will lead to destroying the potency of a
supplement. Post-dinner 4. _____________ became like a form of tradition. We must thank
the 5. ______________ for bringing it to us. To have a good night's sleep, we need to stop
consuming caffeine as early as 3 p.m. After crossing a seven-hour half-life, a cup of coffee
having 90 mg of caffeine consumed during this time might still have 45 mg of caffeine in your
body's 6. ____________ at ten o'clock on the same day evening. It is necessary to remove
all 7. ____________ when you go to bed.

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Questions 8 - 10
Match the correct statement with the letter
8. Every day morning exercise is vital for

9. Geraldine Georgeou warns us that
10. Diurnal means
A. Carbohydrate-fasting is a myth
B. Do most of the activities in the morning
C. Indigestion happens when you consume more
D. breaking out the vitamins
Questions 11 - 13
Write
TRUE, if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE, if the statement disagrees with the information
NOT GIVEN, if there is no information on this passage
11. Chronobiologists have more interest in what is called the circadian rhythm
12. Plants will become more malleable
13. The best time to sleep at night is around 7.20 p.m.
Answers : https://www.kanan.co/ielts/making-time-for-science-reading-answers/
Making Every Drop Count
A. The history of human civilization, right from the golden age, evolved parallel to the
history of the ways we learnt to handle water and its resources across the globe. As
urban areas expanded slowly and steadily, water resources were taken rapidly from
remote sources, amounting to luxury engineering impacts like aqueducts, dams, and
so on. During the Roman Empire's era, nine major systems had a drastic change with
the help of a sophisticated idea of sewers, pipelines, etc. Such engineering
advancements by the Roman occupants provided as much water per individual
person as it has been in many industrial areas today.
B. It was evident that the water resources demand rose exponentially due to the
industrial revolution and population growth in the 19th and 20th centuries. Moreover,
enormous monuments and other tens and thousands of engineering projects were

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built, incorporating flood control systems, clean water supply, irrigation and
hydropower projects that brought happiness to millions of human lives. There was
also a food supply growing to compensate for the soaring population due to the
spread of artificial irrigation systems that ensure a potential growth of 40% of the
world's food. Almost one-fifth of the current electricity produced across the world is
generated using big turbines spun by the power of a tsunami.
C. However, there is a negative face to this picture. Besides our reach, nearly 50
percent of the world’s human population still faces hurdles, with water resources
lesser than those had by the ancient Greeks and Romans. According to the United
Nations (UN) report on access to water reemphasized in the month of November
2001, above one billion people are deprived of clean drinking water, and almost two
and a half billion people do not have access to necessary sanitation facilities.
Avoidable diseases pertaining to water kill an estimated 11,000 to 22,000 children
every day, and recent proof reveals that we need to speed up the process of solving
problems before it is too late.
D. The repercussions of our water policy framework extend not just jeopardising human
health but also the mere existence. Millions of people coerced to shift from their
homes permanently- with some warning or temporary relief - to give space for the
reservoirs behind water dams. 20 percent and above of all freshwater fish species
are now under serious threat or endangered mainly due to dams and water
reservoirs withdrawals have stopped the natural-flow of river water where they live
and survive. It eventually destroyed the entire ecosystem. There are some best
irrigation methods that lead to soil degradation and deteriorated production of
agriculture. Apart from that, groundwater aquifers (underground water stored) are
used faster than they are naturally refilled in different parts of China, India, the US
and elsewhere. And problems related to shared water resources have caused
unnecessary troubles and persist to cause local, national, and international
disturbances.
E. In the beginning of the new millennium, the way policy makers plan for water
resources is beginning to take a twist. Their aim is to gradually move towards the
basic human and environmental needs as the highest priority. It is to ensure 'some
for all', rather than 'more for some'. A few environmentalists and water experts
suggest that existing infrastructure facilities could be utilised in an efficient way
instead of constructing new buildings. However, it has been taken into consideration.
This philosophical change is not universal yet, as it's strongly opposed by certain
organisations, who closely work for water security. In spite of that, it could be the
ideal way to correctly tackle the overwhelming problem of serving everyone with
clean water. It is to drink, grow food and a society free from water-borne diseases.
F. Fortunately - and without anticipating - the water demand is not increasing as rapidly
as some estimated. Because of that, the intense pressure to construct many water
infrastructures has been destroyed for more than two decades from now. Even
though the human population, industries and economic development seemed to fly
high in developed countries, the frequency at which the public does not consume
water from aquifers, rivers and lakes has decreased. Moreover, in a few parts of the

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world, the demand for water has seriously dipped to some extent.
G. How do these remarkable events take place? Well! There are two major factors
involved: people have noticed how efficiently water can be used, similarly
communities at large started thinking about their priorities on usage of water. Right
from the 20th century, on an average, the amount of freshwater consumption per
individual has doubled; in the US, the withdrawal of water increased ten times higher,
while the population increased four times higher. However, if we look from 1980, the
amount of water consumption has decreased per individual, it's all because of new
inventions and technologies that support the preservation of water at homes and
industries. For example, in 1965, Japan consumed exactly 13 million gallons (1
gallon equals to 4.546 litres) of water for the purpose of $1 million of commercial
output; by 1989, this amount of consumption had decreased drastically to 3.5 million
gallons (even taking inflation into account) - almost four times higher of water
productivity. Meanwhile, in the USA, water withdrawals were at its peak in 1980, but it
has fallen by more than 20 percent.
H. Nevertheless, aqueducts, water dams and other forms of infrastructure need to be

built, especially in emerging countries where the basic human needs did not come
into place. However, those infrastructure projects must be constructed with more
specifications, more accountability to local people and their environment than in the
past. Moreover, in areas where new projects receive warranty, we should still
discover new ways to meet demands with limited available resources without
compromising ecological criteria. All these things need to be done with a smaller
budget.
Making Every Drop Count Reading Questions
Questions 1 - 5
Choose the correct letter, a, b, c, or d.
1. 1 gallon is equal to
a. 4.555 litres
b. 4.565 litres
c. 4.547 litres
d. 4.546 litres
2. During the Roman empire, nine major systems had a big change due to?
a. Idea of sewers, pipelines

b. Water management system
c. Sophisticated infrastructure facilities
d. Dams, reservoirs
3. In the USA, water withdrawals had fallen by more than?

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a. 23 percent
b. 21 percent
c. 20 percent
d. 50 percent
4. In emerging countries, what forms of infrastructure need to be built?
a. Water dams
b. Aqueducts
c. Both a and b
d. None of the above
5. The irrigation system leads to
a. Water pollution
b. Soil degradation
c. Tsunami
d. All of the above
Questions 6 - 1
answer.
6. ___________ and above of all freshwater fish species are now under serious threat or 7.
_____________ mainly due to dams and water reservoirs withdrawals have stopped the
natural-flow of river water where they live and survive. It eventually destroyed the 8.
____________. There are some best irrigation methods that lead to soil degradation and
deteriorated production of 9. __________. Apart from that, groundwater aquifers
(underground water stored) are used faster than they are naturally refilled in different parts of
China, India, 10. __________ and elsewhere.
Questions 11 - 13
Answer the questions below.
answer.
11. For how many years has the intense pressure to build water infrastructure been
destroyed?
12. Millions of people were forced to move from their homes permanently with what?

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13. During which centuries did the water resources demand rise exponentially due to the
industrial revolution?
Answers : https://www.kanan.co/ielts/making-every-drop-count-reading-answers/
Endless Harvest
Russian explorers and fur hunters arrived on the Aleutian Islands more than two hundred
years ago, it is a volcanic archipelago in the North Pacific, and found a landmass that was
farther to the north. This land mass Alyeska is referred to as the ‘Great Land’ by the native
inhabitants of the island.
In 1959, Alaska joined the United States of America as a forty-ninth state, which is one-fifth
the size of the mainland 48 states combined. It shared both the longest river system in North
America and half the coastline of the United States with Canada. The rivers that exist in the
Gulf of Alaska and North America are cold and nutrient rich. It supports millions of birds and
about 400 species of fish, shellfish, molluscs and crustaceans. These advantages elevated
Alaska's commercial fisheries into some of the largest in the world.
Based on the report of Alaska Department of Fish and Game, In 2000 Alaska’s commercial
fisheries landed thousands of tonnes of herring and shellfish, and about million tonnes of
groundfish. Salmon is considered to be the true cultural heart and soul of Alaska. The
salmano enabled the native culture to flourish and helped to feed bears, eagles and other
animals and the soil itself. Five species of Pacific salmon - chinook ; chum ; coho ; sockeye ;
and pink, - spawn** in Alaskan waters and 90% Pacific salmon has commercial benefits in
North America. If Alaska was an independent nation, then it would have become the largest
producer of wild salmon in the world.
Catching salmon has not always been healthy. In 1953, Alaska was declared a federal
disaster area because overfishing of salmon became severe between 1940 and 1949. When
it achieved the status of statehood, the State of Alaska managed their own fisheries with the
guidance of the state constitution. During that time, the harvest rate was about 25 million
salmon. After a few decades, average catches have steadily increased as a consequence of
sustainable management policy. During the 1990’s, annual harvests were about more than
100 million, and on some occasions it had raised over 200 million fish.
‘In-Season Abundance-Based Management’ is the fundamental reason for such an increase.

There are biologists throughout the state consistently watching over the adult fish as they
are spawning. They sit in streamside counting towers, studying sonar, watching from
aeroplanes and talking to fishermen. The salmon season is not pre-set in Alaska. The
fishermen know the approximate time of year when they will be permitted to fish, but one or
more field biologists can put a halt to fishing in a particular area on any given day. Sport
fishing can even be put to Halt. This management mechanism enabled Alaska salmon as
well as Alaska salmon fisheries for better improvement. In the rest of the United States,
salmon populations are increasingly threatened.

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A review of the Alaska salmon fishery was commissioned by the Marine Stewardship
Council (MSC) in 1999. In 1996, the Council was established to certify fisheries that meet
high environmental standards, which allows them to use a label that recognises their
environmental duty. Commercial fisheries can be judged with the criteria of MSC. After
finding the potential benefits of being identified as environmentally responsible, fisheries
requested the council to undergo the certification process. Then MSC sets up a certification
committee, consisting of a panel of fisheries experts, gathers opinions and information from
biologists, fishermen, government officials, fishermen, industry representatives,
non-governmental organizations and others.
Some people who watch over the Alaska fisheries thought it would not have the chance to
get certification. Salmon throughout western Alaska completely collapsed, when MSC led up
to the final decision. Likely, the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, chinook and chum rivers are
the poorest since statehood. Subsistence communities throughout the region who mostly
relied on commercial fishing were shattered.
It was a completely unexpected crisis, but still researchers believe it is not caused by the
fisheries. Instead, they asserted it happened as a result of climatic shifts, which occurred by
the cumulative effects of the el niño/La Niña phenomenon on Pacific Ocean temperatures.
Large numbers of salmon eggs were frozen because of the harsh winter. It will be the end, if
we take the certification process into account. Nevertheless, the state took action quickly,
shutting down all fisheries, even though it is for subsistence purposes.
In September 2000, MSC declared that the Alaska salmon fisheries qualified for certification.
Seven companies producing Alaska salmon got permission from MSC to put their logo on
their products. Certification is given in the format of initial periods of five years, and annual
review which ensures that the fisheries are consistent in following the required standards.
Endless Harvest IELTS Reading Questions
Questions 1 - 7
Write

1. Russian explorers arrived on the Aleutian Islands less than two hundred years ago.
2. The rivers in the Gulf of Alaska and North America are cold and nutrient rich.
3. Salmon is regarded as the true cultural heart and soul of the United States.
4. Salmon has the ability to cure digestive problems.
5. With the sustainable management policy, the average catching of salmon has
steadily increased
6. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) was established in 1996.

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7. Being identified as environmentally responsible is not fruitful for fisheries.
Questions 8 - 13
Complete the notes below.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER from the passage for each
answer.
Russian Explorers:
● Russian explorers and fur hunters arrived on the Aleutian Islands over 8__________
ago
● The landmass 9_____ is known as the 10_______ by the native inhabitants of the
island.
Alaska
● Alaska joined the United States of America as a 11_______ state in 1959

● It shared both the longest 12________ in North America and half the coastline of the
United States with Canada
● In 2000 Alaska’s commercial fisheries landed thousands of tonnes of herring and
shellfish, and about million tonnes of 13______
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/endless-harvest-reading-answers/
Lost for Words
In the Native American Navajo nation, which sprawls across four states in the American
south-west, the native language is dying. Most of its speakers are middle-aged or elderly
Although many students take classes in Navajo, the schools are run in English. Street signs,
supermarket goods and even their own newspaper are all in English. Not surprisingly,
linguists doubt that any native speakers of Navajo will remain in a hundred years’ time.
Navajo is far from alone. Half the world’s 6,800 languages are likely to vanish within two
generations - that’s one language lost every ten days. Never before has the planet’s
linguistic diversity shrunk at such a pace. At the moment, we are heading for about three or
four languages dominating the world,’ says Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the
University of Reading. ‘It’s a mass extinction, and whether we will ever rebound from the loss
is difficult to know.’
Isolation breeds linguistic diversity: as a result, the world is peppered with languages spoken
by only a few people. Only 250 languages have more than a million speakers, and at least
3,000 have fewer than 2,500. It is not necessarily these small languages that are about to
disappear. Navajo is considered endangered despite having 150,000 speakers. What makes
a language endangered is not just the number of speakers, but how old they are. If it is

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spoken by children it is relatively safe. The critically endangered languages are those that
are only spoken by the elderly, according to Michael Krauss, director of the Alassk Native
Language Center, in Fairbanks.
Why do people reject the language of their parents? It begins with a crisis of confidence,
when a small community finds itself alongside a larger, wealthier society, says Nicholas
Ostler, of Britain’s Foundation for Endangered Languages, in Bath. ‘People lose faith in their
culture,’ he says. ‘When the next generation reaches their teens, they might not want to be
induced into the old traditions.’
The change is not always voluntary. Quite often, governments try to kill off a minority
language by banning its use in public or discouraging its use in schools, all to promote
national unity.
The former US policy of running Indian reservation schools in English, for example,
effectively put languages such as Navajo on the danger list. But Salikoko Mufwene, who
chairs the Linguistics department at the University of Chicago, argues that the deadliest
weapon is not government policy but economic globalisation. ‘Native Americans have not
lost pride in their language, but they have had to adapt to socio-economic pressures,’ he
says. ‘They cannot refuse to speak English if most commercial activity is in English.’ But are
languages worth saving? At the very least, there is a loss of data for the study of languages
and their evolution, which relies on comparisons between languages, both living and dead.
When an unwritten and unrecorded language disappears, it is lost to science.
Language is also intimately bound up with culture, so it may be difficult to preserve one
without the other. ‘If a person shifts from Navajo to English, they lose something,’ Mufwene
says. ‘Moreover,the loss of diversity may also deprive us of different ways of looking at the
world,’ says Pagel. There is mounting evidence that learning a language produces
physiological changes in the brain. ‘Your brain and mine are different from the brain of
someone who speaks French, for instance,’ Pagel says, and this could affect our thoughts
and perceptions. ‘The patterns and connections we make among various concepts may be
structured by the linguistic habits of our community.’
So despite linguists’ best efforts, many languages will disappear over the next century. But a
growing interest in cultural identity may prevent the direst predictions from coming true. ‘The
key to fostering diversity is for people to learn their ancestral tongue, as well as the dominant
language,’ says Doug Whalen, founder and president of the Endangered Language Fund in
New Haven, Connecticut. ‘Most of these languages will not survive without a large degree of
bilingualism,’ he says. In New Zealand, classes for children have slowed the erosion of
Maori and rekindled interest in the language. A similar approach in Hawaii has produced
about 8,000 new speakers of Polynesian languages in the past few years. In California,
‘apprentice’ programmes have provided life support to several indigenous languages.
Volunteer ‘apprentices’ pair up with one of the last living speakers of a Native American
tongue to learn a traditional skill such as basket weaving, with instruction exclusively in the
endangered language. After about 300 hours of training they are generally sufficiently fluent
to transmit the language to the next generation. But says that preventing a language dying
out is not the same as giving it new life by using it every day. ‘Preserving a language is more
like preserving fruits in a jar,’ he says.

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However, preservation can bring a language back from the dead. There are examples of
languages that have survived in written form and then been revived by later generations. But
a written form is essential for this, so the mere possibility of revival has led many speakers of
endangered languages to develop systems of writing where none existed before.
Question 1-4
Summary Completion
Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage
for each answer.
Write your answers 1-4 on your answer sheet.
There are currently approximately 6,800 languages in the world. This great variety of
languages came about largely as a result of geographical 1 ____________ But in today’s
world, factors such as government initiatives and 2 __________ are contributing to a huge
decrease in the number of languages. One factor which may help to ensure that some
endangered languages do not die out completely is people’s increasing appreciation of their
3 __________ This has been encouraged though programmes of languages classes for
children and through ‘apprentice’ schemes, in which the endangered language is used as
the medium of instruction to teach people a 4 ____________ Some speakers of endangered
languages have even produced writing systems in order to help secure the survival of their
mother tongue.
Question 5-9
Matching Features
Look at the following statements (Question 5-9) and the list of people in the box below.
Match each statement with the correct person A-E.
Write the appropriate letter A-E in box 5-9 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
A Michael Krauss
B Salikoko Mufwene
C Nicholas Ostler
D Mark Pagel

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E Doug Whalen
5. Endangered languages cannot be saved unless people learn to speak more than one
language.
6. Saving languages from extinction is not in itself a satisfactory goal.

7. The way we think may be determined by our language.
8. Young people often reject the established way of life in their community.
9. A change of language may mean a loss of traditional culture
Question 10-13
Yes/No/Not Given
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in the Reading Passage?
In boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet write:
YES if the statement agrees with the view of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the view of writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this.
10. The Navajo language will die out because it currently has too few speakers.
11. A large number of native speakers fails to guarantee the survival of a language.
12. National governments could do more to protect endangered languages.
13. The loss of linguistic diversity is inevitable.
Answers : https://www.kanan.co/ielts/lost-for-words-reading-answers/
Educating psyche
Educating psyche is the book that was written by Bernie Neville which talks about a different
approach of learning, describes the emotional effect, imagination and unconscious learning.
In this book there is one theory that is suggested by George Lozanov which is related to the
power of suggestion.
Lozanov technique is about the connections that the brain creates through unconscious and
conscious processing. He states that with the evidence that the unconscious processing is
more lasting than conscious processing. Other than laboratory evidence our real-time
experiences also show that we will forget what we learn afterwards but we remember the
unimportant information. Let’s say if we recall the book we studied some months ago, other
than lessons we tend to remember the unimportant details such as colour, font style, table

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we sat. When it comes to lectures which we’ve listened to with utmost concentration, the
lectures’ mannerisms, our seating in the class will be more recallable than the things that we
learned. Even though these details are difficult to remember, it comes in hypnosis or when
we relive it imaginarily as in psychodrama but the details of the lecture will look like it has
gone forever.
This method is partly related to the basic counterproductive study approach such as putting
efforts to memorise, tensing muscles, and inducing fatigue, but it also reflects the
functionality of the brain. Hence, Lozanov indirectly creates instructions for his teaching
system. The method he discovered named suggestopedia says that consciousness will shift
from curriculum to peripheral things. And in the long-term curriculum turns peripheral and it
becomes the reserve capacity of the brain.
In foreign language learning, this suggestopedic approach is provided with an illustration. In

1980 which is the recent variant that consists of reading vocabulary and text when the class
is listening to music. The first session is carried out in two parts. The first part is a classical
music (Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms) session where the teacher reads the text slowly to the
dynamics of the music and the students follow the text from the book. This will happen for
several minutes in complete silence. The second part will be listening to baroque music
(Bach, Corelli, Handel) where the teacher reads the text in the general speaking tone. In this
session their books will be closed and in the whole session they concentrate only on the
music, not to learn the material.
At the beginning, students got prepared to gain the experience from the language learning.
In the meeting with the staff and by hearing from the satisfied students they expect that it will
be easy to learn and they will be able to learn hundreds of foriegn language words during the
class. The preliminary speech was held by the teacher where they introduced the learning
material that needs to be covered instead of teaching it. And also, the students are
instructed not to learn in that introduction part.
After some hours of the second part session, there is a follow-up class where the students
need to recall the given material. This approach is also made indirect. In this, students will
not focus on remembering the vocabulary but instead focus on communicating with the
language (for instance, via games and dramatisation). These methods are unusual in
language teaching. The difference in the suggestopedic method is that they are completely
related in recalling. While listening to music, the learning is done without any effort and
automatically with the given material. The method of teacher’s way is done to make students
apply their paraconscious learnings and by doing that they can easily access their
consciousness. The other difference between conventional teaching and suggestopedic
methods is that students can learn a thousand new foreign language words with the
grammar and idioms.
With the experiment of teaching, Lozanov made a direct suggestion which happens during
sleep, hypnosis and trance states, but found that these techniques are unnecessary.
Hypnosis, yoga, silva mind-control, religious ceremonies and faith healing are associated
with successful suggestions, but these techniques are not essential to it. These rituals are
meant as placebos. Lozanov acknowledges that the ritual surrounding suggestion is also a
placebo in his system, but without the placebo people it is unable to gain the reserve

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capacity of the brains. Like any placebo, to be effective it needs to be provided with authority.
Just as a doctor who made the full power of autocratic suggestion by insisting the patient
take the white capsule before meals and three times a day precisely. Lozanov is categoric in
insisting the suggestopedic session which is exactly done in the designated manner by the
trained and accredited teachers of suggestopedic method.
While the suggestopedic method has gained popularity by the success of modern language
teaching, some teachers are trying to perform better and produce spectacular results as
Lozanov and his associates. We might believe mediocre results to an inadequate placebo
effect. The proper mindset was not developed by the students and they were often
unmotivated to learn by this method. They don't have faith in this method and they don't see
this as a real teaching method. Particularly, it doesn’t involve the work they need to believe
whis is much needed in learning.
Educating psyche IELTS reading questions
Questions (1-4)
01. Educating psyche book provides the
a. Power of suggestion
b. Emotional effect
c. New approach of learning
d. Imagination and unconsciousness
02. Lozanov’s theory say that trying to remember things leads to
a. Not focusing on the unimportant data

b. Concentration will be less but the results will be high
c. Facts can be easily remembered
d. Recalling peripheral details
03. The writer have used the example of lecture and book to describe
a. Improving concentration is the main theme for both these

b. The theory explained about the learning method is valid
c. For learning, reading is better strategy than listening
d. By hypnosis, remembering things will made easier
04. Lozanov mentions that teacher need to train students by
a. Information in the curriculum needs to be memorised

b. Indirect instruction need to be developed
c. Rather than curriculum details focus on other
d. Overloading the capacity of the brain needs to be avoided.

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Questions (5-10)
Write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

FALSE if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
5. The fourth paragraph of the passage mentions the suggestopedia teaching example
which states that music is the only variable.
6. Before the start of the suggestopedia class, students get to know that the language
experience is in demand.
7. The teaching activities used in the follow-ups are similar to the conventional class.
8. Students find improvements in the memory as an indirect benefit
9. Teachers said that they prefer suggestopedia to traditional approaches and language
teaching.
10. Students taking suggestopedia class learn new vocabulary than in general classes.
Questions (11-14)
Complete the summary below
answer.
The less direct method of suggestion is used in the suggestopedia than other methods such
as hypnosis. But, Lozanov states that some amount of ____________ 11 is needed to
convince students even if it is a ____________ 12. If it is to gain success, then the teachers
need to follow some procedures. However, Lozanov’s method became ______________13.
Using the method many teachers have shown ___________ 14 results.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/educating-psyche-reading-answers/

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The True Cost of Food
A. The food cost has been increasing over the last forty years. It has reached an extent
where people across the globe started to think that the cost of food is expensive, and
it is not easy to bring it down in the twenty-first century. But, that cost for food will not
be in a cash transaction. When we look at the West, most food products are cheaper
now than in the past. The cost of food in 1960 was not the same as now. The cost
reduction results in collateral damage while food production has made the food cost
less expensive, inclusive of water pollution, soil degradation, the deterioration of
wildlife, the damage to animal well-being and finally the threat to human health
caused mainly by the modern agricultural practices.
B. The initial step was mechanisation, followed by a large amount of chemical fertilisers
and pesticides used, then came the monocultures, then livestock rearing, and
ultimately genetic engineering is the current trend. This continuous intensive farming
seems to be impossible to stop as it's been going since the last five decades, and the
crop yields of produce have increased exponentially. Apparently, the damage caused
might be huge. In the UK, for instance, some of the beautiful farmland birds, like the
skylark, the lapwing, the grey partridge, and the corn bunting, have disappeared from
the countryside along the stretches, just like the wild-flowers and insects. This
transition is due to the fact that our food has been produced in the last forty years.
Thousands of kms of hedgerows, thousands of tons of water vanished from the Earth
landscape. Beyond that, the salmon farming has made wild salmon run from different
parts of the ocean lochs and rivers of Ireland and Scotland. The most dangerous
thing is the depletion of natural soil fertility in many parts of the world due to
persistent industrial fertiliser and extensive consumption of pesticide for agriculture,
while the development of algae is rapidly growing in lakes because of the fertiliser
run-off.
C. When we put everything together, it more or less looks like a war zone, however
people as consumers hardly make the connection in the dining area. We reached this
state of place due to the costs of all damage we made and this is what economists
call externalities. It means, they occurred from the outside transaction, for instance,
cultivating and giving a field of wheat to a buyer, that is directed by neither farmers
nor consumers. For certain community people, it may not even appear to be financial
at all, but just aesthetic. And it is nothing but a shameful act, where there is nothing
to do with financial aspects. Nevertheless, consumers are not paying for what they
eat, are they?
D. The cost and price paid to the society are quantifiable and, when it is added up to the
overall cost, it becomes a huge amount. To do this, an excellent way was found by
Professor Jules Pretty, one of the leading thinkers related to agriculture. He is the
Director of the Centre for Environment and Society at the University of Essex.
Meanwhile, Professor Pretty and his peer groups estimated the external factors of
British agriculture for one specific year. In the process, they summed up the costs of
repairing the damage it created and ended up with nearly an amount of 2,456 million
euros. This is equivalent to 220 euros for each hectare of land that is arable and
permanent pasture, almost as much again as the full government sector and the EU

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offers financial assistance for British farming in the same year. And analysing all the
above factors, it is clear that it was a conservative prediction as told by Professor
Pretty.
E. The costs involved: 16.5 million euros for cleaning off nitrates; 57 million euros for
removing phosphates and unwanted soil; 126 million euros for rebuilding habitats for
wildlife animals; 24 million for eradicating bug cryptosporidium mainly from drinking
water that is done by commercial companies that make clean water. 122 million
euros for removing pesticides; 1115 million euros for reducing gas emissions that
lead to severe climate change and climatic conditions; 108 million euros for the
erosion of soil and the loss of organic carbon; 176 million euros for preventing food
poisoning; finally 609 million euros for treating cattle disease. Thus, Professor Pretty
gives a simple yet powerful conclusion from the above is that our food bills are
threefold by now. At present, we are paying three different taxes to get our food that
is supposed to be cheap. Meanwhile, it will provide more subsidy support to develop
intensive farming in modern terms. Lastly, it has to be done to clear the chaos that is
caused in these modern days.
F. So can the true cost of food be decreasing in the future? Splitting away from the
industrial form of agricultural produce as the problem-solving strategy to tackle
hunger may be extremely difficult for certain countries, however in countries like the
UK, where the requirement to provide food is not so immediate, and the costs and
the consequences of intensive farming were witnesses, and it can be feasible if it is
executed properly. All governments want to build a sustainable, competitive and
inclusive farming and food industries, which will set a path to potential and
sustainable rural economy, and highly-developed environmental, socio-economic,
health, and animal development objectives.
G. When the industrial type of agricultural farming is removed and replaced by

something, what would be the result? Professor Pretty thinks that agricultural farming
organically might be a big leap in thinking and practices for millions of people who
practise agriculture. Moreover, the price rate might put the food products beyond the
imagination for many poorer consumers as the price would be expensive. To
overcome this, he suggests jump-starting a ‘Greener Good Standard’, which would
eventually move the market towards sustainable environmental practices compared
to the present system, not wanting the entire resources for organic farming and food
production. This kind of standard would convince many farmers to leave the different
kinds of farming (some are unethical), including agrochemical use, soil quality,
facilitating land, water and energy usage, food security and more importantly animal
health. This will surely take a long time to see, he says, transforming consumers and
farmers into sustainable agriculture that ensures a brighter future.
The True Cost of Food Reading Questions
Questions 1 - 7
This reading passage has seven paragraphs A - G.

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Note: You may use any letter more than one time.
1. Professor Pretty thinks that agricultural farming organically might be a big leap
2. All governments want to build a sustainable, competitive and inclusive farming and
food industries
3. The cost and price paid to the society are quantifiable
4. Most food products are cheaper now than in the past
5. EU offers financial assistance for British farming
6. Consumers are not paying for what they eat
7. Development of algae is rapidly growing in lakes
Questions 8 - 11
Complete the sentences below.
Write ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
8. Price rate might put the ____________ products beyond the imagination for many poorer
consumers.
9. Thousands of kms of ________________, thousands of tons of water vanished from the

Earth landscape.
10. The initial step was ________________, followed by a large amount of chemical
fertilisers and pesticides used.
11. We reached this state of place due to the costs of all damage we made and this is what
economists call ____________.
Questions 12 - 13
Write
YES, if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

NO, if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN, if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
12. ‘Greener Good Standard’ will move the market towards sustainable environmental
practices.

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13. Salmon farming has made wild salmon run from different parts of the ocean lochs and
rivers of Scotland alone.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/the-true-cost-of-food-reading-answers/
Population Movements And Genetics
Origins and distribution of human populations is studied based on archaeological and fossil
evidence. From the 1950s, numerous techniques have been used which are more objective.
Information about early population movements now obtained by 'archaeology of the living
body', the clues are taken from the genetic material.
These values of the techniques are ensured by the work on the problems which deal with
when people entered America. The launching ground of human colonisers of the New World
is North-east Asia and Siberia. It was found that major migration happened across the
Bering Strait into the Americans. New clues have derived from the research into genetics
which includes the genetic markers in modern Native Americans.
Biological Anthropologist Robert Williams found one particular protein (immunoglobulin G) in

the form of fluid in the blood. Most of the proteins produce variants and interbreeding human
population members will share these sets of variants. One can determine their genetic
distance by comparing the Gm allotypes of two different populations. This informs the length
of time.
In the span of a twenty year period, Williams and his colleagues collected the sample of over
5,000 American Indians in Western North America. . Gm allotypes can be divided into two
groups, one of them corresponds to the genetic typing of Central And South American
Indians. Apart from this, other tests showed that Aleut3 and Inuit formed a third group. It was
found from the evidence that there have been three migration waves that happened across
the Bering Strait. da about 600 or 700 years ago). The third wave, perhaps 10,000 or 9,000
years ago, saw the migration from North-east Asia of groups ancestral to the modern Eskimo
and Aleut.
To what extent does other research support these conclusions ? Douglas Wallace, a
geneticist, studied mitochondrial DNA4 in the blood samples from three distinct Native
American Groups: Arizona’s Pima-Papago Indians, Maya Indians on the Yucatan Peninsula,
Mexico, and Ticuna Indians in Brazil's Upper region. According to the prediction of Robert
Williams’s work, all three groups seem to be descended from the same ancestor - the
Paleo-indian population.
There are two other sorts of research which throws some light on the Native American
Population origination. It involves the study of teeth and of languages. The biological
anthropologist Christy Turner, having an expertise in analysing the changing physical
characteristics in human teeth. According to him, tooth crowns and roots possess a high
genetic component, affected by environmental and other factors in a minimal fashion. Turner
studied many thousands of New and Old World Specimens, both ancient and modern and

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finds that most of the prehistoric Americans are connected to Northern Asian Populations by
root and crown traits such as incisor shovelling ( a scooping out on one or both surfaces of
the tooth ), triple-rooted lower first molars and single-rooted upper first premolars.
As stated by Turner, this ties in with the idea of a single Paleo-Indian migration out of North
Asia, which he fixes before 14,000 years ago by calibrating rates of dental micro-evaluation.
Analysing the tooth suggests that there were two later migrations of Eskimo-Aleut and
Na-Denes.
Since the 1950s, the linguist Joseph Greenberg has argued that all Native American
languages belong to a single ‘Amerind’ family, Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut is an exception -
a view that supports the idea of three main migrations. Among fellow linguists, Greenberg is
a minority, who favour the idea of many waves of migration to account for the fact that
American Indians speak more than 1000 languages at one time. Greenberg’s view is
supported by the new genetic and dental evidence. However, dates given for the migrations
should be treated cautiously, excluded where supported by hard archaeological evidence.
Population Movements And Genetics IELTS Reading Questions
Questions 1 - 7
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
1. Where from the clues on early population movements was taken by ?

2. What protein Robert Williams found in the form of fluid in the blood ?
3. What could be determined by comparing the Gm allotypes of two different
populations ?
4. How many groups are there in Gm allotypes ?
5. Who studied mitochondrial DNA4 from three different Native American Groups’ blood
samples ?
6. Which study throws a light on origins of the Native American Population other than
study of languages ?
7. Who is an expert in analysing changing physical characteristics of human teeth ?
Questions 8-13
From the 8______, numerous techniques have been used which are more objective to study
the fossil evidence. Information about early population movements now obtained by '9____
of the living body', the clues are taken from the genetic material. Modern 10________, new
clues have been derived from the research into genetics which includes the genetic
11______. Biological Anthropologist 12_______ found one particular protein

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(immunoglobulin G) in the form of fluid in the blood. One can determine their genetic
distance by comparing the 13_______ of two different populations.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/population-movements-and-genetics-reading-answers/
Flying tortoises
An airborne reintroduction program has supported conservationists to take important

measures to save the endangered Galapagos tortoise.
Spiny cacti forests cover the most uneven volcanic plains that divide the interior of Isabella's
Galapagos Island from the Pacific Ocean. With its five different volcanoes, the island and
lunar landscape are similar. Only the dense vegetation in the skirt of the peak-covered peak
of the Sierra Negra rests from the barren landscape below.
This unfriendly environment is house to the huge Galapagos tortoise. About five million
years after the birth of the Galapagos, the islands were occupied by one or more turtles off
the mainland of South America. As these ancestral turtles settled on separate islands,
distinct peoples developed at least 14 different subspecies to suit their unique environments.
Island life agreed with them. In the absence of important predators, they grew into the
biggest and longest turtles on the planet, weighing more than 400 kilograms, sometimes 1.8
meters long, and living for more than a century.
Before humans arrived, the archipelago had millions of turtles. From the 17th century, pirates
took some for food, but with the arrival of whale ships in the 1790s, this exploitation
increased exponentially. The turtles, which are relatively unmoving and capable of surviving
for months without food or water, were transported on these ships to serve as food items
during lengthy sea journeys. Sometimes, their bodies were processed into top-quality oil.
In total, 200,000 animals were taken from the archipelago before the 20th century. This
recorded exploitation then intensified when immigrants arrived on the islands. They hunted
turtles and killed their habitat to empty the land for agriculture. They also introduced alien
species that could hunt or lay eggs and hurt or kill their habitat, ranging from livestock, pigs,
goats, rats, and dogs to plants and ants.
Today, only 11 of the actual subspecies survive, many of which are highly endangered. In
1989, work started on a turtle breeding center outside the city of Puerto Villamil in Isabela,
dedicated to saving the island's turtle population. The center's captive breeding program
proved to be very successful, and it finally had to deal with a large population issue.
The issue was also stressful. Captive turtles cannot be reintroduced into the wild until they
are at least five years old and weigh at least 4.5 kilograms, at which time their size and
weight and the toughened shells are capable of saving them from predators. But if people
wait too long after that, the turtles will ultimately become too big to carry.

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For many years, on long, treacherous walks on narrow paths, turtles were carried in small
numbers, carried on the backs of males. But in November 2010, Godfrey Merlin, an
environmentalist and liaison officer for Galapagos National Park, and the visiting private
motorboat captain and helicopter pilot assembled around a table in a small cafe on the
island of Santa Cruz in Puerto Ayora to perform a more ambitious reintroduction. The
purpose was to transport the 300 turtles from the breeding center to different places near the
Sierra Negra by helicopter.
This remarkable action was made by the owners of the 67-meter White Cloud boat, who
used the helicopter and its professional pilot and boat, as well as the logistics help of its
captain and crew, for free to Galapagos National Park. First, an air ambulance, the boat's
helicopter has a rear dual door and a big interior space very appropriate for cargo, so a
custom crate is created to hold 33 turtles with a total weight of 150 kilograms. With this
weight, fuel, pilot, and four crew, the helicopter's full payload was approaching, and there
were times when it was undoubtedly on the border of the helicopter's capacities. For three
days, a team of volunteers from the breeding center worked 24 hours a day to prepare
young turtles for transport. At the same time, park keepers landed prematurely in remote
locations and removed landing sites with dense brush, cacti, and volcanic rocks.
Once they are released, the young turtles quickly spread to their ancestral territory, exploring
their new environment and eating the plants. Finally, a small tortoise saw a full-grown giant
who had been cutting down a tree for a hundred years around the island. The two stood side
by side, a strong sign of the regeneration of an ancient race.
Flying tortoises IELTS reading questions
Question (1-4)
Choose the correct letter, A - D.
1. Most uneven volcanic plains that separate the interior of Isabella's Galapagos Island from
the
A. South America
B. Sierra Negra
C. Santa Cruz
D. Pacific Ocean
2. To suit their unique environments. distinct peoples developed at least
A. 12 different subspecies
B. 14 different subspecies
C. 12 similar subspecies
D. 14 similar subspecies
3. The archipelago had millions of turtles, before

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A. humans arrived
B. turtles came
C. the arrival of species
D. subspecies arrived
4. The bodies of turtles were sometimes processed into
A. medicine
B. alcohol
C. high quality oil
D. caffeine
Question (5 - 9)
Before the 5 ___________ century, 200,000 animals were taken from the 6 _____________
Immigrants hunted turtles and killed their habitat to empty the land for 7 ___________
In 8 ____________, work started on a turtle breeding center.
Ultimately, the turtle breeding center had to deal with a 9 _________________ issue.
Click to know more about IELTS reading note completion
Question (10 - 13)
10. Captive turtles above ______________ and at least five years old only can be
reintroduced into the wild.
11. A custom box is made to hold ___________ with a total weight of 150 kilograms.
12. A team of volunteers from the breeding center worked ____________ a day to prepare
young turtles for transport.
13. A small tortoise saw a full-grown giant who had been cutting down a tree for a
_______________ around the island.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/flying-tortoises-reading-answers/

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The Coconut Palm
A. For thousands of years, the coconut has been integral to the lives of Polynesian and
Asian peoples. On the other hand In the west, coconuts have always been exotic and
unusual, sometimes rare. In the late 13th century the Italian merchant traveller Marco
Polo apparently saw coconuts in South Asia. During the mid-14th-century, in the
travel writings of Sir John Mandeville, there is mention of ‘great Notes of India’ (great
Nuts of India). Images of tropical beaches with palm trees are clichés in the west
today, to sell holidays, chocolate bars, fizzy drinks, and even romance.
B. We conceive coconuts as brown cannonballs that, when opened, provide sweet

white flesh. But we see none of the plants from which they come and only part of the
fruit. The coconut palm has a slender, smooth, grey trunk that grows up to 30 metres
tall. The trunk is an important source of timber for constructing houses and is mostly
used to replace endangered trees from the furniture construction industry. The trunk,
each of which may be up to 6 metres long, is surmounted by a rosette of leaves.
They have hard veins in their centres which are used as brushes in many parts of the
world after the green part of the leaf has been stripped away. At the top of the trunk
immature coconut flowers are tightly clustered together among the leaves. The stems
of the flowers are tapped to produce a drink from their sap, and it can also be
reduced by boiling to make a type of sugar that can be used for cooking.
C. Coconut palms produce as many as 70 fruits per year, almost a kilogram each. The
wall of the fruit has 3 layers - an outer waterproof layer, a fibrous middle layer, and an
inner hard layer. The middle layer produces coconut fibre, ‘coir’, which has many
uses and is particularly important in making ropes. The woody shell, which is the
innermost layer with its 3 prominent ‘eyes’, surrounds the seed. Charcoal is an
important product obtained from the shell, which is used in many industries and also
as cooking fuel in the houses. The shells are broken in half and are used as bowls in
many parts of Asia.
D. There are nutrients (endosperm) inside the shell that are needed by the developing
seed. The endosperm is a sweetish liquid, coconut water, that provides the hormones
which encourage other plants to grow more rapidly and produce higher yields and is
also enjoyed as a drink. The coconut water gradually solidifies to form the brilliant
white, fat-rich, edible flesh or meat as the fruit matures. Dried coconut flesh, ‘copra’,
is made into coconut milk and coconut oil, which are widely used in cooking in
different parts of the world. It is also used in cosmetics. As Alfred Nobel introduced
the world to his nitroglycerine-based invention: dynamite, Glycerine, a derivative of
coconut fat, gained strategic importance in a quite different sphere.
E. Their structure makes coconuts a great maritime voyager and coastal colonisers of
the plant world. These large and energy-rich fruits are able to float in water and
tolerate salt, but cannot remain feasible indefinitely. After about 110 days at sea
studies say that they are no longer able to germinate. With little more than sand to
grow on desert island shores, coconut seeds are able to germinate being exposed to
the tropical sun. The embryo is protected by the air pocket inside the seed that is
created when the endosperm solidifies. The fibrous fruit wall that helped it to float

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during the voyage stores moisture and as it starts to grow it can be taken up by the
roots of the coconut seedling.
F. Regarding the origins of the coconut there have been centuries of academic debate.
Before the voyages of the European explorers Vasco da Gama and Columbus there
were no coconut palms in West Africa, the Caribbean or the east coast of the
Americans in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. 16th-century trade and human
migration patterns reveal that Arab traders and European sailors might be the people
who have been the reason why coconuts were found in Africa and then to the east
coast of America across the Atlantic. Discussions went on for centuries about the
origin of coconuts discovered along the west coast of America by 16th-century
sailors. 2 diametrically opposed origins have been proposed. One that they came
from Asia, and second that they were native to America. Both have problems. There
is a large degree of coconut diversity in Asia and evidence of human use for
thousands of years. There are close coconut relatives in America, but no evidence
that coconuts are native. These have led to the intriguing suggestion that coconuts
originated on coral islands in the Pacific and were dispersed from there.
The Coconut Palm IELTS reading Questions 1-5

This reading passage has six paragraphs, A–F.
Write the correct letter, A - F, as your answer to each question.
1. The coconut was an important part of the lives of Polynesian and Asian peoples.
2. Coconut palms produce as many as 70 fruits per year.
3. Coconuts cannot germinate after 110 days at sea.
4. The coconut palm can grow up to 30 metres in length.
5. Coconuts are not native to America.
The history of coconuts dates back to thousands of years. In the late 6________ the Italian
merchant traveller Marco Polo apparently saw coconuts in South Asia. Coconuts are brown
cannonballs that, when opened, provide sweet 7________. The wall of the fruit has 3 layers
- an outer 8________, a fibrous middle layer, and an inner hard layer. Before the voyages of
the European explorers Vasco da Gama and 9________ there were no coconut palms in
West Africa, the Caribbean or the east coast of the Americans in the late 15th and early 16th
centuries. There have been centuries of academic debate about the origins of the coconut.

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10. Who mentioned ‘great Notes of India’ in his book?

11. How long will the trunk grow?
12. What is the charcoal obtained from the shell used as?
13. Where does the developing seed get its nutrients from?
14. Which part of the world uses coconut shells as bowls?
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/the-coconut-palm-reading-answers/
Effects of Noise
A. Generally, it is reasonable to suppose that we must choose peace and silence over
noise. Most of us would have experienced adjusting to sleeping on top of the
mountains or the village side as it was ‘very quiet’ at an early stage, an incident that
reflects that humans can adapt to different levels of noises. There are also many
research studies that support this thought. For instance, Glass and Singer (1972)
presented humans to quick bursts of loud noise and then assessed their skills to
solve issues and problems and their physiological response to the same noise. The
noise was disturbing initially, then four minutes later the response were doing fine on
their assignments as a control response who did not hear of that noise. It is observed
that their physiological response declined quickly, same as the levels as those of the
control response.
B. Interestingly, there are limitations to the level of adaptation, and loud noise tends to
be an obstacle if the individual wants to focus on more than one assignment. For
instance, loud noise levels are caused with the response of the individual who needs
to watch three dials at the same time, an assignment not similar to that of a pilot (an
aeroplane) or like an air-traffic controller (Broadbent, 1957). Likewise, noise did not
cause an impact on an individual's ability to find out a moving line with a steering
wheel however it did interact or interfere with the individual's skill to redo numbers
while finding it out or tracking (Finkelman and Glass, 1970).
C. Here, the most important observation from research study on noise is that the noise
was anticipated more than how loud it would be. We could ‘tune out’ severe
background noises, wherever if it is louder than to work under situations with
unpredictable intrusions of noise. In the Glass and Singer research study, where
individuals were left to so much of noise as they were working on an assignment,
some individuals could hear loud noises, and others could hear soft noises. For some
individuals, the noise bursts were spaced similarly to one minute away (predictable
noise); others could hear the exact frequency of noise, but the noise bursts

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happened at irregular timings (unpredictable noise).
Unpredictable Noise Predictable Noise Average
Loud noise 40.1 31.8 35.9
Soft noise 36.7 27.4 32.1
Average 38.4 29.6
Table 1: Proofreading Errors and Noise
D. Individuals gave inputs pertaining to the predictable and unpredictable noise equally
annoying, and all individuals responded at about the equal level while the noise
portion of the research study. On the other hand, the diverse noise conditions had
little difference when the individuals wanted to correct and proofread written material
when there was no noise. As shown in Table 1 the unpredictable noise caused more
mistakes in the later proofreading assignment than predictable noise; and soft,
unpredictable noise merely caused little more mistakes on this assignment than the
loud, predictable noise.
E. Seemingly, unpredictable noise causes more discomfort than predictable noise,

however it takes its own time for this discomfort to take its toll in response. In this
research study, predictability is not the only variable that diminishes totally or partially
the bad effects of noise. The other variable is control. If the individual is aware of the
fact that they could operate and control the noise system, this might reduce both its
bad effects while performing and its post-performance level. It's real even if the
individual decides not to turn off the noise (Glass and Singer, 1972). It is true even if
the individual never actually exercises his or her option to turn the noise off (Glass
and Singer, 1972). It's known that one can control the noise, and it is enough.
F. The various studies discussed till now reveal that people exposed to noise for short
timings have observed only transient effects, as per the study. But the most
troublesome issue about noisy environments is that living and listening to the chronic
noise everyday may result in serious, prolonged effects. One of the studies suggest
that this issue is a realistic one, in comparison with the elementary school students
who attended classes close to the Los Angeles' busy airport with students who
attended classes in less noisy neighbourhoods (Cohen et al., 1980). It was observed
from the study that children from the schools where there is loud noise had higher
blood pressure and tended to get distracted often than those who attended the
schools where there is less noise. In addition to that, there was no sign of adjustment
or adaptation to the noise. Apparently, the more the children had attended the noisy
schools, the more disturbed it was. These repercussions were also long lasting and
did not stop. Apart from that, there was a follow-up research study that observed that
children who were shifted to less noisy environments never stopped from having

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greater distractibility than students who had always been in the quiet schools (Cohen
et al, 1981). This experiment was done one year later. It ought to be noted that the
two sets of children had been carefully analysed by the tutors in order to compare
their race, caste, age, ethnic group and social classes.
Effects of Noise Reading Questions
Questions 1 - 7
This reading passage has six paragraphs, A - F.
Write the correct letter, A - F, as your answer to each question.
1. The other variable is control

2. The noise was disturbing initially, then four minutes later the response were doing
fine
3. The diverse noise conditions had little difference when the individuals wanted to
correct and proofread written material when there was no noise
4. the more the children had attended the noisy schools, the more disturbed it was
5. For some individuals, the noise bursts were spaced similarly to one minute away
6. Noise did not cause an impact on an individual's ability to find out a moving line with
a steering wheel
7. The unpredictable noise caused more mistakes in the later proofreading assignment
than predictable noise
Questions 8 - 13
Complete each sentence with the correct ending
Write the correct letter A-F from the options.
8. Glass and Singer (1972) presented humans to quick bursts

9. Apparently, the more the children had attended the noisy schools
10. noise did not cause an impact on an individual's ability
11. In this research study, predictability is not the only variable
12. The noise was disturbing initially
13. The most important observation from research study on noise
A. the more disturbed it was

B. that diminishes totally or partially the bad effects of noise
C. then four minutes later the response were doing fine
D. to find out a moving line with a steering wheel
E. of loud noise and then assessed their skills to solve issues
F. is that the noise was anticipated more than how loud it would be
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/effects-of-noise-reading-answers/

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Biological Control of Pests
A. The excessive usage of synthetic chemicals to control the pests eventually poses a
serious threat to the crops and human's health system, and it seems to be not
productive at all. The use of pesticides has caused not only dangerous ecological
imbalance but also gave birth to the new breed of chemical-resilient superbugs that
are highly deadly. Based on a new research conducted by the Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO), it was found that nearly 300 plus species of agricultural pests
have become resilient to a huge variety of chemicals. Currently, the
disease-spreading pests have developed a concept of no one left behind. More than
100 species have attained complete immunity for a wide range of insecticides that
are in use.
B. One of the biggest cons of using pesticides is that it kills all the harmful pests along
with many other organisms that are useful for crop cultivation. It, however, keeps the
spread of the pest population under control. Many agro scientists and ecological
experts call this scenario the 'treadmill syndrome'. Due to this overwhelming
potential and genetic diversity, most pests are able to combat any form of synthetic
chemical and handle the offspring supported by the intense resistance from the
pesticides.
C. The consequences of the 'treadmill syndrome' are witnessed in Central America,

where cotton farmers suffered a lot. In the 1940s time period, when
chemical-oriented intensive agriculture was at its best, the farmers shifted to the
usage of pesticides in order to yield more crops in the same amount of time. Over a
period of time, insecticides were used eight times a year in the 1940s, and it was
increased to 28 times during a season in the mid-1950s. It resulted in the birth of
three new variants of chemical-resistant pests.
D. Near the mid-1960s, four more new variants of pests emerged, causing an alarming
stage. It pushed agricultural farmers to spray pesticides to a situation where 50% of
the financial output of cotton production was based on using pesticides intensively.
Subsequently, this spraying practice reached 70 times per season, which caused yet
another pool of genetically better insect species.
E. Today, the products of pesticides available in the market are not tested properly,
where their chemical properties might cause cancer, mutations and other severe
damage to human health, as said by environmental agencies located in the United
States. The United States National Resource Defence Council revealed that DDT
was one of the widely-known dangerous chemicals in the list.
F. In the overview of the alarming perils from non-discriminative pesticide applications,

a more reliable and ecological-based strategy of biological control, including the
specific trend of natural rivalries of the pest population, is reaching popularity like
never before - even though it is a new scope of area with minimum potential. The
biggest pro of biological control compared to other methods is that it offers the
product in low-cost, having a perpetual control system with less amount of hazardous

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side effects. When it was experimented by experts, they said that bio-control is good,
which is not emitting pollution and self-dispersing.
G. The Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control (CIBC), situated in Bangalore has

its network of scientific laboratories and local stations across the globe. It is one of
the most influential, non-commercial research organisations working related to pest
control by creating predators against parasites. This research agency also serves as
an approving house for the transaction of biological agents for pest control
worldwide, including all imports and exports.
H. The research agency (CIBC) made use of a seed-feeding weevil from Mexico. It was
successful in controlling the obnoxious parthenium weed, famous for exerting
devious insights on agriculture industry and human health in both Australia and India.
Likewise there is one more research laboratory based in Hyderabad called Regional
Research Laboratory (RRL), sponsored and supported by CIBC, is presently
experimenting an Argentinian weevil to eradicate water hyacinth (the next dangerous
weed) which caused serious repercussions in many parts of the world. Mrs Kaiser
Jamil from RRL stated that the Argentinian weevil does not damage any other food
plant, whereas a set of two adult bugs might destroy the weed in almost 4 - 5 days.
Moreover, CIBC is also strengthening the practice of breeding parasites that kill the
'disapene scale' insects, being one of the notorious defoliants of fruit trees in
countries like India and the US.
I. Through subsequent examples, we will see how the act of biological control is
effective. In the late 1960s time, Sri Lanka's coconut groves were at a booming
stage, however, it was plagued by leaf-mining hispides, a larval type of parasite
brought from Singapore, which made the pest stop growing further. Similarly, another
natural predator from India, Neodumetia sangawani, was satisfactory in terms of
controlling the Rhodes grass-scale insect that was spoiling the life of grass in some
parts of the US. There was another beetle native from Brazil, Neochetina bruchi, was
used by ecological scientists of the Kerala Agricultural University emptied almost a
12-kilometre-long canal from the main clutches of the weed, called Salvinia molesta,
widely-known as "African Payal" in Kerala. Nearly 30,000 and more hectares of rice
and its fields were infested by this type of weed in the state of Kerala.
Biological Control of Pests Reading Questions
Questions 1 - 5
The reading passage has nine paragraphs, A - I.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings given below.
Write the correct number, i-vii, as your answer to each question.
List of Headings

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● India’s contribution to CIBC
● Pesticides today
● Treadmill Syndrome and its consequences
● Examples of Biological Control Across the World
● Introduction to CIBC
1. Paragraph C
2. Paragraph E
3. Paragraph G
4. Paragraph H
5. Paragraph I
Questions 6 - 10
6. This spraying practice reached 70 times per season, which caused yet another pool of
____________ insect species.
7. _________________, was satisfactory in terms of controlling the Rhodes.
8. Many agro scientists and ecological experts call this scenario the _____________.
9. Regional Research Laboratory (RRL), sponsored and supported by CIBC, is presently

experimenting with an _________________ to eradicate water hyacinth.
10. They said that bio-control is good, which is not emitting pollution and ____________.
Questions 11 - 13
Choose the correct letter a, b, c or d.
11. In Kerala, Salvinia molesta is also known as
a. African Payal
b. Asian Payal
c. American Payal
d. Indian Payal
12. There was another beetle native to Brazil called as
a. Salvinia molesta
b. Neodumetia sangawani
c. Neochetina bruchi

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d. None of the above
13. During which time period chemical-oriented intensive agriculture was at its best?
a. The 1940s
b. The 1950s
c. The 1960s
d. All of the above
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/biological-control-of-pests-reading-answers/
Disappearing Delta
The Nile delta’s fertile land eroded along the Mediterranean coast of Egypt is highly
increased, 100 metres per year is eroded in some parts. In the past, sediment brought to the
delta by River Nile is replaced in the place, where the land is scoured away from the
coastline by the Mediterranean sea currents. But, this is no longer the case.
All the sediment which used to flow down the river is virtually blocked by the two large dams
at Aswan in the south of Egypt. So, it was blamed by the people for the loss of the delta land
till now. The Nile flowed freely before the dams were built, which carries the large amount of
sediment north from the interior of Africa to be deposited on the Nile delta. This happened
for 7000 years, Atlast it covered a region of over 22,000 square kilometres with the fertile
slit’s layer. In the Delta Region, new, nutrient-rich soil is brought down by the Annual
flooding. It replaces what had been scoured away by the sea and provides the fertilizers for
Egypt’s richest food growing area. The problem occurred when the Aswan dam was built in
the 20th Century for the purpose of providing electricity and irrigation and protecting the
large population centre of Cairo and to prevent the floods from the surrounding areas. Most
of the sediments with its natural fertilizers instead of passing down to the delta, accumulated
up above the dam in the southern, upstream half of Lake Nasser.
However, the story is not finished. The silt and sand picked up by the sediment-free water
which emerged from the Aswan Dams and eroded the river bed as well as banks on the
800-kilometre trip to Cairo. The water samples are taken in Cairo before the river enters the
delta by Daniel Jean Stanley of the Smithsonian Institute, which indicates that sometimes
rivers pick up more than eight fifty grams of sediment per cubic metre of water. About half of
what it carried before the dams were constructed. Stanley in Marine Geology says that “I'm
ashamed to say that the significance of this didn't strike me until after I had read 50 or 60
studies”. A lot of sediment is still entering into the delta. But, no sediments come out into the
Mediterranean to restore the coastline. Therefore, the sediment must be stuck on the delta
itself.
Most of the Nile water is bypassed into more than 10,000 kilometres of irrigation canals and
what directly reaches the sea through the rivers in the delts is only a small proportion.
Stanley explains that water in the irrigation canals is either still or moves slowly so it cannot
carry the sediment. The sediment went down to the bottom of the canal and the farmers

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added it to the fields or expelled it with the water into the four large freshwater lagoons which
are situated near the outer edges of the delta. So, what reaches to the coastline is very little
to replace what Mediterranean currents wash away.
Most of Egypt's food supply depended on the farms located on the delta plains, fishing and
aquaculture in the lagoons. Stanley said that Pollutants are building up faster and faster. It is
because the sediments which come to rest in the fields and lagoons are combined with
industrial, municipal and agricultural waste from the region of Cairo, which is considered as
the home to more than 40 million people.
Fredric Siegal of George Washington University says, “In Manzalah Lagoon, for example,
the increase in mercury, lead, copper and zinc coincided with the building of the High Dam at
Aswan, the availability of cheap electricity, and the development of major power-based
industries”. He agreed to it based on his investigations of sediment from the delta lagoons.
From that time, the significant increase in the concentration of mercury is noted. With that,
leaded fuels and other industrial sources also found to be dramatically increased. It can
badly affect the productivity of fishing and farming as it enters into the food chain. One more
problem is that agricultural wastes include fertilizers which increases the plant growth in the
lagoons and disturbed the ecology of the area, with serious consequences on the fishing
industry.
According to Siegel, international environmental organisations are starting to invest closer to

the region, the partial reason being the erosion problems and pollution of the Nile. But,
majorly, they fear the effect this situation will bring on the whole Mediterranean coastal
ecosystem. It cannot be solved easily. As an immediate solution, Stanley believes that
creating the artificial flood to drive out the delta waterways, similar to the natural floods did
before the dams were built. He says that long term alternative processes such as
desalination could increase the amount of water available. Stanley said that in his view,
Egypt should devise a way to have more water running through the river and the delta”. It is
difficult to accomplish in a desert region with a rapidly growing population.
Disappearing Delta IELTS Reading Questions
Questions 1 - 5
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for
each answer.
1. Where are the two large dams located which block the sediment-flow ?
2. When was the Aswan dam built ?
3. Who took the water sample in Cairo ?
4. What sinks into the bottom of the Delta ?
5. Who begined to pay closer attention to the delta region ?
Questions 6 - 10
Choose the correct letter a, b, c or d.

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6.How many years has the Nile flowed freely ?
a. 9000 years
b. 7500 years
c. 7000 years
d. 700 years
7.Who adds the sediment into the fields ?
a. Agricultural workers
b. Farmers
c. Stanley
d. Siegel
8.Where did Fredric Siegal investigate the sediment ?
a. Delta lagoons
b. Nile delta
c. Cairo
d. Southern Egypt
9. What would be the immediate solution to resolve the problems in the Nile, according to
Stanley ?
a. Stimulating natural floods

b. Desalination
c. Creating artificial floods
d. Creating artificial tsunami
10. Which is building up faster and faster, according to Stanley ?
a. Pollution
b. Pollutants
c. Problems
d. Sediment
Questions 11 - 14
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER from the passage for each
answer.
Problems and Pollutants

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● The farms located on the 11______, fishing and aquaculture in the 12______ which
serves most of the Egypt’s food supply
● Concentration of the 13______ is significantly increased
● Plant growth in the lagoons is increased by 14_____ wastes
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/disappearing-delta-reading-answers/
Henry Moore
In the 20th century art world Henry Moore was the leading British sculptor
Henry Moore was born in the small town of Castleford near Leeds in the North of England.
Raymond Moore and Mary Baker are his parents, he was the seventh child in his family. He
did schooling at Castleford grammar school from 1909 to 1915. The place he got interested
in art which was encouraged by the teacher named Alice Gostick. After the academics got
over, Moore wanted to become a sculptor but instead as per his father’s wish he got trained
as a school teacher. In 1917, he had to leave his training as he was sent to France for the
First World War.
After the war, Moore studied for two years at the Leeds School of Art. The first year was
gone by learning and spending time on drawing. He wanted to study sculpture but there was
no teacher appointed for that till his second year. In the final year, he got merit in the
sculpture exam and was awarded with a scholarship to study in Royal College of Arts in
London. In September 1921, he started his advanced studies of sculpture at London.
At Royal College he was instructed to visit the London museums and he visited many of
them and particularly the British museums which contain a huge-range of ancient sculpture
collections. The power and the beauty of the ancient Egyptian and African sculpture was
discovered by him during the visits. There his interest over the primitive forms of art got
increased and he got away from European sculptural traditions.
After graduation, Moore spent the first six months travelling in France in 1925. His visit to the
Trocadero Museum in Paris made him get impressed by the cast of Mayan sculpture of rain
spirit. The sculpture was a male reclining figure with knees lifted up together and his head in
the right angle to its body. Moore got more interested by seeing this stone sculpture and he
thought that no other stone sculpture had this much power and originality. That made him
sculpt in stone in various subjects that includes reclining women, groups of mother and
childs, and masks.
The exceptional talent of Moore got recognition which made him work as a sculpture
instructor at Royal College in 1926. In 1933, he became a member of unit one which has
groups of young artists. The group’s motto is to convince the English public of the emerging
international movement of modern art and architecture.

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In this period, Moore started experimenting with abstract shapes moving away from human
figures. At the Leicester galleries in London he held an exhibition. His work got a huge
welcome from the fellow sculptors but in the press it got negative reviews this turned Moore
into a notorious figure. And from the Royal College he resigned and the following year he
started a sculpture department at the Chelsea School of Art in London.
Throughout the 1930, Moore did not work to convince the British public. He got interested in
the paintings of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso which inspired him to distort the human
body in a radical way. Sometimes he abandons the human figure altogether. In this period,
the sketchbooks of Moore reveal the ideas of abstract sculptures that have some
resemblance to humans.
During the second world war in 1940, Moore stopped teaching at Chelsea school and went
to a farmhouse 20 miles north of London. Due to the shortage of materials he started
drawing. He started with small sketches of Londoners and later turned that into the large
colour drawings in his studio. In 1942, he returned to Castleford to sketch a series of miners
working there.
In 1944, a town near London named Harlow offered Moore a commission to sculpt a family.
The output shows a great change in Moore's style which is away from the experimentation of
natural and human subjects done in 1930. He did many studies in clay for sculpture and they
were cast in bronze and issued in 7 to 9 editions. By doing this Moore’s work is available to
collectors across the world. The raise in income made him focus on the great projects and
worked on the scale based on the demand he felt for his sculptures.
Critics who thought that Moore had become less revolutionary were proven wrong. In 1950,
the series of standing figures in bronze with the harsh and angular pierced forms and direct
impression of menace did that. In 1950’s, Moore varied his subject matter with works such
as warrior with shield and falling warrior. It is the rare example of Moore's use of male figures
which happened from the visit to Greece in 1951 where he studied the ancient work of art.
In the final years, the Henry Moore Foundation was created to promote his art and to display
his work. He was the first modern English sculptor who gained international recognition and
is still regarded as one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century.
Henry Moore IELTS reading questions
Questions (1-7)
Write
YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer

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1. After his schooling Moore learned about sculpting
2. In the first year of Leeds school of art he studied about sculpting
3. At royal college of art he gained recognition for teaching sculpture excellently
4. Only by visiting the London museums, Moore got aware of ancient sculpture
5. Mayan sculpture in the Trocadero museum gains a lot of public interest.
6. Moore thought that Mayan sculpture was similar to other stone sculptures.
7. The unit one members wanted to make modern art and architecture popular.
Questions (8-11)
8. He ____________ from the Royal college.
9. Moore began sketching because of the unavailability of sculpture ______________.
10. Moore did drawings of ______________ while visiting his hometown.
11. Moore’s work was purchased by _____________ at the beginning.
Questions (12-14)
Choose the correct letter, a, b, c or d
12. For which institute Moore got a scholarship award?
a. Castleford grammar school

b. Royal College of Arts
c. Leeds School of Art
d. Chelsea School of Art
13. What sculpture made Moore receive commission?
a. Warrior with shield and falling warrior

b. Mayan sculpture
c. Abstract sculptures
d. Family sculpture
14. Which series of Moore gained recognition?
a. Primitive forms of art

b. Reclining women
c. Standing figures in bronze
d. Abstract sculpture
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/henry-moore-reading-answers/

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Early Childhood Education
A. Dr. Lockwood Smith's recent visit to the US and Britain came with a list of findings.
Being New Zealand's National Party Education's spokesman reports the key findings
of his visit and reveals the prospects in New Zealand's education policy.
B. ‘Education To Be More' is a report pertaining to the New Zealand Government Early

Childhood Care and Education Working Group. It was published last August,
discussing the enhancement of access and funding for childcare and early childhood
education institutions. Though education is a necessity, parents don't send children to
pre-schools until they attain three years of age. Are they missing out on the most
crucial years of all? Let's see further.
C. A 13-year research study of early childhood development at Harvard University

reveals that most children after the age of three have the ability to understand nearly
1000 words - most of the vocabularies they will practise in normal conversation for
the rest of their lives. In addition to that, research shows that as every kid born will be
curious, however, it can be controlled significantly in their second and third years of
life. Researchers say that human behaviour gets into shape during the first two
years. Similarly, during the first three years children acquire the fundamental skills
which will be used later at home and at school. Once children cross three years, they
try to spread their existing knowledge of the world.
D. A general fact is that children from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are likely to
perform not well in studies. It's acknowledged not only in New Zealand but also in
Britain, America and Australia. To tackle the educational issue, a nationwide program
known as 'Headstart' was initiated in 1965 in the United States, with a pool of money.
It made a path for children to join in pre-school institutions after turning into three,
and facilitated the children from poorer families perform better in school. Besides so
much investment, the result was not as expected. It is because of two things. First,
the program started too late. Most of the children who enrolled in it were already
behind their peers in language and reasonable intelligence. Second, there is no
participation from the parents. After school hours, children go back to the same home
where parents don't know how to improve their skills.
E. Now it has become evident from the pilot program 'Headstart' launched in Missouri in
the US that the first three years of a kid's life are important. This growing need shows
that working with the parents rather than ignoring them from the process of child's
education is the most effective way of improving children's learning abilities. The
four-year pilot study involved around 380 families who have one child, and are from a
cross-section of socio-economic background, etc. The other factors include age and
family configurations. For this pilot study, they included single-parent and two-parent
families. Moreover, it included families where both parents are working and families
where one parent is at home.

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F. The program is associated with parent-educators who visit the parent's home
engaging with tired parents or parents and the child. Know the child's development,
necessary advice on things to care for, and what to expect as the child grows, etc. all
such information is given. It also added the guidance in keeping the child's
intelligence, language proficiency, social and motor-skill development. Regular
diagnoses of the child's academics and sensory development (hearing and vision)
were kept available to measure possible hurdles that help with development and
growth. In case of medical issues, they met the medical practitioners.
Parent-educators visited homes and conducted group meetings every month with
new parents. They shared experiences and discussed topics of varied subjects.
Apart from that, parent resource centres offered study materials for families and
facilitators for the child core. It is located in each school building.
G. The children at three years of age, who had been indulged in the pilot program
'Missouri' were analysed alongside a similar section of children chosen from the
same range of cross-section, socio-economic aspects and family conditions, and also
the same age of children as samples. Astonishingly, the results were excellent. The
children with the same age group were more advanced in language proficiency than
their counterparts. They showed greater potential in problem-solving techniques and
other intellectual skills, besides social development. Here, the average performance
of a child in this program was at the level of top 15 to 20 percent compared to their
peers in things like verbal ability, language skills, and auditory comprehension.
H. Above all, the classical method of measures of 'risk' like the parents' age and
education, or whether they were a single parent, no interest or having no relationship
to the assessments of success and language development. On the other hand,
children performed equally well in the program despite their socio-economic
backgrounds. In this program, no child was virtually abused. The one component that
tended to affect the child's development was stress from the family side that led to
poor quality of parent-child relationship and interaction. That interaction was not
always bad in poorer families.
I. Most of these findings are interesting. There is alarming evidence in New Zealand
that children belonging to poorer socio-economic backgrounds are performing less at
school and that our school system tends to maintain that disadvantage unknowingly.
The initiative subsequently mentioned the fact that above could break that cycle of
disadvantage. The idea of engaging with parents in their homes or at their workplace,
could improve the situation quite markedly with respect to the Early Childhood Care
and Education Working Group's report. Their main objective is to enrol children and
mothers to childcare and institutionalised childhood education at an early stage.
Education from the age of three to five is unquestionably important to any child, but
not focusing on parent education and the vital importance of the first three years,
might lead to evidence that reflects the inequality in education.
Early Childhood Education Reading Questions

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Questions 1 - 5
The reading passage has nine paragraphs, A - I.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct Roman numeral (i - vi) as your answer to each question.
List of Headings
i) Education to be more
ii) Breakthrough in the pilot study
iii) Pilot program ‘Headstart’
iv) Traditional method of risk assessment
v) Parent-Educators and their role
vi) Early Childhood Care and Education Working Group's report
1. Paragraph B
2. Paragraph E
3. Paragraph F
4. Paragraph G
5. Paragraph H
Questions 6 - 10
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each
answer.
● There is alarming evidence in 6. _________ that children belonging to poorer

socio-economic backgrounds are performing less.
● Though education is a 7. __________, parents don't send children to pre-schools

until they attain three years of age.
● Parent resource centres offered study materials for families and facilitators for the 8.
________ .
● The one component that tended to affect the child's development was stress from the
family side that led to poor quality of parent-child 9. __________ and interaction.
● Moreover, it included families where both parents are 10. __________ and families
where one parent is at home.

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Questions 11 - 13
Write
11. The children with the same age group were more skilled in language proficiency than
their counterparts.
12. The children for the pilot study were selected based on their socio-economic background
only.
13. The children’s performance in education is associated with the food they intake.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/early-childhood-education-reading-answers/
What Do Whales Feel?
A. Some senses in Cetaceans are reduced or are absent or don't work in water, but we
and other terrestrial mammals take these for granted. For example, toothed species
are unable to smell which is evident from their brain structure. On the other hand,
Baleen species have some similar brain structures but it is not understood whether
these are functional. As the blowholes evolved and migrated to the top of the head it
has been speculated that the neural pathways serving a sense of smell may have
been nearly all sacrificed. The nerves serving these have degenerated or are
rudimentary even though some cetaceans have taste buds.
B. The sense of touch has been sometimes reported to be weak too, but it is mostly
mistaken. Trainers comment on their captive dolphins and small whales'
responsiveness to being touched or rubbed. Free- ranging and captive cetacean
individuals of all species (particularly adults and calves, or members of the same
subgroup) appear to make frequent contact. Stroking or touching are part of the
courtship ritual in most species and this contact may help to maintain order within a
group. Captive animals often object to being touched around the area of the blowhole
as it is sensitive there.
C. The sense of vision is developed in different species to different degrees. Baleen

species, specifically a grey whale calf, studied in captivity at close quarters
underwater for a year, and humpback whales and free-ranging right whales, studied

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and filmed off Argentina and Hawaii, have tracked objects with vision underwater,
and they can see to a certain extent both in water and in air. However, the position of
the eyes limits the field of vision in baleen whales that do not have stereoscopic
vision.
D. The position of the eyes in most dolphins and porpoises on the other hand, indicates
that they have stereoscopic vision downward and forward. The eye position in
freshwater dolphins, which often swim upside down or on their side while feeding,
suggests that the vision they have is stereoscopic upward and forward. In
comparison, the bottlenose dolphin has extremely keen eyesight in water. Judging
from the way it tracks and watches the flying fish, it can also see well through the
air-water interface as well. Even though the initial experimental evidence indicates
that their vision in air is low, the precision with which dolphins spring high to catch
small fish out of a trainer’s hand gives anecdotal evidence to the contrary.
E. With no doubt these variations can be explained with reference to the habitats in
which individual species have grown. For example, to species inhabiting clear open
waters, vision is more useful than to those living in turbid rivers and flooded plains.
For instance, the Chinese beiji and South American boutu appear to have very
limited sight, and the Indian susus are blind, their eyes reduced to slits that mostly
allow them to recognise only the intensity of light and direction.
F. Even though the sense of taste and smell appear to have declined, and vision in
water appears to be unknown, such shortcomings are compensated for by
cetaceans’ well-developed auditory sense. Most species are highly vocal, although
they vary in the range of voice they generate, and many hunt their prey using
echolocation. Primarily large baleen whales use lower frequencies and are often
restricted in their repertoire. The complex, haunting utterances of the humpback
whales and the song-like choruses of bowhead whales in summer are notable
exceptions. Toothed species in general produce a wider variety of sounds and more
frequency spectrum than baleen species (though the sperm whale apparently
produces a monotonous series of high-energy clicks and little else). Few of the
complicated sounds are also clearly communicative. The role they play in the ‘culture’
and social life of cetaceans has been more of a wild speculation than of solid
science.
What Do Whales Feel IELTS reading questions
IELTS Reading Note Completion Questions 1-5
answer.
Toothed species are unable to 1_______.

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Blowholes evolved and migrated to the top of the 2_____.
Captive animals often object to being touched around the area of the 3______.
The sense of 4________ is developed in different species to different degrees.
The bottlenose dolphin has an extremely keen 5________ in water.
IELTS Reading Yes/No/Not Given Questions 6-9
Write
YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

6. Stroking or touching may help to maintain order within a group.
7. Captive animals like being touched around the area of the blowhole
8. Dolphins live up to the age of 30.
9. Chinese Beiji and South American Boutu have very limited sight.
IELTS Reading Matching Headings Questions 10-15
The reading passage has six paragraphs, A-F.
Write the correct number, i-vii, as your answer to each question.
i. Habitat of whales
ii. Absence of senses in Cetaceans
iii. Voice of whales
iv. Responsiveness to touch
v. Position of eyes
vi. The size of whales
vii. Sense of vision
10. Paragraph A
11. Paragraph B
12. Paragraph C
13. Paragraph D

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14. Paragraph E
15. Paragraph F
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/what-do-whales-feel-reading-answers/
Telepathy
Can humans communicate by thought alone? The telepathy issue has split the scientific
community for more than a century, and even today it provokes bitter controversy among
leading academics.
Since the 1970s, parapsychologists at top universities and research institutes around the
world have ridiculed sceptical colleagues by testing different claims for telepathy in dozens
of severe scientific analyses. The outcomes and their implications divide even the
researchers who discovered them.
Some researchers express the outcomes are compelling proof that telepathy is real. Other
paranormal medical experts believe that the field is on the verge of collapse as attempts to
create solid scientific evidence have failed. Sceptics and lawyers alike agree, however, that
the most compelling evidence so far comes from the concept field', a German term meaning
'whole field'. Reports of telepathy experiences that people have had during meditation have
led paranoid medical experts to suspect that telepathy 'signals' were transmitted to people
who were unconscious to the point of normal brain function. In this state, such signals can
be efficiently seen by those who experience meditation as a soothing 'whole field' of light,
sound, and warmth.
The ganzfeld experiment attempts to recreate these conditions with participants seated in
soft reclining chairs in a locked room, hearing soothing sounds while their eyes are covered
by special filters that allow only soft pink light. In the earlier ganzfeld experiments, the
telepathy test involved recognizing an image selected from four random selections taken
from a large image bank. The concept is that the person acting as a 'sender' will try to
illuminate the image of the 'receiver' resting in a locked room.
When the session was over, he was asked to determine which of the four pictures was used.
Random guessing will offer a 25 percent hit rate, and if the telepathy is real, the hit rate will
be increased. In 1982, the results of the first ganzfeld study were examined by one of its
pioneers, the American psychiatrist Charles Honerton. They suggested a small effect of
more than 30 percent on regular success rates, but the statistical tests could not reduce the
chance of something being recommended. The implication is that the ganzfeld technique
disclosed the true proof of telepathy. But there was one significant flaw in this argument,
which one usually does not notice in the usual areas of science. Rejecting the opportunity as
an explanation did not prove that telepathy should exist, and there were many other methods
to obtain positive results. These range from 'sensory leakage' to complete fraud until the
clues about the images accidentally reach the recipient. In response, the researchers
published a review of all ganzfeld studies conducted up to 1985, with 80 percent finding

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statistically important proof. Yet, they acknowledged that there are still many issues with
testing that could lead to positive outcomes, and they developed a list of new standards for
later research.
After this, many researchers changed to autoganzfeld experiments, which were used by
computers to perform many important tasks, like a random selection of pictures. The concept
was to reduce the danger of defective outcomes by minimizing human involvement. In 1987,
Honordon analyzed the results of hundreds of autoganzfeld experiments with a
'meta-analysis', a statistical method used to determine the overall results from a group of
studies. Although less compelling than before, the effect was still satisfying.
However, some paranoid medical professionals are confused by the lack of consistency
between individual ganzfeld studies. Defenders of telepathy ignore a fundamental statistical
fact that demands compelling proof in every analysis, big samples are needed to detect
small effects. As the current results indicate, if telepathy accidentally develops success rates
above the expected 25 percent, it is unlikely to be detected by a routine ganzfeld analysis
involving 40 people, the team is not good enough. The faint signal of telepathy is really clear
only if multiple studies are integrated with the meta-analysis. That seems to be what the
researchers found.
However, they certainly did not find any difference in the attitude of the top scientists, most
still completely reject the concept of telepathy. This issue is partly due to the shortage of a
reliable method for telepathy.
Different theories have been put forward, with many concentrating on esoteric concepts from
theoretical physics. They have 'quantum entanglement, in which events that affect one group
of atoms immediately affect another group, no matter how far away they are. Although
physicists have proven the problem with specially made atoms, no one knows whether it
exists between the atoms that make up human minds. Answering questions like these will
change paranoia medicine. This prompted some researchers to argue that the future lies not
in gathering additional proof for telepathy, but in exploring possible mechanisms. While
researchers are trying to recognize particularly successful ones in the autoganzfeld tests,
some work has already started. In a study at the University of Edinburgh, preliminary results
show that those with creativity and artistry perform better than average, with musicians
achieving a 56 percent success rate. Maybe many such experiments will finally give
researchers the proof they are looking for and strengthen the case for the presence of
telepathy.
Telepathy IELTS reading questions
Question (1-5)
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A–G, below.
Write the correct letter, A-G, as your answer to each question.
1. The telepathy issue has split the scientific community for

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2. Some researchers express the outcomes are compelling proof that
3. Reports of telepathy experiences that people have
4. The telepathy test involved recognizing an image selected from four random selections
taken
5. The person acting as a 'sender' will try to illuminate the image of the 'receiver' resting
A. telepathy is real
B. for later research
C. from a large image bank
D. more than a century
E. a reliable method for telepathy
F. had during meditation
G. in a locked room
Question (6 - 10)
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the reading passage for each answer.
Year Events
The results of the first ganzfeld study were examined

6. _______________ by one of its pioneers, the American psychiatrist 7
_________.
1985 The researchers published a review of all ganzfeld

studies conducted up to 8 ___________, with 80
percent finding statistically important proof.
Honordon analyzed the results of hundreds of

9. _______________ autoganzfeld experiments with a 10
______________, a statistical method used to
determine the overall results from a group of studies.
Question (11 - 14)
Defenders of 11 _____________ ignore a fundamental statistical fact that demands

compelling proof in every analysis,... It is unlikely to be detected by a routine 12

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___________ analysis involving 40 people, the team is not good enough. However,
researchers certainly did not find any difference in the attitude of the top 13 __________,
most still completely reject the concept of telepathy. Answering questions like these will
change 14 ___________________.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/telepathy-reading-answers/
Air Traffic Control In The USA
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was established after the accident happened in
the skies over the Grand Canyon in 1956, to regulate and monitor the aircraft operations in
the skies over the United States, which were becoming quite jammed. The safety of flight in
the United States was improved greatly as a result of the air traffic control. And, the same air
traffic control procedures applied to the rest of the world.
Before the Grand Canyon disaster occured, rudimentary air traffic control (ATC) existed well.
At the early period of 1920s, the air traffic controllers manually guided the aircraft in the
vicinity of the airports with the lights and flags, at the same time beacons and flashing lights
were mounted along the cross-country routes to set up the earliest airways. Nevertheless,
this purely visual system was not useful in bad weather conditions. And, the radio
communication was coming into use for ATC by the year of 1930s. The first region which has
some resemblances with today’s ATC was New York City. And, other significant metropolitan
areas are following soon after.
In the 1940s, the system remained basic even after the ATC Centres got an opportunity to
take advantage of a new form of radar and improved radio communication, which was
brought by the Second World War . America’s airspace was regulated on a full scale only
after the creation of the FAA, and this was unexpected, the arrival of jet engines resulted in a
large number of very fast planes, decreasing the pilot’s margin of error and asking some set
of rules to keep all of them well separated and operating safely in the air.
Most of the people thought that in ATC, the controllers were in row sitting in front of their
radar screens at the nation’s airports, informing arriving and departing traffic what to do. This
does not cover the whole part. The FAA understood that the airspace over the United States
could have many different kinds of planes at any time, flying for various purposes, in different
weather conditions, and a similar sort of structure was required to accommodate all of them.
The following things were put into effect to meet the challenge. First, virtually ATC extends to
the whole of the United States. Controlled airspace covered the entire country above the
ground and the higher about 365mm. In some areas, mainly near airports, controlled
airspace expanded about 215mm above the ground. The FAA regulations are applied in the
airspace, which is a controlled airspace. Pilots are bound by fewer regulations in
uncontrolled airspace. So, the recreational pilot who wants to fly without any restrictions
should stay in the uncontrolled airspace imposed by the FAA, below 365mm. And, the pilot
who wants the protection from ATC can easily enter into the controlled airspace.

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Two types of operating environments were recognised by the FAA. In proper meteorological
conditions, under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) flying would be permitted, which suggests strong
reliance on visual cues to maintain an acceptable safety level. In poor visibility conditions, a
set of Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) under which the pilot depends on both altitude and
navigational information provided by the instrument panel of the plane to fly safely. A pilot
can choose a VFR or IFR flight plan in a controlled airspace on a clear day, and the FAA
regulations were designed in a way which accommodates VFR and IFR operations in the
same airspace. Nevertheless, a pilot can only opt to fly IFR if they have an instrument rating
which is higher than the basic pilot’s licence that should also be held.
Controlled airspace is parted into various types, which is indicated by the alphabetical
letters. Class F is designated for Uncontrolled airspace and the controlled airspace above
sea level below 5,490m and not in the vicinity of an airport is Class E. Class A refers to all
the airspace above 5,490m. The purpose of the division of Class E and Class A airspace is
to figure out the type of planes operating in them. Normally, one can find general aviation
aircraft and commercial turboprop aircraft in Class E. The realm of jet engines is above
5,490m because jet engines operate well in higher altitudes. The difference between Class E
and Class A airspace is that in Class A, pilots should be instrument-rated and all operations
are IFR, which means skilled and licensed in aircraft instrumentation. It is because ATC
control of the entire space is important. Other three types of airspace, Class D, C and B
governs the airports’ vicinity. These relate to small municipal, medium-sized metropolitan
and major metropolitan airports respectively and have an increasingly intense set of
regulations. For example, Class C airspace is set up for two-way radio contact with ATC,
where all the VFR pilots have to enter. The pilot must obey all regulations governing VFR
flight even though no explicit permission from ATC is needed to enter the airspace. An
explicit ATC clearance is required to enter in the Class B airspace. The private pilot who flies
without permission will lose their license.
Air Traffic Control In The USA IELTS Reading Questions
Questions 1 - 7
each answer.
1. What was established after the Grand Canyon disaster ?

2. When was the radio communication coming into use for ATC ?
3. What brought the newly developed radar and improved radio communication ?
4. How many types of operating environments are the FAA recognised ?
5. Which letters are used to designate different types of airspace ?
6. Where do jet engines operate well ?
7. What is required to enter in the Class B airspace ?

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Questions 8 - 13
Write

8. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is established as a result of accident

occured in the skies over the Grand Canyon
9. Rudimentary air traffic control established after the Grand Canyon disaster
10. Number of road and air accidents occured in the Grand Canyon
11. Federal Aviation Administration reduced the pilot’s margin of error
12. Under Visual Flight Rules, a pilot relies on both altitude and navigational information
given by the instrument panel of the plane to fly safely
13. Controlled airspace divided into three types
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/air-traffic-control-in-the-usa-reading-answers/
Spoken Corpus Comes To Life
Historically, the act of compiling dictionaries is undertaken by the studious professorial types,
who are usually bespectacled and love to read the large books and make formal comments
on the finer nuances of meaning. Most likely, they are good at crosswords and know a lot of
words. However, the image was always dusty and dry. The content of dictionaries and the
structure in which it is arranged is revolutionised by the latest technology.
It is the first time that dictionary publishers incorporate real and spoken English into their
data. This gives lexicographers (people who write dictionaries) an opportunity to access a
more vibrant and up-to-date vernacular language which has never been studied before. A
project has been conducted where 150 volunteers discreetly agreed to tie a walkman around
their waist and leave it running for up to two weeks. All of their conversations were recorded.
The tape length extended to about 35 times the depth of the Atlantic Ocean, when the data
was collected. The tapes have been transcribed to produce a computerised database of ten
million words by the team of audio typists.
Along with an existing written corpus, it has been the foundation for Language Activator
dictionary. The lexicographer Professor Randolph Quirk described this dictionary as follows:
“the book the world has been waiting for”. It demonstrates how the English language is really
used. For example, If you’re checking the dictionary to know about the word such as “eat”,
which will be followed by related phrases, like “wolf down” or “be a picky eater”. It allows the
student to pick up the appropriate phrase.

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A Director of Dictionaries, Delia Summers said that this sort of research is impossible without
computers. It totally changed how the lexicographers work. The word “like” might strike you
intuitively at first as a verb ( I like swimming ). But, it is not. It is the preposition: ‘she walked
like a duck’. The word or phrase will not enter into the dictionary just because it is frequently
used. The process of sifting out is also significant as ever. Lexicographers, now, are able to
search a word and figure out how frequently it is used with the help of a database, which
performed intuitively before.
Researchers have found that written English works are different from spoken English.
Literally, the phrase “say what you like” means “feel free to say anything you want”. But,
evidence suggests that this phrase prevents the other person from voicing their
disagreement. The phrase “it is now” is one of the most frequently used English phrases
which has not appeared in a language learner’s dictionary before.
The Spoken Corpus computer reflects how people are innovative and humorous while they
twist the familiar phrases in their language to bring the effect. It also shows how we use the
pauses and noises to play for time, convey emotion, doubt and irony.
Foreign learners gain so many benefits from the Spoken Corpus, for the moment. Professor
Geoffrey Leech of Lancaster University said that lexicographers are able to quickly search
through more examples of real English by using computers. The Spoken Corpus is the
section of the larger British National Corpus, which is initiated by some of the groups who
are involved in the production of language learning materials such as publishers, universities
and the British Library.
Spoken Corpus Comes To Life IELTS Reading Questions
Questions 1 - 5
Answer questions 1-5 which are based on the reading passage below.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
1. What revolutionised the content of the dictionaries and the way it is put together ?
2. How many volunteers participated in a project ?
3. Which team transcribed the tapes to produce a computerised database of ten million
words ?
4. Who said research is impossible without computers ?
5. Who gained most of the benefits from the Spoken Corpus ?
Questions 6 - 10
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

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6. The people who write dictionaries are called __________.
7. When the data was collected, the tape extended to about ______ the depth of the
atlantic ocean.
8. Delia Summers, a director of ________, said research is impossible without

computers.
9. __________ computer shows the innovative and humorous side of people on how
they twist familiar phrases in their language.
10. The Spoken Corpus is part of the larger ___________
Questions 11 - 14
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A–F, below.
Write the correct letter, A-F, as your answer to each question.
11. With the new form of dictionary, lexicographers have access

12. The lexicographer Professor Randolph Quirk described the dictionary as
13. The phrase it is now is one of the frequently used phrases which
14. By using computers, Professor Geoffrey Leech said that lexicographers are able to
A. search the different articles at a faster rate

B. the book the world has been waiting for
C. search quickly through more examples of real English
D. lots of vocabulary which contains all the unique words
E. has not appeared in the language learner’s dictionary previously
F. to vernacular language which has never been studied before
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/spoken-corpus-comes-to-life-reading-answers/
Population Viability Analysis
Part A
To make political decisions about the size and kind of forest in a region, it is essential to
comprehend the implications of those decisions. Population viability analysis (PVA) is a tool
for estimating the effect of forests on the ecosystem. It is a tool that predicts the possibility of
extinction of a species in a certain area over a period of time. It has been used successfully
in the United States to provide input on resource exploitation decisions and to help wildlife
managers. There is now a huge possibility for using population viability to aid wildlife
management in Australia’s forests.

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A species vanishes when the last person dies. This observation is a helpful starting point for
any talk of destruction, as it highlights the part of luck and chance in the process of
destruction. To make a prediction about destruction, we need to comprehend the methods
that contribute to it, these are the four wide types discussed below.
Part B
Early attempts to assume population viability was based on population uncertainty whether a
person will survive from one year to the next is frequently a prospect. Some couples can
produce multiple pups in the same year, while others will not produce anything in the same
year. Small populations will fluctuate greatly due to the inconsistency of birth and death, and
these likely fluctuations will, on average, cause species extinction even as the population
size increases. Considering only this uncertainty of reproductive ability, extinction is not
possible if the number of people in a population is over 50 and the population is expanding.
A small amount of breeding cannot be avoided by small populations. This is especially true if
you have a very little number of genders. For illustration, if there are only 20 persons in a
race and only one man, then all future persons in that species must be descended from that
one man. For most animal species, such individuals are probably not able to survive and
reproduce. Increases the chance of breeding extinction.
Variation in a species is the raw material from which natural choice operates. Without
genetic variation, a species does not have the ability to grow and adapt to changes in its
environment or to new predators and new illnesses. Loss of genetic variation associated with
population decline may contribute to the possibility of extinction.
A recent study shows that other aspects need to be considered. Australia's environment is
highly volatile from year to year. These changes add another degree of uncertainty to the
survival of many organisms. Disasters such as fire, flood, drought, or epidemics can reduce
the population to a small part of their average level. When these two additional uncertainties
are paid for, the population needed to sustain a few hundred years can increase by
thousands.
Part C
Apart from these processes, we need to keep in mind the population distribution. A species
that happens in five isolated areas do not have the possibility of extinction of a race of 100
persons in the same place with 20 persons each.
Where trees are cut down, forest-dwelling creatures are forced to flee. Ground-dwelling
plants can return within a decade. Nevertheless, arboreal marsupials (i.e., tree-dwelling
animals) have not been able to regain pre-recorded density for more than a century. As more
forests are destroyed, the number of animals will further decrease. Regardless of the theory
or model we prefer, reducing the size of the population reduces the genetic variation of the
population and raises the probability of extinction due to any or all of the methods listed
above. So it is a scientific truth that expanding the loaded area in any region will boost the
chances of extinction of forest-dependent animals.

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Population viability analysis IELTS reading questions
Questions (1- 5)
Write

1. Population viability analysis (PVA) is a tool for assessing the impact of forests on the
ecosystem.
2. There is now less possibility for using population viability to aid wildlife management in
Australia’s forests.
3. Early tries to assume population viability was based on population uncertainty
4. Destruction of the species in a particular area is a natural thing.
5. All pairs can produce multiple babies in the same year.
Questions (6 - 10)
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS/NUMBERS from the passage for each answer.
6. Extinction is not possible if the number of people in a population is over ___________ and
the ___________ is expanding.
7. If there are only 20 persons in a race and only one man, then all future persons in that
species must be ___________ from that one man
8. Variation in a _________ is the raw material from which natural choice operates.
9. Loss of genetic variation associated with population reduction may contribute to the
chance of _____________.
10. Australia's environment is highly ______________ from year to year.

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Questions (11 - 13)
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C, or D
11. Disasters such as fire, flood, drought, or epidemics can reduce the population to a
A. small part of their low level

B. small part of their high level
C. small part of their average level
D. huge part of their average level
12. Ground-dwelling plants can return within
A. a century
B. 10 years
C. 20 years
D. a decade
13. Reducing the size of the population reduces the genetic variation of the
A. species
B. population
C. plants
D. trees
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/population-viability-analysis-reading-answers/
Second Nature
Psychologists for a long time have said that a person cannot undergo transformation in their
character in any meaningful way and that the key traits of personality are determined at a
very young age. Researchers however began looking more closely on how we can change.
Positive psychologists have found 24 qualities we appreciate, such as kindness and loyalty,
and are studying them to find out why they are found naturally in few people. What they
discovered is that many of these qualities come from habitual behaviour that decide the way
we react to the world. And the good news is that such qualities can be learned by anyone.
Some qualities like optimism are less challenging to develop than others. However,
developing some qualities requires mastering a range of skills that are surprising and
diverse. For example, you must be open to experiencing negative emotions to bring more joy
and passion into your life. Focusing on such qualities will help you realise your full potential.
'The evidence says that most personality traits can be changed,' says, psychology professor
Christopher Peterson of the University of Michigan, who cites himself as an example.
Inherently introverted, he realised early on that as an academic, his reserved character was

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disastrous in the lecture hall. So he learned to entertain his classes and be more outgoing.
He says 'his extroverted behaviour is now spontaneous'.
David Fajgenbaum went through a similar transition. He was preparing for university, when
he had an accident which ended his sports career. He understood that apart from ordinary
counselling, the university had no services for students who were going through physical
rehabilitation and suffering from depression like him on campus. So to help others in similar
situations he launched a support group. Despite his own pain he took action - a typical
response of an optimist.
Professor of psychology Suzanne Segerstrom, at the University of Kentucky, believes that

rather than positive thinking the key to increasing optimism is through developing optimistic
behaviour. She recommends you train yourself to write down 3 positive things that come
about each day to pay attention to good fortune. This makes it easier to begin taking action
and will help you convince yourself that favourable outcomes actually happen all the time.
By a person's involvement you can recognise a person who is passionate about a pursuit.
Tanya Streeter is passionate about freediving - the sport of jumping into the water without
any tanks or other breathing equipment. From 1998, she set 9 world records and can hold
her breath for 6 minutes. The physical stamina required and the psychological demands for
this sport is intense and overwhelming. Streeter learned to fight her fears from her
judgement of what her body and mind could do. 'There was a limit to what I could do in my
career as a competitive freediver, - but it wasn't anywhere near what I thought it was - she
says.
You can improve your life by finding a pursuit that excites you. According to psychologist
Paul Silvia of the University of North Carolina the secret about consuming passions, is that
'they require discipline, hard work and ability, which is why they are so rewarding.'
Psychologist Todd Kashdan gave this advice to people who are taking up a new passion: 'As
a newcomer, you also have to tolerate and laugh at your own ignorance. You must accept
the negative feelings that come in your way,' he says.
Physician and scientist Mauro Zappaterra in 2004 began his PhD research at Harvard
Medical School. Unfortunately, he was desperate as his research wasn't compatible with his
curiosity about healing. He then took a break and during 8 months in Santa Fe, Zappaterra
learned about alternative healing techniques not taught at Harvard. He switched labs to
study how cerebrospinal fluid nourished the developing nervous system, when he returned.
Including in his failure, he vowed to look for the joy in everything, as this could help him learn
about his research and himself.
A person's concentration on avoiding failure rather than their looking forward to doing
something well can hold his joy back. 'Focusing on being safe always might not help you
reach your goals,' explains Kashdan. For example, will you be worried about getting through
a business lunch without embarrassing yourself, or will you think about how interesting the
conversation would be?
Ordinary life demands something else even though we think of courage in physical terms. It
meant speaking out against something that was ethically wrong, said marketing executive

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Kenneth Pedeleose. The new manager was intimidating staff so Pedeleose carefully
recorded each instance of bullying and knowing his own job security would be threatened he
eventually took the evidence to a senior director. The manager was the one to go.
Psychologist Cynthia Pury of Clemson University says, Pedeleose's story proves the point
that courage does not come from fearlessness, but by moral obligation. Pury also believes
that people can develop courage. Many of her students said that they first tried to calm
themselves down when faced with a risky situation, and then looked for a way to mitigate the
danger, just as Pedeleose did by recording his claims.
Picking up a new character trait over the long term may help you move toward being the
person you want to be. The effort itself could be surprisingly rewarding in the short term, a
kind of internal adventure.
Second Nature IELTS reading questions
IELTS Reading Matching Features Question 1-5
Look at the following Questions 1-4 and the list of the statements below. Match each
statement with the correct one
Write the correct letter A-E on your answer sheet.
1. The evidence says that most personality traits can be changed

2. He had an accident while preparing for university which ended his sports career.
3. Rather than positive thinking the key to increasing optimism is through developing
optimistic behaviour.
4. Passionate about freediving
5. Passion requires discipline, hard work and ability, which is why they are so
rewarding.
A. Mauro Zappaterra
B. Christopher Peterson
C. Tanya Streeter
D. David Fajgenbaum
E. Paul Silvia
F. Suzanne Segerstrom
IELTS Reading Sentence Completion Question 6-10
Complete the sentences using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for
each answer.
6. Physician and scientist Mauro Zappaterra in 2004 began his PhD research at
________ School.

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7. Focusing on being ________ always might not help you reach your goals.
8. ________ demands something else even though we think of courage in physical

terms.
9. Picking up a new ________ over the long term may help you move toward being the
person you want to be.
10. Pury also believes that people can develop ______.
IELTS Reading Yes/No/Not Given Question 11-14
Write

11. A person cannot undergo transformation in their character in any meaningful way and
that the key traits of personality are determined at a very young age.
12. Some qualities like optimism are more challenging to develop than others.
13. Training yourself to write down 3 positive things that come about each day is good to
pay attention to good fortune.
14. Meditation can help you change your character.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/second-nature-reading-answers/
Research Using Twins
Researchers in the biomedical field across the globe consider twins as a golden opportunity
to unearth the interconnection between genes and the environment - of nature and nurture.
Since identical twins happen from a single fertilised egg that diverts it into two separate
parts, they will have the exact same code of genetics. They might have any variations, like
one of the twins having younger-looking skin. For instance, it must have been because of
environmental aspects like absorbing fewer sun rays.
On the other hand, when we compare the experiences of identical twins with those of
fraternal twins, who are from different eggs and have almost half of their DNA, it is
quantifiable by researchers to what extent our genes impact our entire lives. When the

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identical twins are more similar compared to fraternal twins in terms of an ailment, they
become more vulnerable to any disease as it becomes a part of their heredity.
These two different research - understanding the differences between identical twins to
highlight the impact of environment, and making comparison of identical twins and fraternal
ones to determine the influence of inheritance - being critical to know the inter-relation
between nature and nurture in order to find out our personalities, behaviour, and amount of
vulnerability to any infection or disease.
The concept behind using twins to determine the impact of heredity goes back to 1875 when
the English scientist Francis Galton first recommended that idea (and invented the phrase
'nature and nurture'). However studies on twins lead to an astonishing twist during the
1980s, after introducing various studies into identical twins who were living separately after
birth and reunited when they reached adulthood. For more than two decades, almost 137
twin people visited Thomas Bouchard's research place. which later became known as the
Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart. Besides that, many experiments were conducted
on the twins, and each of them were asked more than 15,000 questions.
Bouchard and his associates made use of these tons of information to examine how far
twins were impacted due to their genetic conditions. They handled a statistical concept
known as heritability for their approach. Generally, the heritability trait calculates the
differences between the population members and differences in their genetic background
and illustrates it accordingly. At last, Bouchard and his coworkers found the unseen side of
genetic influence that is useful for us to shape our lives genetically.
Twin studies have been a fortune for famous scientists to a radical new concept: that nature
and nurture are not the only sources during the work. Recently, a research study called
epigenetics found that there's another factor that comes into play. Previously, one found that
in some cases it serves as a connecting bridge between our genes and the environment.
The second is that it performs on its own to be who we are.
In this epigenetic process, chemical reactions lead to neither nature nor nurture, but it
reflects as a 'third component' as mentioned by researchers. Such reactions impact how our
human genetics is represented: how each gene is enhanced or weakened, sometimes
becoming on or off, to develop our brains, bones and other vital parts of the body.
If you imagine our DNA system as a piano keyboard, while the genes are keys, then each
key will assign a separate segment of DNA in charge of a particular note, or trait, and all the
keys join to get to know who we are all about. Based on that, epigenetic work helps us
determine how and when each assigned key can be struck, and alter the rhythm that has
been playing for a long time.
On one hand, the research on epigenetics has newly evolved our basic understanding of
science, especially Biology by exhibiting a system through which the environment has a
direct consequence on genes. Similarly, further study on animals, for instance, revealed that
when a rat feels stressed at the time of pregnancy, it can lead to epigenetic changes in a
foetus that causes behavioural issues since the mice develop. There are also other
epigenetic processes that come at any time, whereas others have been normal, like those

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that guide embryonic cells as they later develop into different parts like a heart, brain, liver
cells, etc.
There was a famous geneticist, Danielle Reed who conducted research with more twin
people and analysed deeply based on the inferences. However, it's crystal clear when you
learn what twins have shared with us until now. It was observed that numerous things are
similar in nature and cannot be changed. Moreover, it's clear that when you understand
deeper, certain things are different between them. Epigenetics is the pioneer for a lot of
these contradictions, according to the researcher.
Another researcher Reed gives credit to Thomas Bouchard's contribution to the present rise
in studies related to twins. 'He was the trailblazer', she said. We did not remember 50 years
ago components like various diseases were caused by poor lifestyle. Likewise,
Schizophrenia was due to poor mothering and lack of nurturing. Twin studies opened new
horizons that are more reflective of what people have inherently and what is developed
based on experience.
In addition to that, Reed explains the recent work in epigenetics guarantees to take our
capacity of understanding to the next level. She said that nature determines some things in
pencil and some things in pen. Whatever is written in pen can't be changed. And that's our
DNA. But whatever is written in pencil can be changed. And that's called epigenetics. Now
we can review the DNA and find out where the pencil writings are, that seems to be a whole
new entity.
Research Using Twins Reading Questions
Questions 1 - 5
answer.
1. Identical twins come from?

2. Who was the famous geneticist conducting research with many twins?
3. What Reed said about Thomas Bouchard?
4. With twins, many things were similar and whether it is changeable or not?
5. Schizophrenia is due to?
Questions 6 - 10
Complete each sentence with the correct ending
Write the correct letter A - E in boxes
6. Twin studies opened new horizons that are

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7. Bouchard and his coworkers found the unseen side of genetic
8. 137 twins visited Thomas Bouchard's place
9. In this epigenetic process
10. If you imagine our DNA system as a piano keyboard
A. known as the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart.

B. Chemical reactions lead to neither nature nor nurture.
C. genes are keys.
D. More reflective of what people have inherently.
E. Useful for us to shape our lives genetically.
Questions 11 - 13
Complete the flowchart below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/research-using-twins-reading-answers/
The History of the Tortoise
If you go far back, everything lives in the ocean. At different topics in evolutionary history,
interested individuals from different animal groups traveled to land, sometimes taking their
own seawater in blood and cellular fluids, even to the aridest deserts. In addition to the
reptiles, birds, mammals, and insects that surround us, other groups that have conquered
the water contain scorpions, snails, and crustaceans such as woodlice, land crabs,
millipedes and centipedes, spiders, and different worms. We must not forget the vegetation,
without whose pre-invaded land, no other migrations could have taken place.
Going from water to land involves a significant reshaping of every part of life, and involves
respiration and reproduction. However, a good number of terrestrial animals later returned,
abandoning the hard-earned terrain resurfacing tool and returning to the water. The seals

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were only partially returned. On the way to extreme events like Whales and dugongs, they
display to us what mediators would have been like. Whales and dugongs, their closest
relatives, the Manatees, ceased to be terrestrial creatures as a whole and returned to the
whole marine customs of distant ancestors. They do not even come ashore to breed.
Nevertheless, they still breathe air, creating nothing similar to the gills of their previous
marine incarnation. Turtles went to sea a long time ago, and like all vertebrates that return to
the water, they breathe air. Yet, they are, in a way, less likely to return to the water than
whales or dugongs because turtles still lay their eggs on the beaches.
There is proof that all modern turtles are descended from a terrestrial ancestor who lived
before most dinosaurs. From the earliest dinosaur times, there are two major fossils known
as Proganochelys quenstedti and Palaeochersis talampayensis, all of which are closely
related to the ancestry of modern turtles and tortoises. You may be wondering how we can
tell if fossil animals lived on land or in water, particularly when only fragments are
discovered. Sometimes it’s clear. Ichthyosaurs are reptile contemporaries of dinosaurs, with
paddles and streamlined bodies. The fossils look like dolphins and they certainly lived in the
water like dolphins. With turtles, it manifests a little less. One method is to measure the
bones of their forearms.
Walter Joyce and Jacques Gauthier of Yale University obtained three measurements on the
specific bones of 71 species of living turtles and turtles. They used a type of triangular graph
paper to plan all three measurements against each other. All terrestrial turtle species formed
a tight spot at the top of the triangle, while all water turtles are at the bottom of the triangular
graph. They are not mutually exclusive, except to add some species that spend time in water
and land. Of course, this amphibious species appears on the triangular graph almost halfway
between the 'wet cluster' of sea turtles and the 'dry cluster' of land turtles. Determining where
the fossils fell was the next step. We have no doubt the bones of P quenstedti and JR
talampayensis. Their points on the graph are the thickness of the dry mass. Both of these
fossils are arid land turtles. They came before our turtles could return to the water.
So, as most mammals did after going to sea, you might guess that modern land turtles may
have stayed on land since that early terrestrial period. But obviously not. If you draw the
family tree of all current turtles and tortoises, almost all the branches are aquatic. Today's
land turtles are a branch with deep nests built among the branches of aquatic turtles. This
suggests that modern land turtles have not relied on the land continuously since the time of
P. quenstedti and P. talampayensis. On the contrary, their ancestors were among those who
returned to the water, and they reappeared on land in recent times.
Therefore, turtles represent significant double returns. As with all mammals, reptiles, and
birds in general, their distant ancestors were marine fish, before which various more or less
worm-like creatures, still in the sea, developed into primary bacteria. Later ancestors lived on
the land and stayed there for many ages. Afterward, ancestors still turned into water and
became sea turtles. Eventually, they returned to the land as turtles, some of which now live
in arid deserts.
The history of the tortoise IELTS reading questions

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Question (1-4)
Write
TRUE - if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE - if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN - if there is no information on this in the passage
1. Without whose pre-occupied land, no other displacements could have taken place.
2. Turtles never went to sea for a long time, like all vertebrates.
3. Turtles still lay their eggs on the beaches.
4. Turtles are among the first batch of creatures to return to the sea.
Question (5-9)
5. Who lived before most dinosaurs?
6. Who are the Proganochelys quenstedti and Palaeochersis talampayensis?
7. What does the fossil look like?
8. Walter Joyce and Jacques Gauthier are from?
9. Which species appear on the triangular graph?
Question (10 - 12)
Choose the correct letter, A - D
10. All current turtles and tortoises, almost all the branches are
A. ancestors
B. fossils
C. aquatic
D. terrestrial
11. Modern land turtles have not relied on the

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A. water
B. desert
C. sea
D. land
12. Later ancestors still turned into water and became
A. land turtles
B. sea turtles
C. arid sea turtles
D. arid land turtles
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/the-history-of-the-tortoise-reading-answers/
A Workaholic Economy
As a result of the Industrial Revolution, or for the first century, increased productivity led to
reduced working hours. Employees who worked 12 hours a day, six days a week, found
working hours of 10 hours a day, and then, finally, eight hours, five days a week. A
generation ago only social planners were worried about what people would do with this new
free time. In the United States, at least, they seem to have nothing to worry about.
Although the result for one-hour work has doubled since 1945, rest time seems to have been
mainly reserved for the unemployed and the unemployed. Full-time workers spend as much
time at work as they did at the end of World War II. In fact, working hours have increased
significantly since the 1970s, and maybe real earnings have stagnated since that year.
Bookstores now have plenty of manuals explaining how to handle time and deal with stress.
There are many causes to miss rest time. Since 1979, companies have reacted to progress
in the business environment by hiring more employees than making the employees
overtime, says Juliet B., an economist at Harvard University. In fact, the recent economic
recovery has achieved a certain degree of reputation for its “unemployment” nature, which
has completely cut off increased productivity from employment.
Some companies are cutting back on their profit margins. A labor economist at Cornell
University, Ronald G. Snyder observes that, since all things are equal, it is good to spread
the work around.
Nevertheless, many factors push employers to hire fewer workers for longer hours, while at
the same time forcing workers to spend more time at work. Most of those motivations involve
what Ehrenberg calls the compensation structure, quirks in the way wages and advantages
are arranged that make it more lucrative to ask 40 employees to labor an additional hour
each than to hire one more employee to do the same 40-hour job.

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Professional and managerial staff offer the clearest lesson in these ways. Once people are
paid, it is the same for a company whether they spend 35 hours a week or 70 hours. Income
will decline as overworked employees will lose performance or move to more arable
pastures. But in the short term, the employer’s motivation is clear.
Hourly employees also receive advantages such as pension contributions and medical
insurance, which are not connected to the hours they work. Hence, it would be more fruitful
for employers to make existing workers work harder.
Although employees complain about long hours, they also have causes not to trade money
for leisure. Schor claims that those who work part-time pay higher fines based on work. It's
taken as a negative signal about their dedication to the company. Lotte Bailyn, of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says many corporate managers find it difficult to
measure the contribution of their footnotes to a company's well-being, so they use the
number of hours they work for publication. “Employees comprehend this,” she expresses,
and they adjust their behavior accordingly.
Bailey says that, although the image of the good employee belongs to the company, it does
not agree with the facts. She cites both quantitative and qualitative studies showing that
part-time workers have increased productivity, that they make better use of the time they
have, and that they are less likely to become exhausted from stressful work. She
emphasizes that companies that hire more workers in less time also benefit from the
resulting layoffs. More individuals can cover up coincidences you know, which means
troubles will take people away from the workplace. Positive experiences with lessened times
are beginning to change the culture even better in some companies, Schor reports.
Larger companies, in particular, seem to be more willing to test flexible work arrangements
...
Successful trading of money for greater productivity and leisure can take more than changes
in the financial and cultural structures of employment for workers, Schor argues. She says
the U.S. market for goods has been skewed by the belief of full-time, two-business families.
Automobile makers no longer produce cheap models, and developers no longer build small
bungalows to serve first-generation home customers. Even the simplest household item is
not made without a microprocessor. As Schor points out, the situation is an interesting
reversal of the designers' view of "appropriate technology" for developing countries, where
American products are only suitable for high earnings and long hours.
A Workaholic Economy IELTS Reading Questions
Questions (1 - 5)
Write


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1. Decreased productivity led to increased working hours, for the first century.
2. A generation ago only social planners were worried about what people would do with
this new free time.
3. Full-time workers spend as much time at work as they did at the end of World War II.
4. Expanding rest time will help both working families.
5. Many factors push employers to hire more workers to work for longer hours.
Questions (6 - 9)
6. It is the same for a company whether they spend 35 hours a week or 70 hours,
A. they are paid less

B. once people joined
C. once people are paid
D. they got no incentives
7. Hourly employees also receive advantages such as pension contributions and
A. medical insurance
B. health insurance
C. educational benefits
D. home loan
8. Employees complain about long hours, they also have causes not to trade money
A. for their commitment

B. in busy time
C. for progress
D. for leisure
9. Lotte Bailyn says many corporate managers find it difficult to measure the contribution of
their footnotes to a
A. family
B. company's well-being
C. society
D. competitors
Question (10 - 13)

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Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A–G, below.
Write the correct letter, A-G, as your answer to each question.
10. Bailey says that, although the image of the good employee belongs to the company,
11. Part-time workers are less likely to become
12. Positive experiences with lessened times are beginning
13. Successful trading of money for greater productivity and leisure can take more than
changes in the
A. financial and cultural structures

B. exhausted from stressful work
C. to test flexible work arrangements
D. to change the culture
E. it does not agree with the facts
F. high earnings and long hours
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/a-workaholic-economy-reading-answers/
Great Migrations
A. Animal migration is far more than just the movement of animals. It can be vaguely
described as movement that occurs at regular intervals mostly annually - that
includes many species of animals, and is rewarded only at the end of the long
journey. It shows inherited instinct. Hugh Dingle, a biologist recognised 5 features
that apply, in varying combinations and degrees, to all migrations. They are
prolonged movements that bring animals outside their familiar habitats. The route is
linear, and not zigzaggy. It involves special behaviours like preparation such as
overfeeding and arrival. Animals need to specially allocate energy for the migration.
They maintain an intense focus on the greater mission, which keeps them
undistracted by temptations and undeterred by challenges that would turn other
animals aside.
B. On its 20,000 km flight from the extreme south of South America to the Arctic circle,
an arctic tern will take no notice of a fish that a bird-watcher gives along the way. The
tern flies on while local gulls will dive voraciously for such handouts.
C. Why? By an instinctive sense the arctic tern resists distraction because it is driven by
a larger purpose at that moment - something we humans admire. It is persistent to
reach its destination. The bird understands that it can eat, rest or mate later on.

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During the process, it is completely focused on the journey; its goal is the destination.
D. The larger purpose will be served reaching some coastline in the Arctic, upon which
other arctic terns have gathered. It will find a place, a time, and an environment in
which it can lay eggs and rear offspring.
E. But migration is a complex problem, and biologists view it differently, depending on

what type of animals they study. Joel Berger from University of Montana, researching
on the American pronghorn and some large terrestrial mammals, prefers what he
calls a simple, practical definition suited to his beasts: 'movements to a home area
from another area and back again'. Mostly the reason for such seasonal migration is
to seek resources that aren't available within a single area throughout the year.
F. Vertical movements by zooplankton daily in the ocean - upward movement to seek

food at night and downward movement to escape predators during the day - can also
be considered migration. Also the movement of aphids after depleting the young
leaves on a food plant, their offspring then fly towards a different host plant, and no
aphid ever returns to where it started.
G. Dingle is an evolutionary biologist who researches insects. His interpretation is more

complicated than Berger's, citing those 5 features that differentiate migration from
other forms of movement. They allow for the fact that aphids will become sensitive to
blue light from the sky when it's time for takeoff on their big journey, and sensitive to
yellow light while it is time to land.
H. Birds will feed heavily in advance of a long migrational flight to fatten themselves.
Dingle argues the value of his definition is that it focuses attention on what the
phenomenon of wildebeest migration has in common with the phenomenon of the
aphids, and therefore helps guide researchers towards understanding how evolution
has created them. However, human behaviour is having a detrimental impact on
animal migration.
I. The pronghorn resembles an antelope even though they aren't related, and is the
fastest land mammal of the New World. One population follows a narrow route from
its summer range in the mountains, across a river, and down onto the plains which
spends the summer in the mountainous Grand Teton National Park of the western
USA. They wait out the frozen months here, mainly feeding on sagebrush clear of
snow. These pronghorns are notable for the severity of its constriction and invariance
of their migration route at 3 bottlenecks. They can't reach their bounty of summer
grazing, if they can't pass through each of the 3 during their spring migration. They
are likely to die trying to overwinter in the deep snow if they dont pass through again
in autumn, escaping south onto those windblown plains, Pronghorn traverse high,
open shoulders of land, where they can see and run.
J. They are dependent on speed and distance vision to be safe from attacks. Forested
hills rise to form a V, at one of the bottlenecks, leaving a corridor of open ground only
about 150m wide, filled with private homes. Increasing development is creating a

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crisis for the pronghorn, threatening to block off their passageway.
K. Biologists, along with some conservation scientists and land managers within the
USA's National Park Service and other agencies, are now working to conserve
migrational behaviours, not just species and habitats. A National Forest has identified
the path of the pronghorn, much of which passes across its land, as a preserved
migration path. On private land at a bottleneck neither the Forest Service nor the
Park Service can control what happens. And with some other migrating species, the
challenge is further complex - by vastly greater distances traversed, more
jurisdictions, more borders, more dangers along the way. We will need knowledge
and determination to make sure that migrating species can continue their journey a
while longer.
Great Migrations IELTS reading questions
Great Migrations IELTS reading Questions 1-4
answer.
● Migration involves special behaviours concerning preparation such as 1. ________

and arrival.
● Zooplanktons move 2. ______ in the ocean
● Dingle’s observation is more complicated than 3. ________.
● A 4. ________ has identified the path of the pronghorn.
This reading passage has eight paragraphs, A–K.
Write the correct letter, A - K, as your answer to each question.
5. The tern flies on while local gulls will dive voraciously for such handouts.
6. After depleting the young leaves on a food plant, offspring of aphids fly towards a different
host plant.
7. Dingle is an evolutionary biologist who researches insects.
8. Birds flatten themselves by feeding heavily in advance of a long migrational flight.

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9. Forested hills rise to form a V, at one of the bottlenecks, leaving a corridor of open ground
only about 150m wide, filled with private homes.
10. The pronghorn is the fastest land mammal of the New World.
11. Who identified the 5 features of animal migration?
12. Which bird travels from South America to the Arctic circle every year?
13. Who did the research on the American pronghorn?
14. How do zooplanktons find food?
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/great-migrations-reading-answers/
Numeration
1. One of the best intellectual achievements of a baby is learning how to talk to a

person, and the next is learning how to count numbers and play with them. From
childhood days, we get so attached to the numbers and the numeration system. It is
considered a feat of pure imaginative thinking to look at the problems encountered by
humans who did not invent this kind of luxury. After a thorough observation of our
self-made numeration system, it is clear that it takes us to the conviction that, instead
of being a luxury that is inbuilt in a person, it is one of the best and incomparable
achievements of the human tribe.
2. It is not correct to learn the series of things that happened that made us develop the
idea of number, number system, etc. Let's assume that our ancestors developed a
system of numeration that, if not advanced, was good enough to perform tasks they
had during that time. Our earliest tribal men and women had very limited usage of
actual numbers. Is this sufficient? Instead of how many? For instance, when they
indulged in hunting and food gathering. On the other hand, when early tribal
communities initially started to present on the nature of invariable things surrounded
by them, they found out that they required a concept of numbers and number system
just to think in an orderly manner. As they started to stop shifting from one place to
another, plant trees, and feed animals, the requirement for an advanced number
system became inevitable. It will become an unknown fact how and when this
numeration skill came to life, however it is clear that certain numeration was
developed correctly when we as humans settled for even semi-permanent lives.

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3. There are many proofs and evidence of initial stages of arithmetic and numeration
found in some parts of the world. Even now, many tribal people from Tasmania and
other parts of Africa were only able to count numbers like one, two, many; in some
parts of South Africa counted one, two, two and one, two twos, two twos and one,
etc. Now, the number and words are mostly accompanied by physical gestures to
avoid unnecessary confusion. For instance, while counting the numbers like one,
two, many types of system, the word many would seem to be, Follow my hands and
follow the number of fingers I am showing you. This fundamental step is used only in
the variety of numbers which it can express, but this will normally diminish while
facing the easier components of mere existence.
4. The deprivation of skills of some ethnicity to face large numbers is not astonishing.
When we look back to the earlier version of European languages, it is found that the
words, expressions and numbers are very poor in standards. In the ancient Gothic
word, the word for teon, tachund tachund, was represented as the number 100 as
tachund tachund. Similarly, in the seventh century, the word toen was
interchangeable with the tachund or hund of the Anglo-Saxon language, and so 100
was denoted as hund teontig, or ten times ten. A typical individual from the seventh
century in Europe did not know anything about numbers as we use them in this
modern era. In the previous days, when a person needed to be produced as a
witness in a court of law, they must be able to count numbers from one to nine.
5. In this case the most basic action to develop a sense of number is definitely not how
to count but rather to understand that the concept of number is an abstract idea. It is
not a simple attachment to a group of specific subjects. The earliest human race
must have been able to predict and understand that four birds are different from two
birds. But, it is not that basic to count the number 4, as it is associated with four birds,
to the number 4, as it is associated with four rocks. Connecting to a number as one
of the qualities of a specific object causes great difficulty to the imagination and
development of a true number system. If the number 4 is able to register in the mind
in terms of a specific word, then the person can easily take the next step to develop a
notational system for numbers. Once that is done, they can shift to arithmetic
concepts.
6. There are many traces identified in the early stages of the development of
numeration. It can be witnessed in many currently speaking languages. In British
Columbia, the Tsimshian language has approximately seven different forms of words,
especially for numbers based on the class of the item counted. For example, to count
flat objects, materials and animals, to count round objects, time, to count the number
of people, to count the long objects like trees, to count canoes, to measure
something, and to count any particular item which is not being numerated. It is found
that the last was a new development from the humans' side, where the first six
groups reveal the order system used. When we look at the Japanese language, we
can find this diversity of names for each number.
7. Interconnected with the number sense development is nothing but the development
of a skill to count. Here, the process of counting is not directly associated with the

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information of a number concept mainly because it is fine to do counting by
comparing the items that are counted against a set of pebble stones, corn grains, or
the fingers. These support systems might be inevitable to the ancient society, who
might have considered this process impossible. This does not require any
mechanical support as well. These support systems, though they are different, are in
use by literate people as it seems to be convenient. It is very clear that whatever is
counted obviously refers to something other than the object that counted. Previously,
it was seen as grains, pebbles, etc. Now it is a memorised series of words that are
assigned to each number counted.
Numeration Reading Questions
Questions 1 - 7
answer.
Similarly, in the seventh century, the word 1. ________ was interchangeable with the
tachund or 2. _________ of the Anglo-Saxon language, and so 100 was denoted as hund
teontig, or ten times ten. A typical individual from the 3. __________ in Europe did not know
anything about numbers as we use them in this modern era. In the previous days, when a
person needed to be produced as a 4. ___________ in a court of law, they must be able to
5. __________ numbers from one to nine. In this case the most basic action to develop a
sense of number is definitely not how to count but rather to 6. ___________ that the concept
of number is an 7. ___________. It is not a simple attachment to a group of specific
subjects.
Questions 8 - 10
Match the correct statement with the letter
8. Our earliest tribal men and women had

9. The earlier version of European languages had poor standards in
10. Self-made numeration system is a
A. Numbers, words, and expressions

B. Extraordinary achievement
C. minimum use of actual numbers
Questions 11 - 13

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Write
TRUE, if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE, if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN, if there is no information on this in the passage
11. The Tsimshian language in British Columbia has more letters than other languages
12. A person from Europe during the seventh century knows something about numbers
13. In the Anglo-Saxon language, the word toen was interchangeable with tachund
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/numeration-reading-answers/
Neuroaesthetics
Neuroaesthetics is an emerging discipline seeking to bring scientific objectivity to the study

of art, and has already given us a better understanding of many masterpieces. For instance
the brain's amygdala seems to be stimulated by the blurred imagery of impressionist
paintings. That finding might explain why many people find these pieces so moving since the
amygdala plays a crucial role in our feelings.
Could the same approach also shed light on abstract 20th century pieces, from Pollock's
seemingly haphazard arrangements of splashed paint on canvas to Mondrian's geometrical
blocks of colour? Sceptics believe that because they are famous people claim to like such
works. We always have an inclination to follow the crowd. When asked to make simple
perceptual decisions, for example matching a shape to its rotated image, people often
choose the wrong answer if they see others choosing it. It is easy to imagine that this
behaviour would have even more effect on a fuzzy concept where there is no right or wrong
answer, like art appreciation.
Angelina Hawley-Dolan, of Boston College, Massachusetts, asked volunteers to view pairs

of paintings - either the doodles of chimps, infants and elephants or the creations of famous
abstract artists. They then had to tell which they liked. No captions were given to one-third of
the paintings, while many were labelled incorrectly. Volunteers were actually seeing an
acclaimed masterpiece but they thought they were seeing a chimp's messy brush strokes. In
each set of trials, even when they believed it was by an animal or a child, volunteers
generally preferred the work of renowned artists. Even if they can't explain why, it seems that
the viewer can sense the artist's vision in paintings.
Artist Robert Pepperell from Cardiff University, creates ambiguous works that are neither
clearly representational nor entirely abstract. Pepperell and his collaborators in a study
asked volunteers to tell how authoritative they felt an artwork to be, and whether they viewed
anything familiar in the work. The longer they took to answer these questions, the greater
their neural activity and the more highly they rated the piece under scrutiny. It looked like the
brain sees these images as puzzles. The harder it is to decipher the meaning, the more
rewarding the moment of recognition.

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And what about artists such as Mondrian, whose paintings are created exclusively of vertical
and horizontal lines enclosing blocks of colour? Mondrian's works are deceptively simple, but
eye-tracking studies confirm that they are carefully composed, and that simply rotating a
piece radically changes the way we see it. With the altered versions they would flit across a
piece more rapidly but with the originals, volunteers' eyes stayed longer on certain places in
the image. As a result, when they later rated the work, the volunteers considered the altered
versions less pleasurable.
Oshin Vartanian of Toronto University in a similar study, asked volunteers to compare original
paintings with ones which he had altered by moving objects around within the frame.
Whether it was a Van Gogh still life or an abstract by Miro, he found that almost everyone
preferred the original work. Vartanian also found that when the composition of the paintings
changed it reduced activation in those brain areas linked with meaning and interpretation.
Analysing the visual intricacy of different pieces of art, Alex Forsythe of the University of
Liverpool, suggested that many artists use a key level of detail to please the brain. Too much
detail makes it kind of a 'perceptual overload' but too little detail is boring, according to
Forsythe. Appealing pieces both representational and abstract, show signs of 'fractals' -
repeated motifs keep repeating in different scales, fractals are common throughout nature,
for example in the branches of trees or shapes of mountain peaks. It is possible that our
visual system finds it easier to process such patterns, which evolved in the great outdoors.
Like replaying the writer's moment of creation, the brain appears to process movement when
we see a handwritten letter. Because the brain reconstructs the energetic actions the artist
used as he painted it led some to wonder whether Pollock's works feel so dynamic. This may
be because of our brain's 'mirror neurons', which mimic others' actions. It might even be the
case that we could use neuroaesthetic studies to understand the longevity of some pieces of
artwork, however the hypothesis will need to be tested thoroughly. Works best suited to our
visual system may be the most likely to linger once the trends of previous generations have
been forgotten while the fashions of the time might shape what is currently popular.
These studies are probably only a taste of what is to come and is still early days for the field
of neuroaesthetics. However it would be stupid to reduce art appreciation to a set of
scientific laws. We shouldn't underestimate the importance of the artistic environment, the
style of a particular artist, and their place in history. Abstract art offers both the freedom and
a challenge to play with different interpretations. Like science in some ways, we keep
decoding meaning and looking for systems so that we can view and appreciate the world in
a new way.
Neuroaesthetics IELTS Reading questions
IELTS Reading Flow chart Completion Questions 1-6
Complete the flow chart below
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.

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IELTS Reading Matching Features Questions 7-10
Look at the following Questions 1-4 and the list of the statements below. Match each
statement with the correct one
Write the correct letter A-E on your answer sheet.
7. Made volunteers see pairs of paintings - either the doodles of chimps, infants and
elephants or the creations of famous abstract artists.
8. Created ambiguous works that are neither clearly representational nor entirely abstract.
9. Asked volunteers to compare original paintings with ones which he had altered by moving
objects around within the frame.

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10. Suggested that many artists use a key level of detail to please the brain.
A. Angelina Hawley-Dolan
B. Oshin Vartanian
C. Robert Pepperell
D. Mondrian
E. Alex Forsythe
IELTS Reading Sentence Completion Questions 11-14
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBERS from the passage for each
answer.
11. Neuroaesthetics is an emerging discipline seeking to bring scientific objectivity to the

study of art, and has already given us a better understanding of many ________.
12. Mondrian's works are deceptively simple, but ________ studies confirm that they are
carefully composed, and that simply rotating a piece radically changes the way we see it.
13. Like replaying the writer's moment of creation, the brain appears to process movement
when we see a ________.
14. We shouldn't underestimate the importance of the ________, the style of a particular
artist, and their place in history.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/neuroaesthetics-reading-answers/
Alternative Medicine in Australia
The first students to study alternative medicine at the university level in Australia started a
four-year full-time course in early 1994 at the University of Technology in Sydney. Their
course is acupuncture, among other therapies. The theory they learned was based on the
standard Chinese interpretation of this ancient healing art, which regulates the flow of 'Qi' or
energy through the paths in the body. This course reflects how far some alternative therapies
have come in their struggle for approval by the medical institution.
According to Dr. Paul Laver, a public health lecturer at the University of Sydney, Australia
has the most conservative approach to natural or alternative therapies in the Western world.
'We have a tradition that doctors are very strong, and I think they are very reluctant to allow
any impersonator in their work to come into it.' In multiple industrialized countries, traditional

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and alternative medicine have been working 'hand in glove’ for many years. In Europe, only
traditional healers can prescribe herbal medicines. In Germany, herbal remedies make up
10% of the national income from medicines. Americans visited alternative therapists more
than Orthodox physicians in the 1990s, and spend about $ 12 billion every year on
unscientific treatments.
Dissatisfaction with traditional medicine. Meantime, the popularity of alternative medicine in

Australia has been steadily rising over the past 20 years. In the 1983 National Health
Survey, 1.9% of people told they had consulted a chiropractor, naturopath, osteopath,
acupuncturist, or herbalist two weeks before the poll. By 1990, this number had increased to
2.6% of the population. The 550,000 consultations with alternative therapists registered in
the 1990 survey represent one-eighth of the total number of consultations conducted with
clinically qualified individuals under the survey, according to Dr. Laver and colleagues who
wrote in the 1993 Australian Journal of Public Health. ‘A better educated and less accepted
public is generally frustrated with professionals and increasingly skeptical of science and
experience-based knowledge,’ they expressed. ‘The high level of experts, including doctors,
has been distorted as a result.
Instead of opposing or criticizing this trend, increasingly many Australian physicians,

especially younger ones, form group practices with practitioners or practice themselves,
especially in acupuncture and herbal medicine. Part of the incentive is funding, Dr. Laver
stated. ‘The main feature of this is that most general practitioners are businessmen. If they
find potential customers going elsewhere, they may like to offer a similar service.
In 1993, Dr. Laver and his colleagues published a survey of 289 Sydney people who
attended the practices of eight alternative therapists in Sydney. These procedures provided
a wide range of alternative treatments from 25 therapists. The subjects were suffering from
chronic diseases, for which Orthodox medication was able to provide some relief. They
commented that they would like the holistic attitude of their alternative therapists and the
friendly, caring, and comprehensive attention they received. The cool, impersonal pattern of
orthodox physicians was featured in the survey. Outflows from their clinics are on the rise,
with numerous related studies conducted in Australia, all pointing out the shortcomings of
traditional healers and leading physicians beginning to acknowledge that they can learn from
the personal style of alternative therapists. Dr., President of the Royal College of General
Practitioners, Patrick Store acknowledges that orthodox doctors can learn a lot from
alternative therapists about bed rest habits and advising patients on preventive health.
According to the Australian Journal of Public Health, 18% of patients who visit alternative
therapists suffer from musculoskeletal problems, and 12% suffer from digestive issues,
which is 1% more than those with emotional troubles. Respiratory disorders account for 7%
of patients, and Candida sufferers represent an equal percentage. Headache sufferers and
those who complain of general malaise represent 6% and 5% of patients, respectively, and
4% see therapists for general health care.
The survey recommended that complementary medicine is a better term than alternative
medicine. Alternative medicine seems to be an adjunct, strived after in times of frustration
when orthodox medicine appears to be unresponsive.

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Alternative medicine in Australia IELTS reading questions
Question (1-5)
1. Ancient healing art regulates the flow of 'Qi' or energy through the paths in the
A. blood
B. body
C. nerves
D. skin
2. Australia has the most conservative approach to natural or alternative therapies in the
A. Western world
B. Sydney
C. Medical institution
D. Eastern world
3. Only traditional healers can prescribe herbal medicines.
A. in Australia
B. in America
C. in Germany
D. in Europe
4. Americans visited alternative therapists more than Orthodox physicians in the
A. 1990s
B. 1994s
C. 1993s
D. 1983s
5. The popularity of alternative medicine in Australia has been steadily rising over the past
A. 10 years
B. 20 years
C. 25 years
D. 15 years
Question (6 - 9)
Write

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6. In the 1993 National Health Survey, 1.9% of people told they had consulted a chiropractor.
7. By 1994, this number had increased to 2.6% of the population.
8. Alternative therapists are paid more than physicians.
9. The main feature of this is that most general practitioners are businessmen.
Question (10 - 13)
● In 1993, Dr. Laver and his colleagues published a survey of 10 ________ Sydney
people.
● The impersonal pattern of 11 _________ physicians was featured in the survey.
● Respiratory disorders account for 12 ___________ of patients, and Candida
sufferers represent an equal percentage.
● The survey recommended that complementary medicine is a better term than 13
____________ medicine.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/alternative-medicine-in-australia-reading-answers/
Saving the soil
More than a third of the Earth’s top layer is at risk. Is there hope for our planet’s most
precious resource?
A. More than a third of the world’s soil is endangered, according to a recent UN report. If
we don’t slow the decline, all farmable soil could be gone in 60 years. Since soil
grows 95% of our food and sustains human life in other more surprising ways, that is
a huge problem.
B. Peter Groffman, from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York, points out
that soil scientists have been warning about the degradation of the world’s soil for
decades. At the same time, our understanding of its importance to humans has
grown. A single gram of healthy soil might contain 100 million bacteria, as well as

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other microorganisms such as viruses and fungi, living amid decomposing plants and
various minerals.
That means soils do not just grow our food, but are the source of nearly all our
existing antibiotics, and could be our best hope in the fight against antibiotic-resistant
bacteria. Soil is also an ally against climate change: as microorganisms within soil
digest dead animals and plants, they lock in their carbon content, holding three times
the amount of carbon as does the entire atmosphere. Soils also store water,
preventing flood damage: in the UK, damage to buildings, roads, and bridges from
floods caused by soil degradation costs £233 million every year.
C. If the soil loses its ability to perform these functions, the human race could be in big
trouble. The danger is not that the soil will disappear completely, but that the
microorganisms that give it its special properties will be lost. And once this has
happened, it may take the soil thousands of years to recover.
Agriculture is by far the biggest problem. In the wild, when plants grow they remove
nutrients from the soil, but then when the plants die and decay these nutrients are
returned directly to the soil. Humans tend not to return unused parts of harvested
crops directly to the soil to enrich it, meaning that the soil gradually becomes less
fertile. In the past, we developed strategies to get around the problem, such as
regularly varying the types of crops grown, or leaving fields uncultivated for a season.
D. But these practices became inconvenient as populations grew and agriculture had to
be run on more commercial lines. A solution came in the early 20th century with the
Haber-Bosch process for manufacturing ammonium nitrate. Farmers have been
putting this synthetic fertiliser on their fields ever since.
But over the past few decades, it has become clear this wasn’t such a bright idea.
Chemical fertilisers can release polluting nitrous oxide into the atmosphere and
excess is often washed away with the rain, releasing nitrogen into rivers. More
recently, we have found that indiscriminate use of fertilisers hurts the soil itself,
turning it acidic and salty, and degrading the soil they are supposed to nourish.
E. One of the people looking for a solution to his problem is Pius Floris, who started out
running a tree-care business in the Netherlands, and now advises some of the
world’s topsoil scientists. He came to realise that the best way to ensure his trees
flourished was to take care of the soil, and has developed a cocktail of beneficial
bacteria, fungi, and humus to do this. Researchers at the University of Valladolid in
Spain recently used this cocktail on soils destroyed by years of fertiliser overuse.
When they applied Floris’s mix to the desert-like test plots, a good crop of plants
emerged that were not just healthy at the surface, but had roots strong enough to
pierce dirt as hard as a rock. The few plants that grew in the control plots, fed with
traditional fertilisers, we're small and weak
F. However, measures like this are not enough to solve the global soil degradation
problem. To assess our options on a global scale we first need an accurate picture of
what types of soil are out there, and the problems they face. That’s not easy. For one

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thing, there is no agreed international system for classifying soil. In an attempt to
unify the different approaches, the UN has created the Global Soil Map project.
Researchers from nine countries are working together to create a map linked to a
database that can be fed measurements from field surveys, drone surveys, satellite
imagery, lad analyses, and so on to provide real-time data on the state of the soil.
Within the next four years, they aim to have mapped soils worldwide to a depth of
100 meters, with the results freely accessible to all.
G. But this is only a first step. We need ways of presenting the problem that brings it
home to governments and the wider public, says Pamela Chasek at the International
Institute for Sustainable Development, in Winnipeg, Canada. ‘Most scientists don’t
speak the language that policy-makers can understand, and vice versa.’ Chasek and
her colleagues have proposed a goal of ‘zero net land degradation’. Like the idea of
carbon neutrality, it is an easily understood target that can help shape expectations
and encourage action.
For soils on the brink, that may be too late. Several researchers are agitating for the
immediate creation of protected zones for endangered soils. One difficulty here is
defining what these areas should conserve: areas where the greatest soil diversity is
present? Or areas of unspoiled soils that could act as a future benchmark of quality?
Whatever we do, if we want our soils to survive, we need to take action now.
Question 14-17
Summary Completion
Write your answers 14-17 on your answer sheet.
Why soil degradation could be a disaster for humans
Healthy soil contains a large variety of bacteria and other microorganisms, as well as plant
remains and 14 __________________ It provides us with food and also with antibiotics, and
its function in storing 15 ________________ has a significant effect on the climate. In
addition, it prevents damage to property and infrastructure because it holds 16
____________
If these microorganisms are lost, the soil may lose its special properties. The main factor
contributing to soil degradation is the 17 __________________ carried out by humans.
Question 18-21
Matching sentence endings

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Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-F, below.
Write the correct letter, A-F, 18-21 on your answer sheet.
18. Nutrients contained in the unused parts of harvested crops

19. Synthetic fertilizers produced with Haber-Bosch process
20. Addition of a mixture developed by Pius Floris to the soil
21. The idea of zero net soil degradation
A may improve the number and quality of plants growing there.

B may contain data from up to nine countries.
C may not be put back into the soil.
D may help governments to be more aware of soil-related issues.
E may cause damage to different aspects of the environment.
F may be better for use at a global level
Question 22-26
Locating information
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-G.
Which section contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-G, 22-26 on your answer sheet.
22. A reference to one person’s motivation for a soil-improvement project

23. An explanation of how soil stayed healthy before the development of farming
24. Examples of different ways of collecting information on soil degradation
25. A suggestion for a way of keeping some types of soil safe in the near future
26. A reason why it is difficult to provide an overview of soil degradation
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/saving-the-soil-reading-answers/
The Meaning And Power Of Smell
The sense of smell, or olfaction, is powerful. Odours affect us on a physical, psychological,

and social level. For the most part, however, we breathe in the aromas which surround us
without being consciously aware of their importance to us. It is only when the faculty of smell
is impaired for some reason that we begin to realize the essential role the sense of smell
plays in our sense of well-being

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A. A survey conducted by Anthony Synott at Montreal’s Concordia University asked
participants to comment on how important smell was to them in their lives. It became
apparent that smell can evoke strong emotional responses. A scent associated with a
good experience can bring a rush of joy, while a foul odour or one associated with a
bad memory may make us grimace with disgust. Respondents to the survey noted
that many of their olfactory likes and dislikes were based on emotional associations.
Such associations can be powerful enough so that odours that we would generally
label unpleasant become agreeable, and those that we would generally consider
fragrant become disagreeable for particular individuals. The perception of smell,
therefore, consists not only of the sensation of the odours themselves but of the
experiences and emotions associated with them.
B. Odours are also essential cues in social bonding. One respondent to the survey
believed that there is no true emotional bonding without touching and smelling a
loved one. In fact, infants recognize the odours of their mothers soon after birth and
adults can often identify their children or spouses by scent. In one well-known test,
women and men were able to distinguish by smell-alone clothing worn by their
marriage partners from similar clothing worn by other people. Most of the subjects
would probably never have given much thought to odour as a cue for identifying
family members before being involved in the test, but as the experiment revealed,
even when not consciously considered, smells register.
C. In spite of its importance to our emotional and sensory lives, smell is probably the
most undervalued sense in many cultures. The reason often given for the low regard
in which smell is held is that, in comparison with its importance among animals, the
human sense of smell is feeble and undeveloped. While it is true that the olfactory
powers of humans are nothing like as fine as those possessed by certain animals,
they are still remarkably acute. Our noses are able to recognize thousands of smells
and to perceive odours that are present only in extremely small quantities.
D. Smell, however, is a highly elusive phenomenon. Odours, unlike colours, for

instance, cannot be named in many languages because the specific vocabulary
simply doesn’t exist. ‘It smells like . . . ,’ we have to say when describing an odour,
struggling to express our olfactory experience. Nor can odours be recorded: there is
no effective way to either capture or store them over time. In the realm of olfaction,
we must make do with descriptions and recollections. This has implications for
olfactory research.
E. Most of the research on smell undertaken to date has been of a physical scientific
nature. Significant advances have been made in the understanding of the biological
and chemical nature of olfaction, but many fundamental questions have yet to be
answered. Researchers have still to decide whether the smell is one sense or two -
one responding to odours properly and the other registering odourless chemicals in
the air. Other unanswered questions are whether the nose is the only part of the body
affected by odours, and how smells can be measured objectively given the
nonphysical components. Questions like these mean that interest in the psychology
of smell is inevitably set to play an increasingly important role for researchers.

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F. However, the smell is not simply a biological and psychological phenomenon. The
smell is cultural, hence it is a social and historical phenomenon. Odours are invested
with cultural values: smells that are considered to be offensive in some cultures may
be perfectly acceptable in others. Therefore, our sense of smell is a means of, and
model for, interacting with the world. Different smells can provide us with intimate and
emotionally charged experiences and the value that we attach to these experiences
is interiorised by the members of society in a deeply personal way. Importantly, our
commonly held feelings about smells can help distinguish us from other cultures. The
study of the cultural history of smell is, therefore, in a very real sense, an
investigation into the essence of human culture.
Before attempting to write the meaning and power of smell reading answers, check out
IELTS reading tips. It will be helpful to you to perform well in the reading test.
The Meaning And Power Of Smell Reading Questions
Read the questions properly and highlight the keywords, that will be helpful while you are
writing the meaning and power of smell reading answers with explanation.
Questions 27-32 (List of Headings)
The reading passage has three paragraphs, A-F.
Write the correct number, i-vi, as your answer to each question.
List of Headings
i The difficulties of talking about smells

ii The role of smell in personal relationships
iii Future studies into smell
iv The relationship between the brain and the nose
v The interpretation of smells as a factor in defining groups
vi Why our sense of smell is not appreciated
vii Smell is our superior sense
viii The relationship between smell and feelings
27. Paragraph A
28. Paragraph B
29. Paragraph C
30. Paragraph D
31. Paragraph E
32. Paragraph F
Questions 33-36 (Multiple Choice Questions)

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Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D
33. According to the introduction, we become aware of the importance of smell when
A. we discover a new smell.

B. we experience a powerful smell.
C. our ability to smell is damaged.
D. we are surrounded by odours.
34. The experiment described in paragraph B
A. shows how we make use of smell without realising it.

B. demonstrates that family members have a similar smell.
C. proves that a sense of smell is learnt.
D. compares the sense of smell in males and females.
35. What is the writer doing in paragraph C?
A. supporting other research

B. making a proposal
C. rejecting a common belief
D. describing limitations
36. What does the writer suggest about the study of smell in the atmosphere in paragraph
E?
A. The measurement of smell is becoming more accurate.

B. Researchers believe smell is a purely physical reaction.
C. Most smells are inoffensive.
D. Smell is yet to be defined.
Questions 37-40 (Sentence Completion)
Complete the sentences using ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer
37. Tests have shown that odours can help people recognise the ___________ belonging to
their husbands and wives.
38. Certain linguistic groups may have difficulty describing smell because they lack the
appropriate __________
39. The sense of smell may involve response to _________ which do not smell, in addition
to obvious odours.

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40. Odours regarded as unpleasant in certain ____________ are not regarded as
unpleasant in others.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/the-meaning-and-power-of-smell-reading-answers/
The truth about the environment
For many environmentalists, the world seems to be getting worse. They have developed a
hit-list of our main fears: that natural resources are running out; that the population is ever
growing, leaving less and less to eat; that species are becoming extinct in vast numbers, and
that the planet's air and water are becoming ever more polluted.
But a quick look at the facts shows a different picture. First, energy and other natural
resources have become more abundant, not less so, since the book 'The Limits to Growth'
was published in 1972 by a group of scientists. Second, more food is now produced per
head of the world's population than at any time in history. Fewer people are starving. Third,
although species are indeed becoming extinct, only about 0.7% of them are expected to
disappear in the next 50 years, not 25-50%, as has so often been predicted. And finally,
most forms of environmental pollution either appear to have been exaggerated, or are
transient - associated with the early phases of industrialisation and therefore best cured not
by restricting economic growth, but by accelerating it. One form of pollution - the release of
greenhouse gases that causes global warming - does appear to be a phenomenon that is
going to extend well into our future, but its total impact is unlikely to pose a devastating
problem. A bigger problem may well turn out to be an inappropriate response to it.
Yet opinion polls suggest that many people nurture the belief that environmental standards
are declining and four factors seem to cause this disjunction between perception and reality.
One is the lopsidedness built into scientific research. Scientific funding goes mainly to areas
with many problems. That may be wise policy, but it will also create an impression that many
more potential problems exist than is the case.
Secondly, environmental groups need to be noticed by the mass media. They also need to
keep the money rolling in. Understandably, perhaps,they sometimes overstate their
arguments. In 1997, for example, the World Wide Fund for Nature issued a press release
entitled: 'Two thirds of the world's forests lost forever'. The truth turns out to be nearer 20%.
Though these groups are run overwhelmingly by selfless folk, they nevertheless share many
of the characteristics of other lobby groups. That would matter less if people applied the
same degree of scepticism to environmental lobbying as they do to lobby groups In other
fields. A trade organisation arguing for, say, weaker pollution controls is instantly seen as
self-interested. Yet a green organisation opposing such a weakening is seen as altruistic,
even if an impartial view of the controls in question might suggest they are doing more harm
than good.

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A third source of confusion is the attitude of the media. People are clearly more curious
about bad news than good. Newspapers and broadcasters are there to provide what the
public wants. That, however, can lead to significant distortions of perception. An example
was America's encounter with El Nino in 1997 and 1998. This climatic phenomenon was
accused of wrecking tourism, causing allergies, melting the ski-slopes and causing 22
deaths. However, according to an article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological
Society, the damage it did was estimated at US$4 billion but the benefits amounted to some
US$19 billion. These came from higher winter temperatures (which saved an estimated 850
lives, reduced heating costs and diminished spring floods caused by meltwaters).
The fourth factor is poor individual perception. People worry that the endless rise in the
amount of stuff everyone throws away will cause the world to run out of places to dispose of
waste. Yet, even if America's trash output continues to rise as it has done in the past, and
even if the American population doubles by 2100, all the rubbish America produces through
the entire 21st century will still take up only one-12.000th of the area of the entire United
States.
So what of global warming? As we know, carbon dioxide emissions are causing the planet to
warm. The best estimates are that the temperatures will rise by 2-3°C in this century,
causing considerable problems, at a total cost of US$5,000 billion.
Despite the intuition that something drastic needs to be done about such a costly problem,
economic analyses clearly show it will be far more expensive to cut carbon dioxide
emissions radically than to pay the costs of adaptation to the increased temperatures. A
model by one of the main authors of the United Nations Climate Change Panel shows how
an expected temperature increase of 2.1 degrees in 2100 would only be diminished to an
increase of 1.9 degrees. Or to put it another way, the temperature increase that the planet
would have experienced in 2094 would be postponed to 2100.
So this does not prevent global warming, but merely buys the world six years. Yet the cost of
reducing carbon dioxide emissions, for the United States alone, will be higher than the cost
of solving the world's single, most pressing health problem: providing universal access to
clean drinking water and sanitation. Such measures would avoid 2 million deaths every year,
and prevent half a billion people from becoming seriously ill.
It is crucial that we look at the facts if we want to make the best possible decisions for the
future. It may be costly to be overly optimistic - but more costly still to be too pessimistic.
The truth about the environment IELTS reading questions
Questions 27-32 - The truth about the environment reading
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage?
In boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet, write
YES if the statement agrees with the writer's claims

NO if the statement contradicts the writer's claims

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27. Environmentalists take a pessimistic view of the world for a number of reasons.
28. Data on the Earth’s natural resources has only been collected since 1972.
29. The number of starving people in the world has increased in recent years.
30. Extinct species are being replaced by new species. Some pollution
31. problems have been correctly linked to industrialisation.
32. It would be best to attempt to slow down economic growth.
Questions 33-37–The Truth About The Environment Reading
Write your answers in boxes 33-37 on your answer sheet.
33. What aspect of scientific research does the writer express concern about in paragraph
4?
A. the need to produce results

B. the lack of financial support
C. the selection of areas to research A
D. the desire to solve every research problem
34. The writer quotes from the Worldwide Fund for Nature to illustrate how
A. influential the mass media can be.

B. effective environmental groups can be.
C. the mass media can help groups raise funds.
D. environmental groups can exaggerate their claims.
35. What is the writer’s main point about lobby groups in paragraph 6?
A. Some are more active than others.

B. Some are better organised than others.
C. Some receive more criticism than others.
D. Some support more important issues than others.
36.The writer suggests that newspapers print items that are intended to
A. educate readers.
B. meet their readers’ expectations.
C. encourage feedback from readers.
D. mislead readers.
37. What does the writer say about America’s waste problem?
A. It will increase in line with population growth.

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B. It is not as important as we have been led to believe.
C. It has been reduced through public awareness of the issues.
D. It is only significant in certain areas of the country.
Questions 38-40 - The truth about the environment reading
Complete the summary with the list of words A-I below.
Write the correct letter A-I in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.
GLOBAL WARMING
The writer admits that global warming is a 38……………………………… challenge, but says
that it will not have a catastrophic impact on our future, if we deal with it in the
39………………………. way.
If we try to reduce the levels of greenhouse gases, he believes that it would only have a
minimal impact on rising temperatures. He feels it would be better to spend money on the
more 40…………………… health problem of providing the world’s population with clean
drinking water.
A. unrealistic
B. agreed
C. expensive
D. right
E. long-term
F. usual
G. surprising
H. personal
I. Urgent
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/the-truth-about-the-environment-reading-answers/
The headline of the passage: ‘Trees in Trouble’
A. Big trees are incredibly important ecologically. For a start, they sustain countless
other species. They provide shelter for many animals, and their trunks and branches
can become gardens, hung with green ferns, orchids and bromeliads, coated with
mosses and draped with vines. With their tall canopies (leaves and branches that
form a cover high above the ground) basking in the sun, they capture vast amounts
of energy. This allows them to produce massive crops of fruit, flowers and foliage that
sustain much of the animal life in the forest.
B. Only a small number of tree species have the genetic capacity to grow really big. The
mightiest are native to North America, but big trees grow all over the globe, from the
tropics to the boreal forests of the high latitudes. To achieve giant stature, a tree

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needs three things: the right place to establish its seedling, good growing conditions
and lots of time with low adult mortality(no. of deaths within a particular group).
Disrupt any of these, and you can lose your biggest trees.
C. In some parts of the world, populations of big trees are dwindling because their
seedlings cannot survive or grow. In southern India, for instance, an aggressive
non-native shrub, Lantana camara, is invading the floor of many forests. Lantana
grows so thickly that young trees often fail to take root. With no young trees to
replace them, it is only a matter of time before most of the big trees disappear.
Across much of northern Australia, gamba grass from Africa is overrunning native
savannah woodlands. The grass grows up to four metres tall and burns fiercely,
creating super hot fires that cause catastrophic tree mortality.
D. Without the right growing conditions trees cannot get really big, and there is some
evidence to suggest tree growth could slow in a warmer world, particularly in
environments that are already warm. Having worked for decades at La Selva
Biological Station in Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui, Costa Rica, David and Deborah Clark
and colleagues have shown that tree growth there declines markedly in warmer
years. “During the day, their photosynthesis shuts down when it gets too warm, and
at night they consume more energy because their metabolic rate increases, much as
a reptile’s would when it gets warmer,” explains David Clark. With less energy
produced in warmer years and more being consumed just to survive, there is even
less energy available for growth.
E. The Clarks’ hypothesis, if correct, means tropical forests would shrink over time. The
largest, oldest trees would progressively die off and tend not to be replaced.
According to the Clarks, this might trigger a destabilisation of the climate; as older
trees die, forests would release some of their stored carbon into the atmosphere,
prompting a vicious cycle of further warming, forest shrinkage and carbon emissions.
F. Big trees face threats from elsewhere. The most serious is increasing mortality,
especially of mature trees. Across much of the planet, forests of slow-growing
ancient trees have been cleared for human use. In western North America, most
have been replaced by monocultures of fast-growing conifers. Siberia’s forests are
being logged at an incredible rate. Logging in tropical forests is selective but the
timber cutters usually prioritise the biggest and oldest trees. In the Amazon, my
colleagues and I found the mortality rate for the biggest trees had tripled in small
patches of rainforest surrounded by pasture land. This happens for two reasons.
First, as they grow taller, big trees become thicker and less flexible: when winds blow
across the surrounding cleared land, there is nothing to stop their acceleration. When
they hit the trees, the impact can snap them in half. Second, rainforest fragments dry
out when surrounded by dry, hot pastures and the resulting drought can have
devastating consequences: one four-year study has shown that death rates will
double for smaller trees but will increase 4.5 times for bigger trees.
G. Particular enemies to large trees are insects and disease. Across vast areas of
western North America, increasingly mild winters are causing massive outbreaks of
bark beetles. These tiny creatures can kill entire forests as they tunnel their way

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through the inside of trees. In both North America and Europe, fungus-causing
diseases such as Dutch elm disease have killed off millions of stately trees that once
gave beauty to forests and cities. As a result of human activity, such enemies reach
even the remotest corners of the world, threatening to make the ancient giants a
thing of the past.
Trees In Trouble Reading Questions
Questions 1-7 (Matching Headings)
The reading passage has seven paragraphs, A-G.
Write the correct number, i-x, as your answer to each question.
List of Headings
i. How deforestation harms isolated trees

ii. How other plants can cause harm
iii. Which big trees support the most diverse species
iv. Impact of big tree loss on the wider environment
v. Measures to prevent further decline in big tree populations
vi. How wildlife benefits from big trees
vii. Risk from pests and infection
viii. Ways in which industry uses big tree products
ix. How higher temperatures slow the rate of tree growth
x. Factors that enable trees to grow to significant heights
1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
3. Paragraph C
4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
6. Paragraph F
7. Paragraph G
Questions 8-13 (Sentence Completion)
8. The biggest trees in the world can be found in ___________

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9. Some trees in Northern Australia die because of __________ made worse by gamba
grass.
10. The Clarks believe that the release of __________ from dead trees could lead to the
death of more trees.
11. Strong ____________ are capable of damaging tall trees in the Amazon.
12. ____________ has a worse impact on tall trees than smaller ones.
13. In western Northern America, a species of ___________ has destroyed many trees.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/trees-in-trouble-reading-answers/
A Remarkable Beetle
Some of the most remarkable beetles are the dung beetles, which spend almost their whole
lives eating and breeding in dung.
More than 4,000 species of these remarkable creatures have evolved and adapted to the
world’s different climates and the dung of its many animals. Australia’s native dung beetles
are scrub and woodland dwellers, specialising in coarse marsupial droppings and avoiding
the soft cattle dung in which bush flies and buffalo flies breed.
In the early 1960s George Bornemissza, then a scientist at the Australian Government’s
premier research organisation, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research
Organisation (CSIRO), suggested that dung beetles should be introduced to Australia to
control dung-breeding flies. Between 1968 and 1982, the CSIRO imported insects from
about 50 different species of dung beetle, from Asia, Europe and Africa, aiming to match
them to different climatic zones in Australia. Of the 26 species that are known to have
become successfully integrated into the local environment, only one, an African species
released in northern Australia, has reached its natural boundary.
Introducing dung beetles into a pasture is a simple process: approximately 1,500 beetles are
released, a handful at a time, into fresh cow pats in the cow pasture. The beetles
immediately disappear beneath the pats digging and tunnelling and, if they successfully
adapt to their new environment, soon become a permanent, self sustaining part of the local
ecology. In time they multiply and within three or four years the benefits to the pasture are
obvious.
Dung beetles work from the inside of the pat so they are sheltered from predators such as
birds and foxes. Most species burrow into the soil and bury dung in tunnels directly
underneath the pats, which are hollowed out from within. Some large species originating
from France excavate tunnels to a depth of approximately 30 cm below the dung pat. These
beetles make sausage-shaped brood chambers along the tunnels. The shallowest tunnels

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belong to a much smaller Spanish species that buries dung in chambers that hang like fruit\
from the branches of a pear tree. South African beetles dig narrow tunnels of approximately
20 cm below the surface of the pat. Some surface-dwelling beetles, including a South
African species, cut perfectly-shaped balls from the pat, which are rolled away and attached
to the bases of plants.
For maximum dung burial in spring, summer and autumn, farmers require a variety of
species with overlapping periods of activity. In the cooler environments of the state of
Victoria, the large French species (2.5 cms long) is matched with smaller (half this size),
temperate-climate Spanish species. The former are slow to recover from the winter cold and
produce only one or two generations of offspring from late spring until autumn. The latter,
which multiply rapidly in early spring, produce two to five generations annually. The South
African ball-rolling species, being a sub-tropical beetle, prefers the climate of northern and
coastal New South Wales where it commonly works with the South African tunnelling
species. In warmer climates, many species are active for longer periods of the year.
Dung beetles were initially introduced in the late 1960s with a view to controlling buffalo flies
by removing the dung within a day or two and so preventing flies from breeding. However,
other benefits have become evident. Once the beetle larvae have finished pupation, the
residue is a first-rate source of fertiliser. The tunnels abandoned by the beetles provide
excellent aeration and water channels for root systems. In addition, when the new
generation of beetles has left the nest the abandoned burrows are an attractive habitat for
soil-enriching earthworms. The digested dung in these burrows is an excellent food supply
for the earthworms, which decompose it further to provide essential soil nutrients. If it were
not for the dung beetle, chemical fertiliser and dung would be washed by rain into streams
and rivers before it could be absorbed into the hard earth, polluting water courses and
causing blooms of blue-green algae. Without the beetles to dispose of the dung, cow pats
would litter pastures making grass inedible to cattle and depriving the soil of sunlight.
Australia’s 30 million cattle each produce 10-12 cow pats a day. This amounts to 1.7 billion
tonnes a year, enough to smother about 110,000 sq km of pasture, half the area of Victoria.
Dung beetles have become an integral part of the successful management of dairy farms in
Australia over the past few decades. A number of species are available from the CSIRO or
through a small number of private breeders, most of whom were entomologists with the
CSIRO’s dung beetle unit who have taken their specialised knowledge of the insect and
opened small businesses in direct competition with their former employer.
Questions 1-5 : (Yes/ No/ Not Given)
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in the Reading Passage?
In boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet write:
YES if the statement agrees with the view of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the view of writer
1. Bush flies are easier to control than buffalo flies.

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2. Four thousand species of dung beetle were initially brought to Australia by the
CSIRO.
3. Dung beetles were brought to Australia by the CSIRO over a fourteen-year period.
4. At least twenty-six of the introduced species have become established in Australia.
5. The dung beetles cause an immediate improvement to the quality of a cow pasture.
Questions 6 - 8 : (Diagram Labelling)
Label the diagram.
each answer.

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Questions 9 - 13: (Table Completion)
Species Size Preferred climate Complementary Start of Number of

species active period generation per
year
French 2.5 cool Spanish Late spring 1-2

cm
1.25
Spanish cm 9. ________ 10 ________ 11 ________
South
African 10. __________ 13. __________
ball roller
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/a-remarkable-beetle-reading-answers/
Artificial artists
Can computers really create works of art?
The Painting Fool is one of a growing number of computer programs which, so their makers
claim, possess creative talents. Classical music by an artificial composer has had audiences
enraptured, and even tricked them into believing a human was behind the score. Artworks
painted by a robot have sold for thousands of dollars and been hung in prestigious galleries.
And software has been built which creates are that could not have been imagined by the
programmer.
Human beings are the only species to perform sophisticated creative acts regularly. If we
can break this process down into computer code, where does that leave human creativity?
‘This is a question at the very core of humanity,’ says Geraint Wiggins, a computational
creativity researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London. ‘It scares a lot of people. They are
worried that it is taking something special away from what it means to be human.’
To some extent, we are all familiar with computerised art. The question is: where does the
work of the artists stop and the creativity of the computer begin? Consider one of the oldest
machine artists, Aaron, a robot that has had paintings exhibited in London’s Tate Modern
and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Aaron can pick up a paintbrush and paint on
canvas on its own. Impressive perhaps, but it is still little more than a tool to realise the
programmer’s own creative ideas.
Simon Colton, the designer of the Painting Fool, is keen to make sure his creation doesn’t
attract the same criticism. Unlike earlier ‘artists’ such as Aaron, the Painting Fool only needs

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minimal direction and can come up with its own concepts by going online for material. The
software runs its own web searches and trawls through social media sites. It is now
beginning to display a kind of imagination too, creating pictures from scratch. One of its
original works is a series of fuzzy landscapes, depicting trees and sky. While some might say
they have a mechanical look, Colton argues that such reactions arise from people’s double
standards towards software-produced and human-produced art. After all, he says, consider
that the Painting Fool painted the landscapes without referring to a photo. ‘If a child painted
a new scene from its head, you’d say it has a certain level of imagination,’ he points out.
‘The same should be true of a machine.’ Software bugs can also lead to unexpected results.
Some of the Painting Fool’s paintings of a chair came out in black and white, thanks to a
technical glitch. This gives the work an eerie, ghostlike quality. Human artists like the
renowned Ellsworth Kelly are lauded for limiting their colour palette – so why should
computers be any different?
Researchers like Colton don’t believe it is right to measure machine creativity directly to that
of humans who ‘have had millennia to develop our skills’. Others, though, are fascinated by
the prospect that a computer might create something as original and subtle as our best
artists. So far, only one has come close. Composer David Cope invented a program called
Experiments in Musical Intelligence, or EMI. Not only did EMI create compositions in Cope’s
style, but also that of the most revered classical composers, including Bach, Chopin and
Mozart. Audiences were moved to tears, and EMI even fooled classical music experts into
thinking they were hearing genuine Bach. Not everyone was impressed however. Some,
such as Wiggins, have blasted Cope’s work as pseudoscience, and condemned him for his
deliberately vague explanation of how the software worked. Meanwhile, Douglas Hofstadter
of Indiana University said EMI created replicas which still rely completely on the original
artist's creative impulses. When audiences found out the truth they were often outraged with
Cope, and one music lover even tried to punch him. Amid such controversy, Cope destroyed
EMI’s vital databases.
But why did so many people love the music, yet recoil when the discovered how it was
composed? A study by computer scientist David Moffat of Glasgow Caledonian University
provides a clue. He asked both expert musicians and non-experts to assess six
compositions. The participants weren’t told beforehand whether the tunes were composed
by humans or computers, but were asked to guess, and then rate how much they liked each
one. People who thought the composer was a computer tended to dislike the piece more
than those who believed it was human. This was true even among the experts, who might
have been expected to be more objective in their analyses.
Where does this prejudice come from? Paul Bloom of Yale University has a suggestion: he
reckons part of the pleasure we get from art stems from the creative process behind the
work. This can give it an ‘irresistible essence’, says Bloom. Meanwhile, experiments by
Justin Kruger of New York University have shown that people’s enjoyment of an artwork
increases if they think more time and effort was needed to create it. Similarly, Colton thinks
that when people experience art, they wonder what the artists might have been thinking or
what the artist is trying to tell them. It seems obvious, therefore, that with computers
producing art, this speculation is cut short – there’s nothing to explore. But as technology
becomes increasingly complex, finding those greater depths in computer art could become
possible. This is precisely why Colton asks the Painting Fool to tap into online social

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networks for its inspiration: hopefully this way it will choose themes that will already be
meaningful to us.
Artificial artists IELTS reading questions
Questions 27-31 - Artificial artists reading
Write the correct letter in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.
27. What is the writer suggesting about computer-produced works in the first paragraph?
A. People’s acceptance of them can vary considerably.

B. A great deal of progress has already been attained in this field.
C. They have had more success in some artistic genres than in others.
D. the advances are not as significant as the public believes them to be.
28. According to Geraint Wiggins, why are many people worried by computer art?
A. It is aesthetically inferior to human art.

B. It may ultimately supersede human art.
C. It undermines a fundamental human quality.
D. It will lead to a deterioration in human ability.
29. What is a key difference between Aaron and the Painting Fool?
A. its programmer’s background

B. public response to its work
C. the source of its subject matter
D. the technical standard of its output
30. What point does Simon Colton make in the fourth paragraph?
A. Software-produced art is often dismissed as childish and simplistic.
B. The same concepts of creativity should not be applied to all forms of art.
C. It is unreasonable to expect a machine to be as imaginative as a human being.
D. People tend to judge computer art and human art according to different criteria.

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31. The writer refers to the paintings of a chair as an example of computer art which
A. achieves a particularly striking effect.
B. exhibits a certain level of genuine artistic skill.
C. closely resembles that of a well-known artists.
D. highlights the technical limitations of the software.
Questions 32-37- artificial artists reading
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G below.
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 32-37 on your answer sheet.
32. Simon Colton says it is important to consider the long-term view then
33. David Cope’s EMI software surprised people by
34. Geraint Wiggins criticized Cope for not
35. Douglas Hofstadter claimed that EMI was
36. Audiences who had listened to EMI’s music became angry after
37. The participants in David Moffat’s study had to assess music without
List of Ideas
A. generating work that was virtually indistinguishable from that of humans.
B. knowing whether it was the work of humans or software.
C. producing work entirely dependent on the imagination of its creator.
D. comparing the artistic achievements of humans and computers.
E. revealing the technical details of his program.
F. persuading the public to appreciate computer art.
G. discovering that it was the product of a computer program
Questions 38-40- artificial artists reading

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Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
38. Moffat’s research may help explain people’s reactions to EMI.
39. The non-experts in Moffat’s study all responded in a predictable way.
40. Justin Kruger’s findings cast doubt on Paul Bloom’s theory about people’s prejudice
towards computer art.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/artificial-artists-reading-answers/
Bioluminescence
A. In the pitch-black waters of the ocean's aphotic zone – depths from 1,000m to the
seafloor - Rood eyesight does not count for very much on its own. Caves, in addition,
frequently present a similar problem: the complete absence of natural light at any
time of the day. This has not stopped some organisms from turning these
inhospitable environments into their homes, and in the process, many have created
their own forms of light by developing one of the stunning visual marvels of the
biological universe -bioluminescence.
B. Many people will encounter bioluminescence at some point in their life, typically in
some form of glowworm, which is found on most continents. North and South
America are home to the "firefly", a glowing beetle which is known as a glow-worm
during its larvae stage. Flightless glowing beetles and worms are also found in
Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Less common flies, centipedes, molluscs,
and snails have bioluminescent qualities as well, as do some mushrooms. The most
dramatic examples of bioluminescence. However, are found deep below the ocean's
surface, where no sunlight can penetrate at all. Here, anglerfish, cookie-cutter
sharks, flashlight fish, lantern fish, gulper eels, viperfish, and many other species
have developed bioluminescence in unique and creative ways to facilitate their lives.
C. The natural uses of bioluminescence vary widely, and organisms have learnt to be
very creative with its use. Fireflies employ bioluminescence primarily for reproductive
means – their flashing patterns advertise a firefly's readiness to breed. Some fish use
it as a handy spotlight to help them locate prey. Others use it as a lure; the anglerfish,
for example, dangles a luminescent flare that draws in gullible, smaller fishes which

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get snapped up by the anglerfish in an automated reflex. Sometimes,
bioluminescence is used to resist predators. Vampire squids eject a thick cloud of
glowing liquid from the tip of its arms when threatened, which can be disorientating.
Other species use a single, bright flash to temporarily blind their attacker, with an
effect similar to that of an oncoming car which has not dipped its headlights.
D. Humans have captured and utilized bioluminescence by developing, over the last
decade, a technology known as Bioluminescence Imaging (BLI). BLI involves the
extraction of a DNA protein from a bioluminescent organism, and then the integration
of this protein into a laboratory animal through trans-geneticism. Researchers have
been able to use luminized pathogens and cancer cell lines to track the respective
spread of infections and cancers. Through BLI, cancers and infections can be
observed without intervening in a way that affects their independent development. In
other words, while an ultra-sensitive camera and bioluminescent proteins add a
visual element, they do not disrupt or mutate the natural processes. As a result, when
testing drugs and treatments, researchers are permitted a single perspective of a
therapy's progression.
E. Once scientists learn how to engineer bioluminescence and keep it stable in large
quantities; a number of other human uses for it will become available. Glowing trees
have been proposed as replacements for electric lighting along busy roads, for
example, which would reduce our dependence on non-renewable energy sources.
The same technology used in Christmas trees for the family home would also
eliminate the fire danger from electrical fairy lights. It may also be possible for crops
and plants to luminesce when they require watering, and for meat and dairy products
to "tell us” when they have become contaminated by bacteria. In a similar way,
Forensic investigators could detect bacterial species on corpses through
bioluminescence. Finally, there is the element of pure novelty. Children's toys and
stickers are often made with glow-in-the-dark qualities, and a biological form would
allow rabbits, mice, fish, and other pets to glow as well.
Bioluminescence IELTS reading questions
Question 1-4
Matching headings
Reading Passage - 1 has five sections, A-E.

Choose the correct heading for sections A-E from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number i-ix, 1-5 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i. Mushrooms that glow in the dark

ii. Bright creatures on land and in the sea
iii. Evolution’s solution
iv. Cave-dwelling organisms

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v. Future opportunities in biological engineering
vi. Nature’s gift to medicine
vii. Bioluminescence in humans
viii. Purposes of bioluminescence in the wild
ix. Luminescent pets
1. Section A
2. Section B
3. Section C
4. Section D
5. Section E
Question 5-9
Locating information
Choose FOUR letters A-G
Write the correct letters 6-9 on your answer sheet.
Which FOUR uses are listed for bioluminescence in nature?
A. ways of attracting food

B. tracing the spread of diseases
C. mating signals
D. growing trees for street lighting
E. drug trials
F. defensive tactics
G. a torch to identify food
Question 10-13
Sentence Completion

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers 10-13 on your answer sheet
10. The luminescent fluid that a vampire squid emits has a …………………… effect on its
predator.
11. In order to use bioluminescence in a trans-genetic environment, ……………………. must

first be removed from a bioluminescent creature.
12. One advantage of BLI is that it could allow researchers to see how a treatment is
working without altering or disturbing …………………….

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13. In the future, …………………… may be able to use bioluminescence to identify evidence
on dead bodies.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/bioluminescence-reading-answers/
Collecting Specimens
Collecting ants can be as simple as picking up stray ones and placing them in a glass jar, or
as complicated as completing an exhaustive survey of all species present in an area and
estimating their relative abundances. The exact method used will depend on the final
purpose of the collections. For taxonomy, or classification, long series, from a single nest,
which contain all castes (workers, including majors and minors, and, if present, queens and
males) are desirable, to allow the determination of variation within species. For ecological
studies, the most important factor is collecting identifiable samples of as many of the
different species present as possible. Unfortunately, these methods are not always
compatible. The taxonomist sometimes overlooks whole species in favour of those groups
currently under study, while the ecologist often collects only a limited number of specimens
of each species, thus reducing their value for taxonomic investigations.
To collect as wide a range of species as possible, several methods must be used. These
include hand collecting, using baits to attract the ants, ground litter sampling, and the use of
pitfall traps. Hand collecting consists of searching for ants everywhere they are likely to
occur. This includes on the ground, under rocks, logs or other objects on the ground, in
rotten wood on the ground or on trees, in vegetation, on tree trunks and under bark. When
possible, collections should be made from nests or foraging columns and at least 20 to 25
individuals collected. This will ensure that all individuals are of the same species, and so
increase their value for detailed studies. Since some species are largely nocturnal, collecting
should not be confined to daytime. Specimens are collected using an aspirator (often called
a pooter), forceps, a fine, moistened paint brush, or fingers, if the ants are known not to
sting. Individual insects are placed in plastic or glass tubes (1.5-3-0 ml capacity for small
ants, 5-8 ml for larger ants) containing 75% to 95% ethanol. Plastic tubes with secure tops
are better than glass because they are lighter, and do not break as easily if mishandled.
Baits can be used to attract and concentrate foragers. This often increases the number of
individuals collected and attracts species that are otherwise elusive. Sugars and meats or
oils will attract different species and a range should be utilised. These baits can be placed
either on the ground or on the trunks of trees or large shrubs. When placed on the ground,
baits should be situated on small paper cards or other flat, light-coloured surfaces, or in test
tubes or vials. This makes it easier to spot ants and to capture them before they can escape
into the surrounding leaf litter.
Many ants are small and forage primarily in the layer of leaves and other debris on the
ground. Collecting these species by hand can be difficult. One of the most successful ways
to collect them is to gather the leaf litter in which they are foraging and extract the ants from
it. This is most commonly done by placing leaf litter on a screen over a large funnel, often

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under some heat. As the leaf litter dries from above, ants (and other animals) move
downward and eventually fall out the bottom and are collected in alcohol placed below the
funnel. This method works especially well in rain forests and marshy areas. A method of
improving the catch when using a funnel is to sift the leaf litter through a coarse screen
before placing it above the funnel. This will concentrate the litter and remove larger leaves
and twigs. It will also allow more litter to be sampled when using a limited number of funnels.
The pitfall trap is another commonly used tool for collecting ants. A pitfall trap can be any
small container placed in the ground with the top level with the surrounding surface and filled
with a preservative. Ants are collected when they fall into the trap while foraging. The
diameter of the traps can vary from about 18 mm to 10 cm and the number used can vary
from a few to several hundred. The size of the traps used is influenced largely by personal
preference (although larger sizes are generally better), while the number will be determined
by the study being undertaken. The preservative used is usually ethylene glycol or propylene
glycol, as alcohol will evaporate quickly and the traps will dry out. One advantage of pitfall
traps is that they can be used to collect over a period of time with minimal maintenance and
intervention. One disadvantage is that some species are not collected as they either avoid
the traps or do not commonly encounter them while foraging.
Collecting Ant Specimens Reading Questions
Questions 27-30 (True, False, Not Given)
Write

27. Taxonomic research involves comparing members of one group of ants.
28. New species of ant are frequently identified by taxonomists.
29. Range is the key criterion for ecological collections.
30. A single collection of ants can generally be used for both taxonomic and ecological
purposes.
Questions 31-36 (Matching Features)
Look at the following statements (Questions 31 - 36) and the list of items below.
Match each statement with the correct item, A-D.

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Write the correct letter, A-D on your answer sheet.
31. It is preferable to take specimens from groups of ants.
32. It is particularly effective for wet habitats.
33. It is a good method for species which are hard to find.
34. Little time and effort is required.
35. Separate containers are used for individual specimens.
36. Non-alcoholic preservatives should be used.
List of Items
A. hand collecting
B. using bait
C. sampling ground litter
D. using a pitfall trap
Questions 37-40 (Diagram Labelling)
Label the diagram below
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for answer

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Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/collecting-ant-specimens-reading-answers/
The Innovation of Grocery Stores
A. Right from the 20th century, the United States had grocery stores in full swing. A
person walks into the store and gets specific items from the cashier standing behind
the desk. The cashier might pack the things which consist of dry food only. If they
think of saving this time and go to the next shop, they need to request a delivery guy
or themselves to give the slip of list of items they need to buy to the grocery store,
then make the payment for the goods purchased. Such grocery stores generally keep
only one brand for each and every good. When we go back to the past, many chain
stores like the A & P Stores were fully functioning all day and consumed a lot of time.
It was considered old-fashioned.
B. During the year 1885, a boy from Virginia state by name Clarence Saunders started
working as a part-time employee as a clerk in a grocery store in his close vicinity.
When he turned 14, he quit his school and studies to accept the shopkeeper's offer -
a Ml time work with facilities like room and board. Over the years, he got a new job
and worked in an Alabama coke plant, followed by a Tennessee sawmill company
before he came from the work at the grocery store. In 1900, when he attained
nineteen years of age, he got nearly $35 per month for a salesman job in a wholesale
grocery store. Throughout his years working in many grocery stores taking many

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roles, he realised that it was not comfortable and found it very inefficient for potential
customers to purchase goods and items. Why because for more than several
decades, we had computer systems like a big machine called CPU, a desktop, etc.,
and it made shopping experiences quite varied compared to today. When someone
enters a store, they might ask the counter (or looking for a clerk to answer their
query) and give the list of items to buy, either verbally or in a notepad. When the
customer was waiting, the clerk would immediately go back to the counter and the
entire store, pick the products as given on the list. In a typical grocery store, some
shelves seem to be so high that a mechanical or an electrical device has to be
utilised—and take those back to the counter to check whether it is tallying or not, and
finally packed, bagged or boxed. The process might be done a little faster by the
customer calling or giving the list of items prior, or by the order placed were taken
care of by a delivery guy on a motorcycle. On the other hand, it did not vary that
much. Saunders, an attractive and innovative man, realised that this process of
working would result in wasted time and money expense, so he had an
out-of-the-box idea that created a revolution among the grocery industry that paved
the way for a better shopping experience to the customers.
C. In the year 1902, he migrated to Memphis place where he created his idea to
develop a grocery cooperative at a wholesale level and a normal grocery store
functioning full-time. For his new concept of “cafeteria grocery” Saunders split his
grocery store into three different parts: 1) A front “lobby” like space for entrance and
exit door and checkout areas. 2) A department exclusively for sales was designed in
such a way to make customers stroll the aisles and choose the groceries they were
looking for. Clearing unwanted employees, making way for an elaborate aisle display.
Reorganising the entire store to make customers somehow see all of the products
and above the shelving and separate compartments located in the sales department
were “photo galleries” where managers or supervisors were allowed to look after the
people without disturbing them. 3) And a separate section of his grocery store is the
place allocated only for the clerks and other employees called the “stockroom” or
“storage room” where you can find the big-size refrigerators that were situated to
keep all items fresh from being perishable. The newly designed format made different
people do shopping simultaneously and led to the earlier hidden part of extreme
shopping. Though this type of shopping of the grocery market was completely
different from other grocery store owners, the style set a new standard for the
modern form of the grocery store, and later became a supermarket as we are
witnessing today.
D. On 6th of September, 1916, Saunders initiated a revolution of self-servicing in the

USA by launching the first self-service process called Piggly Wiggly store. The
address of the store is 79 Jefferson Street in Memphis, Tennessee has the luxury of
its unique turnstile at the entrance. People make payments by cash and choose their
required products from the different shelves available. It was totally unique at that
time. When you enter a Piggly Wiggly store, customers do not need to wait for the
clerks or shopkeepers. They were on their own.
They were allowed to roam the store without any restrictions, look for the desired
products and take what they needed. The price stamps on products at Piggly Wiggly

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were not available. On top of all, no one tried to convince people to purchase milk or
biscuits. Moreover, the biggest advantage of the Piggly Wiggly was that customers
could save money in the end. Thus, self-service was welcomed on a positive trend.
“It’s beneficial for both the customer and shop owner because it reduces
unnecessary costs,” observed George T. Haley, a senior professor at the University
of New Haven and director of the Center for International Industry Competitiveness.
There are a huge number of working men and women involved and most of the
contribution is from their expenses before the grocery stores run to Piggly Wiggly and
Alpha Beta. Piggly Wiggly cut the excessive fat.
E. Piggly Wiggly and the self-service idea paid off very well. Saunders after a short time
started nine more stores in the Memphis place before completing the 1st anniversary.
Almost all people welcomed the efficiency, simplicity, and above all cheap prices of
food. Saunders immediately got patent rights for his idea of self-service and started
to lend franchising Piggly Wiggly grocery stores across the place. It made a huge
business growth and success, because of the advantages involved in self-service
and franchising Piggly Wiggly, which eventually increased to nearly 1,300 stores by
the year 1925. The Piggly Wiggly store sold $110 million—worth $1.5 billion
today—in the groceries market alone, claiming it to be the third-biggest grocery
retailer in the United States. Their company’s stock was also shown on the New York
Stock Exchange, nearly doubling from mid-1922 to March 1923. Saunders was finally
occupied with Piggly Wiggly. He tremendously worked in the overall design and
planning of his stores, thus, invented the turnstile.
F. Later, down the line, Saunders was forced into bankruptcy in 1923 after an
unexpected turn in the New York Stock Exchange, and he had to create the
“Clarence Saunders sole-owner-of-my-name” network, which led to bankruptcy.
G. When he died in October 1953, he was in the process of developing plans for yet
another fully-automatic store called the Foodelectric. However the store was initially
planned to place it in two blocks from the first Piggly Wiggly store, but that was never
opened at all. But his name was well-established when we came across the name of
Piggly Wiggly.
The Innovation of Grocery Stores Reading Questions
Questions 1 - 6
This reading passage has seven paragraphs, A - G.
1. Saunders’ first setback

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2. Saunders’ first revolution
3. Saunders’ triggering point
4. Expansion of Piggly Wiggly store
5. How grocery stores functioned back in the days
6. Saunders’ next invention
Questions 7 - 11
7. No one tried to _____________ people to purchase milk or biscuits.
8. He _____________ in the overall design and planning of his stores, thus, invented the
turnstile.
9. Saunders ____________ a revolution of self-servicing in the USA.
10. Grocery industry paved the way for a better ____________ for the customers.
11. The new concept of “__________” Saunders split his grocery store into three different
parts.
Questions 12 - 13
Write

12. Massachusetts has the luxury of its unique turnstile at the entrance
13. Piggly Wiggly store made customers to save money
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/the-innovation-of-grocery-stores-reading-answers/

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How Much Higher? How Much Faster?
Limits to human sporting performance are not yet insight
Since the early years of the twentieth century when the International Athletic Federation
began keeping records, there has been a steady improvement in how fast athletes run, how
high they jump and how far they are able to hurl massive objects, themselves included,
through space. For the so-called power events –that require a relatively brief, explosive
release of energy, like the 100-metre sprint and the long jump-times and distances have
improved ten to twenty percent. In the endurance events, the results have been more
dramatic. At the 1908 Olympics, John Hayes of the U.S. team ran to marathon in a time of
2:55:18. In 1999, Morocco’s Khalid Khannouchi set a new world record of 2:05:42, almost
thirty percent faster.
No one theory can explain improvements in performance, but the most important factor has
been genetics. ‘The athlete must choose his parents carefully,’ says Jesus Dapena, a sports
scientist at Indiana University, invoking an oft-cited adage. Over the past century, the
composition of the human gene pool has not changed appreciably, but with increasing global
participation in athletics-and greater rewards to tempt athletes-it is more likely that
individuals possessing the unique complement of genes for athletic performance can be
identified early. ‘Was there someone like [sprinter] Michael Johnson in the 1920s?’ Dapena
asks. ‘I’m sure there was, but his talent was probably never realized.’
Identifying genetically talented individuals is only the first step. Michael Yessis, an emeritus
professor of Sports Science at California State University at Fullerton, maintains that
‘genetics only determines about one third of what an athlete can do. But with the right
training, we can go much further with that one third than we’ve been going.’ Yessis believes
that U.S. runners, despite their impressive achievements, are ‘running on their genetics’. By
applying more scientific methods, ‘they’re going to go much faster’. These methods include
strength training that duplicates what they are doing in their running events as well as
plyometrics, a technique pioneered in the former Soviet Union.
Whereas most exercises are designed to build up strength or endurance, plyometrics

focuses on increasing power-the rate at which an athlete can expend energy. When a
sprinter runs, Yesis explains, her foot stays in contact with the ground for just under a tenth
of a second, half of which is devoted to landing and the other half to pushing off. Plyometric
exercises help athletes make the best use of this brief interval.
Nutrition is another area that sports trainers have failed to address adequately. ‘Many
athletes are not getting the best nutrition, even through supplements,’ Yessis insists. Each
activity has its own nutritional needs. Few coaches, for instance, understand how
deficiencies in trace minerals can lead to injuries.
Focused training will also play a role in enabling records to be broken. ‘If we applied the
Russian training model to some of the outstanding runners we have in this country,’ Yessis
asserts, ‘they would be breaking records left and right.’ He will not predict by how much,
however: ‘Exactly what the limits are it’s hard to say, but there will be increases even if only
by hundredths of a second, as long as our training continues to improve.’

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One of the most important new methodologies is biomechanics, the study of the body in
motion. A biomechanic films an athlete in action and then digitizes her performance,
recording the motion of every joint and limb in three dimensions. By applying Newton’s law
to these motions, ‘we can say that this athlete’s run is not fast enough; that this one is not
using his arms strongly enough during take-off,’ says Dapena, who uses these methods to
help high jumpers. To date, however, biomechanics has made only a small difference to
athletic performance.
Revolutionary ideas still come from the athletes themselves. For example, during the 1968
Olympics in Mexico City, a relatively unknown high jumper named Dick Fosbury won the gold
by going over the bar backwards, in complete contradiction of all the received high-jumping
wisdom, a move instantly dubbed the Fosbury flop. Fosbury himself did not know what he
was doing. That understanding took the later analysis of biomechanics specialists. who put
their minds to comprehending something that was too complex and unorthodox ever to have
been invented through their own mathematical simulations. Fosbury also required another
element that lies behind many improvements in athletic performance: an innovation in
athletic equipment. In Fosbury’s case, it was the cushions that jumpers land on. Traditionally,
high jumpers would land in pits filled with sawdust. But by Fosbury’s time, sawdust pits had
been replaced by soft foam cushions, ideal for flopping.
In the end, most people who examine human performance are humbled by the
resourcefulness of athletes and the powers of the human body. ‘Once you study athletics,
you learn that it’s a vexingly complex issue,’ says John S.Raglin, a sports psychologist at
Indiana University. ‘Core performance is not a simple or mundane thing of higher, faster,
longer. So many variables enter into the equation, and our understanding in many cases is
fundamental. We've got a long way to go.’ For the foreseeable future, records will be made
to be broken.
How much higher How much faster reading questions
Questions 1-6
Write your solutions for questions (1-6) on your answer sheet
1. Modern official athletic records date from about 1900.
2. There was little improvement in athletic performance before the twentieth century.

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3. Performance has improved most greatly in events requiring an intensive burst of energy.
4. Improvements in athletic performance can be fully explained by genetics.
5. The parents of top athletes have often been successful athletes themselves.
6. The growing international importance of athletics means that gifted athletes can be
recognized at a younger age.
Questions 7-10
Complete the sentences below with words taken from Reading Passage.
Use ONE WORD for each answer.
Write your solutions for questions (7-10) on your answer sheet.
7. According to Professor Yessis, American runners are relying for their current success on
8. Yessis describes a training approach from the former Soviet Union that aims to develop an
athlete’s
9. Yessis links an inadequate diet to
10. Yessis claims that the key to setting new records is better
Questions 11-13
11. Biomechanics films are proving particularly useful because they enable trainers to
A. highlight areas for improvement in athletes.

B. assess the fitness levels of athletes.
C. select top athletes.
D. predict the success of athletes.
12. Biomechanics specialists used theoretical models to
A. soften the Fosbury flop.

B. create the Fosbury flop.
C. correct the Fosbury flop.
D. explain the Fosbury flop.

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13. John S. Raglin believes our current knowledge of athletics is
A. mistaken.
B. basic.
C. diverse.
D. Theoretical.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/how-much-higher-how-much-faster-reading-answers/
In Praise Of Amateurs
A. During the 17th century scientific revolution, scientists were mostly wealthy men who
pursued their interest in natural philosophy for their own edification. It has only been
possible to make a living studying the workings of nature for the past century or two.
To put it another way, modern science was built on the efforts of amateurs. Science is
becoming increasingly specialised and compartmentalised, with experts knowing
more and more about less and less. Surprisingly, amateurs – even those with limited
financial resources – are still important.
B. A recent poll conducted by astronomer Dr. Richard Fienberg at a meeting of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science revealed that, in addition to
astronomy, amateurs are also interested in acoustics, horticulture, ornithology,
meteorology, hydrology, and palaeontology. Amateur scientists, far from being
crackpots, are frequently in contact with professionals, some of whom rely heavily on
their cooperation.
C. Some fields, admittedly, are more accessible to amateurs than others. Anything that
necessitates the purchase of expensive equipment is clearly a no-no. And some
types of research can be hazardous; according to Dr. Fienberg, the majority of
amateur chemists are either locked up or have blown themselves up. However,
amateurs can make valuable contributions in fields ranging from rocketry to
palaeontology, and the rise of the Internet has made collecting data and
disseminating results easier than ever before.
D. Which field of study has benefited the most from amateur contributions is a matter of
contention. Dr. Fienberg makes a compelling case for the study of astronomy. He
points out that amateur and professional sky watchers have a long history of working
together. Amateurs found many asteroids, comets, and planet Uranus. Observing the
brightness of variable stars and detecting novae—'new' stars in the Milky Way and
supernovae in other galaxies—are still important tasks for amateur astronomers
today, in addition to comet and asteroid spotting. According to Dr. Fienberg, amateur
observers are beneficial because there are so many of them (far outnumbering
professionals) and because they are located all over the world. This allows for unique
observations: for example, if several observers around the world accurately record
the time when a star is eclipsed by an asteroid, useful information about the

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asteroid's shape can be derived.
E. Palaeontology is another field where amateurs have historically played a significant

role. Adrian Hunt, a palaeontologist at Mesa Technical College in New Mexico, claims
that his field is the one where amateurs have had the most impact. Despite advances
in technology, he claims that the best sensors for finding fossils are human eyes –
and lots of them.
F. Because of the near universal interest in anything dinosaur-related, he says, finding

volunteers to look for fossils isn't difficult. Volunteers learn about science while also
assisting with the research, which he refers to as recreational education.'
G. In his field, Rick Bonney of Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York,
believes that amateurs have made the most contributions. He points out that there
are an estimated 60 million birdwatchers in the United States alone. Mr Bonney has
enlisted thousands of amateurs in a number of research projects due to their large
numbers and wide geographic coverage. Their observations over the last few years
have revealed previously unknown trends and cycles in bird migrations, as well as
declines in the breeding populations of several migratory bird species, prompting
habitat conservation efforts.
H. Collaboration between amateurs and professionals, despite its successes and

regardless of the field of study, is not without its challenges. The term 'amateur,' for
example, does not sit well with everyone. Mr Bonney coined the term "citizen
scientist" because he thought other terms, such as "volunteer," were derogatory. The
question of how professionals can best acknowledge amateur contributions is a more
serious issue. Some amateur astronomers, according to Dr. Fienberg, are happy to
provide their observations but complain about not being reimbursed for out-of-pocket
expenses. Others are disappointed when their findings are included in scientific
papers but they are not listed as co-authors. Some amateur palaeontologists,
according to Dr. Hunt, are disappointed when they are told they cannot take their
finds home with them.
I. These are legitimate concerns but none seems insurmountable. There's no reason
why amateurs and professionals can't work together if they agree on the terms of
their collaboration ahead of time. Dr. S. Carlson, the founder of the Society for
Amateur Scientists, received a $290,000 award last year for his efforts to promote
such collaboration. He claims that one of the prize's main benefits is the recognition it
has given to amateur scientists' contributions, which has helped silence critics among
professionals who believe science should be their exclusive domain.
J. Dr. Carlson says the society is currently working on a number of projects, including
an innovative rocket design project and the establishment of a network of observers
to look for evidence of a link between earthquakes and low-frequency radiations. He
claims that amateurs contribute enthusiasm and talent, while professionals provide
guidance so that whatever they discover is taken seriously.' Having laid the
foundations of science, amateurs will have so much to give to its expanding

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structure.
In Praise Of Amateurs IELTS Reading questions
IELTS Reading Note Completion Questions 1-5
● During the 17th century scientific revolution, scientists were mostly 1________.
● Some types of research can be hazardous; according to 2________.
● The rise of the 3________ has made collecting data and disseminating results easier
than ever before.
● 4________ is another field where amateurs have historically played a significant role.
● Adrian Hunt is a palaeontologist at 5________ Technical College in New Mexico.
IELTS Reading Yes/No/Not Given Questions 6-9
Write

6. It has only been possible to make a living studying the workings of nature for the past
century or two.
7. Amateurs are not interested in acoustics, horticulture, ornithology, meteorology, hydrology,

and palaeontology.
8. Some amateur palaeontologists are disappointed when they are told they cannot take
their finds home with them.
9. Dr. S. Carlson is the founder of the Society for Amateur Scientists.
This reading passage has ten paragraphs, A–J.
Write the correct letter, A - J, as your answer to each question.

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10. Science is becoming increasingly specialised and compartmentalised.
11. Amateurs are also interested in acoustics, horticulture etc.
12. Amateurs contribute enthusiasm and talent, while professionals provide guidance.
13. Rick Bonney believes that amateurs have made the most contributions in his field.
14. Amateurs can make valuable contributions in fields ranging from rocketry to
palaeontology.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/in-praise-of-amateurs-reading-answers/
Learning By Examples
Learning Theory is rooted in the work of Ivan Pavlov, the famous scientist who discovered
and documented the principles governing how animals (humans included) learn in the
1900s. Two basic kinds of learning or conditioning occur, one of which is famously known as
the classical conditioning. Classical conditioning happens when an animal learns to
associate a neutral stimulus (signal) with a stimulus that has intrinsic meaning based on how
closely in time the two stimuli are presented. The classic example of classical conditioning is
a dog's ability to associate the sound of a bell (something that originally has no meaning to
the dog) with the presentation of food (something that has a lot of meaning to the dog) a few
moments later. Dogs are able to learn the association between bell and food, and will
salivate immediately after hearing the bell once this connection has been made. Years of
learning research have led to the creation of a highly precise learning theory that can be
used to understand and predict how and under what circumstances most any animal will
learn, including human beings, and eventually help people figure out how to change their
behaviours.
Role models are a popular notion for guiding child development, but in recent years very
interesting research has been done on learning by examples in other animals. If the subject
of animal learning is taught very much in terms of classical or operant conditioning, it places
too much emphasis on how we allow animals to learn and not enough on how they are
equipped to learn. To teach a course of mine, I have been dipping profitably into a very
interesting and accessible compilation of papers on social learning in mammals, including
chimps and human children, edited by Heyes and Galef (1996).
The research reported in one paper started with a school field trip to Israel to a pine forest
where many pine cones were discovered, stripped to the central core. So the investigation
started with no weighty theoretical intent, but was directed at finding out what was eating the
nutritious pine seeds and how they managed to get them out of the cones. The culprit
proved to be the versatile and athletic black rat,(Rattus rattus), and the technique was to bite
each cone scale off at its base, in sequence from base to top following the spiral growth
pattern of the cone.

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Urban black rats were found to lack the skill and were unable to learn it even if housed with
experienced cone strippers. However, infants of urban mothers cross-fostered by stripper
mothers acquired the skill, whereas infants of stripper mothers fostered by an urban mother
could not. Clearly the skill had to be learned from the mother. Further elegant experiments
showed that naive adults could develop the skill if they were provided with cones from which
the first complete spiral of scales had been removed; rather like our new photocopier which
you can work out how to use once someone has shown you how to switch it on. In the case
of rats, the youngsters take cones away from the mother when she is still feeding on them,
allowing them to acquire the complete stripping skill.
A good example of adaptive bearing we might conclude, but let’s see the economies. This
was determined by measuring oxygen uptake of a rat stripping a cone in a metabolic
chamber to calculate energetic cost and comparing it with the benefit of the pine seeds
measured by calorimeter. The cost proved to be less than 10% of the energetic value of the
cone. An acceptable profit margin.
F. A paper in 1996, Animal Behaviour by Bednekoff and Baida, provides a different view of
the adaptiveness of social learning. It concerns the seed caching behaviour of Clark's
Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) and the Mexican Jay (Aphelocoma ultramarina). The
former is a specialist, caching 30,000 or so seeds in scattered locations that it will recover
over the months of winter; the Mexican Jay will also cache food but is much less dependent
upon this than the Nutcracker. The two species also differ in their social structure: the
Nutcracker being rather solitary while the Jay forages in social groups.
G. The experiment is to discover not just whether a bird can remember where it hid a seed
but also if it can remember where it saw another bird hide a seed. The design is slightly
comical with a cacher bird wandering about a room with lots of holes in the floor hiding food
in some of the holes, while watched by an observer bird perched in a cage. Two days later,
cachers and observers are tested for their discovery rate against an estimated random
performance. In the role of cacher, not only the Nutcracker but also the less specialised Jay
performed above chance; more surprisingly, however, jay observers were as successful as
jay cachers whereas nutcracker observers did no better than chance. It seems that, whereas
the Nutcracker is highly adapted at remembering where it hid its own seeds, the social living
Mexican Jay is more adept at remembering, and so exploiting, the caches of others.
Learning By Examples Reading Questions
Questions 1 - 4
The reading passage has seven paragraphs A-G Which paragraph contains the following
information?
Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.
1. A comparison between rats’ learning and human learning

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2. A reference to the earliest study in animal learning
3. The discovery of who stripped the pine cone
4. A description of a cost-effectiveness experiment
Questions 5 - 8
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage.
In boxes 5-8 on your answer sheet write

5. The field trip to Israel was to investigate how black rats learn to strip pine cones.
6. The pine cones were stripped from bottom to top by black rats.
7. It can be learned from other relevant experiences to use a photocopier.
8. Stripping the pine cones is an instinct of the black rats.
Questions 9 - 13
Complete the summary below using words from the box. Write your answers in boxes 9-13
on your answer sheet.
While the Nutcracker is more able to cache seed, the Jay relies 9 ………………………
on caching food and is thus less specialised in this ability, but more 10 ………………………
To study their behaviour of caching and finding their caches, an experiment was designed
and carried out to test these two birds for their ability to remember where they hid the seeds.
In the experiment, the catcher bird hid seeds in the ground while the other 11
………………………
As a result, the Nutcracker and the Mexican Jay showed different performance in the role of
12 ………………………
at finding the seeds—observing 13 ……………………… didn’t do as well as its counterpart.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/learning-by-examples-reading-answers/

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Music and the emotions
A. Why does music make us feel? On the one hand, music is a purely abstract art form,
devoid of language or explicit ideas. And yet, even though music says little, it still
manages to touch us deeply. When listening to our favorite songs, our body betrays
all the symptoms of emotional arousal. The pupils in our eyes dilate, our pulse and
blood pressure rise, the electrical conductance of our skin is lowered, and the
cerebellum, a brain region associated with bodily movement, becomes strangely
active. Blood is even re-directed to the muscles in our legs. In other words, sound
stirs us at our biological roots.
B. A recent paper in Nature Neuroscience by a research team in Montreal, Canada,

marks an important step in revealing the precise underpinnings of the potent
pleasurable stimulus’ that is music. Although the study involves plenty of fancy
technology, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and
ligand-based positron emission tomography (PET) scanning, the experiment itself
was rather straightforward. After screening 217 individuals who responded to
advertisements requesting people who experience ‘chills’ to instrumental music, the
scientists narrowed down the subject pool to ten. They then asked the subjects to
bring in their playlist of favorite songs – virtually every genre was represented, from
techno to tango – and played them the music while their brain activity was monitored.
Because the scientists were combining methodologies (PET and fMRI), they were
able to obtain an impressively exact and detailed portrait of music in the brain. The
first thing they discovered is that music triggers the production of dopamine – a
chemical with a key role in setting people’s moods – by the neurons (nerve cells) in
both the dorsal and ventral regions of the brain. As these two regions have long been
linked with the experience of pleasure, this finding isn’t particularly surprising.
C. What is rather more significant is the finding that the dopamine neurons in the
caudate – a region of the brain involved in learning stimulus-response associations,
and in anticipating food and other ‘reward’ stimuli – were at their most active around
15 seconds before the participants’ favorite moments in the music. The researchers
call this the ‘anticipatory phase’ and argue that the purpose of this activity is to help
us predict the arrival of our favorite part. The question, of course, is what all these
dopamine neurons are up to. Why are they so active in the period preceding the
acoustic climax? After all, we typically associate surges of dopamine with pleasure,
with the processing of actual rewards. And yet, this cluster of cells is most active
when the ‘chills’ have yet to arrive and when the melodic pattern is still unresolved.
D. One way to answer the question is to look at the music and not the neurons. While
music can often seem (at least to the outsider) like a labyrinth of intricate patterns, it
turns out that the most important part of every song or symphony is when the
patterns break down, when the sound becomes unpredictable. If the music is too
obvious, it is annoyingly boring, like an alarm clock. Numerous studies, after all, have
demonstrated that dopamine neurons quickly adapt to predictable rewards. If we
know what’s going to happen next, then we don’t get excited. This is why composers
often introduce a keynote at the beginning of a song, spend most of the rest of the
piece in the studious avoidance of the pattern, and then finally repeat it only at the

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end. The longer we are denied the pattern we expect, the greater the emotional
release when the pattern returns, safe and sound.
E. To demonstrate this psychological principle, the musicologist Leonard Meyer, in his

classic book Emotion and Meaning in Music (1956), analyzed the 5th movement of
Beethoven’s String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131. Meyer wanted to show how
music is defined by its flirtation with – but not submission to – our expectations of
order. Meyer dissected 50 measures (bars) of the masterpiece, showing how
Beethoven begins with the clear statement of a rhythmic and harmonic pattern and
then, in an ingenious tonal dance, carefully holds off repeating it. What Beethoven
does instead suggests variations of the pattern. He wants to preserve an element of
uncertainty in his music, making our brains beg for the one chord he refuses to give
us. Beethoven saves that chord for the end.
F. According to Meyer, it is the suspenseful tension of music, arising out of our

unfulfilled expectations, that is the source of the music’s feeling. While earlier
theories of music focused on the way a sound can refer to the real world of images
and experiences – its ‘connotative’ meaning – Meyer argued that the emotions we
find in music come from the unfolding events of the music itself. This ‘embodied
meaning’ arises from the patterns the symphony invokes and then ignores. It is this
uncertainty that triggers the surge of dopamine in the caudate, as we struggle to
figure out what will happen next. We can predict some of the notes, but we can’t
predict them all, and that is what keeps us listening, waiting expectantly for our
reward, for the pattern to be completed.
Music and the emotions reading questions - Cambridge 12 Reading Test 3/7 Reading
Passage 3
Question (27 - 31)
Write your solutions for Q (27 - 31) on your answer sheet.
The Montreal Study
Participants, who were recruited for the study through advertisements, had their brain activity
monitored while listening to their favorite music. It was noted that the music stimulated the
brain’s neurons to release a substance called 27 ____________ in two of the parts of the
brain which are associated with feeling 28 ______________. Researchers also observed
that the neurons in the area of the brain called the 29 ______________. were particularly
active just before the participants’ favorite moments in the music - the period known as the
30 ____________. Activity in this part of the brain is associated with the expectation of
‘reward’ stimuli such as 31 _______________.
Questions (32 - 36)

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Write your solutions for Q (32 - 36) on your answer sheet.
32. What point does the writer emphasize in the first paragraph?
A. how dramatically our reactions to music can vary

B. how intense our physical responses to music can be
C. how little we know about the way that music affects us
D. how much music can tell us about how our brains operate
33. What view of the Montreal study does the writer express in the second paragraph?
A. Its aims were innovative.

B. The approach was too simplistic.
C. It produced some remarkably precise data.
D. The technology used was unnecessarily complex.
34. What does the writer find interesting about the results of the Montreal study?
A. the timing of participants’ neural responses to the music

B. the impact of the music on participants’ emotional state
C. the section of participants’ brains which was activated by the music
D. the type of music which had the strongest effect on participants’ brains
35. Why does the writer refer to Meyer’s work on music and emotion?
A. to propose an original theory about the subject

B. to offer support for the findings of the Montreal study
C. to recommend the need for further research into the subject
D. to present a view which opposes that of the Montreal researchers
36. According to Leonard Meyer, what causes the listener’s emotional response to music?
A. the way that the music evokes poignant memories in the listener
B. the association of certain musical chords with certain feelings
C. the listener’s sympathy with the composer’s intentions
D. the internal structure of the musical composition
Questions (37 - 40)
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-F, below.
Write the correct letter, A-F, for the questions (37-40) on your answer sheet.
37. The Montreal researchers discovered that

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38. Many studies have demonstrated that
39. Meyer’s analysis of Beethoven’s music shows that
40. Earlier theories of music suggested that
A. our response to music depends on our initial emotional state.

B. neuron activity decreases if outcomes become predictable.
C. emotive music can bring to mind actual pictures and events.
D. experiences on our past can influence our emotional reaction to music.
E. emotive music delays giving listeners what they expect to hear.
F. neuron activity increases prior to key points in a musical piece.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/music-and-the-emotions-reading-answers/
Pulling Strings To Build Pyramids
No one knows exactly how the pyramids were built. Marcus Chown reckons the answer
could be 'hanging in the air'.
The pyramids of Egypt were built more than three thousand years ago, and no one knows
how. The conventional picture is that tens of thousands of slaves dragged stones on
sledges. But there is no evidence to back this up. Now a Californian software consultant
called Maureen Clemmons has suggested that kites might have been involved. While
perusing a book on the monuments of Egypt, she noticed a hieroglyph that showed a row of
men standing in odd postures. They were holding what looked like ropes that led, via some
kind of mechanical system, to a giant bird in the sky. She wondered if perhaps the bird was
actually a giant kite, and the men were using it to lift a heavy object.
Intrigued, Clemmons contacted Morteza Gharib, aeronautics professor at the California

Institute of Technology. He was fascinated by the idea. 'Coming from Iran, I have a keen
interest in Middle Eastern science/ he says. He too was puzzled by the picture that had
sparked Clemmons's interest. The object in the sky apparently had wings far too short and
wide for a bird. The possibility certainly existed that it was a kite/ he says. And since he
needed a summer project for his student Emilio Graff, investigating the possibility of using
kites as heavy lifters seemed like a good idea.
Gharib and Graff set themselves the task of raising a 4.5-metre stone column from horizontal
to vertical, using no source of energy except the wind. Their initial calculations and
scale-model wind-tunnel experiments convinced them they wouldn't need a strong wind to lift
the 33.5-tonne column. Even a modest force, if sustained over a long time, would do. The
key was to use a pulley system that would magnify the applied force. So they rigged up a
tent-shaped scaffold directly above the tip of the horizontal column, with pulleys suspended
from the scaffold's apex. The idea was that as one end of the column rose, the base would
roll across the ground on a trolley.

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Earlier this year, the team put Clemmons's unlikely theory to the test, using a
40-square-metre rectangular nylon sail. The kite lifted the column clean off the ground. 'We
were absolutely stunned,' Gharib says. The instant the sail opened into the wind, a huge
force was generated and the column was raised to the vertical in a mere 40 seconds.'
The wind was blowing at a gentle 16 to 20 kilometres an hour, little more than half what they
thought would be needed. What they had failed to reckon with was what happened when the
kite was opened. There was a huge initial force - five times larger than the steady state
force,' Gharib says. This jerk meant that kites could lift huge weights, Gharib realized. Even
a 300-ton column could have been lifted to the vertical with 40 or so men and four or five
sails. So Clemmons was right: the pyramid builders could have used kites to lift massive
stones into place. 'Whether they actually did is another matter,' Gharib says. There are no
pictures showing the construction of the pyramids, so there is no way to tell what really
happened. The evidence for using kites to move large stones is no better or worse than the
evidence for the brute force method,' Gharib says.
Indeed, the experiments have left many specialists unconvinced. The evidence for kite lifting
is non-existent,' says Willeke Wendrich, an associate professor of Egyptology at the
University of California, Los Angeles.
Others feel there is more of a case for the theory. Harnessing the wind would not have been
a problem for accomplished sailors like the Egyptians. And they are known to have used
wooden pulleys, which could have been made strong enough to bear the weight of massive
blocks of stone. In addition, there is some physical evidence that the ancient Egyptians were
interested in flight. A wooden artefact found on the step pyramid at Saqqara looks uncannily
like a modern glider. Although it dates from several hundred years after the building of the
pyramids, its sophistication suggests that the Egyptians might have been developing ideas
of flight for a long time. And other ancient civilisations certainly knew about kites; as early as
1250 BC, the Chinese were using them to deliver messages and dump flaming debris on
their foes.
The experiments might even have practical uses nowadays. There are plenty of places
around the globe where people have no access to heavy machinery, but do know how to
deal with wind, sailing and basic mechanical principles. Gharib has already been contacted
by a civil engineer in Nicaragua, who wants to put up buildings with adobe roofs supported
by concrete arches on a site that heavy equipment can't reach. His idea is to build the
arches horizontally, then lift them into place using kites. 'We've given him some design hints,'
says Gharib. We're just waiting for him to report back.' So whether they were actually used to
build the pyramids or not, it seems that kites may make sensible construction tools in the 21
st century AD.
Pulling Strings To Build Pyramids Reading Questions
Pulling strings to build pyramids IELTS Reading Questions 1-7


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1 It is generally believed that large numbers of people were needed to build the pyramids.
2 Clemmons found a strange hieroglyph on the wall of an Egyptian monument.
3 Gharib had previously done experiments on bird flight.
4 Gharib and Graff tested their theory before applying it.
5 The success of the actual experiment was due to the high speed of the wind.
6 They found that, as the kite flew higher, the wind force got stronger.
7 The team decided that it was possible to use kites to raise very heavy stones.
Pulling strings to build pyramids IELTS Reading Questions 8–13
Additional evidence for theory of kite-lifting
The Egyptians had 8________ which could lift large pieces of 9________ and they knew
how to use the energy of the wind from their skill as 10________. The discovery on one
pyramid of an object which resembled a 11________ suggests they may have experimented
with 12________. In addition, over two thousand years ago kites were used in China as
weapons, as well as for sending 13________ .
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/pulling-strings-to-build-pyramids-reading-answers/
Secrets Of The Forest
A. In 1942 Allan R Holmberg, a doctoral student in anthropology from Yale University,

USA, ventured deep into the jungle of Bolivian Amazonia and searched out an
isolated band of Siriono Indians. The Siriono, Holmberg later wrote, led a "strikingly
backward” existence. Their villages were little more than clusters of thatched huts.
Life itself was a perpetual and punishing search for food: some families grew manioc
and other starchy crops in small garden plots cleared from the forest, while other
members of the tribe scoured the country for small game and promising fish holes.
When local resources became depleted, the tribe moved on.

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B. As for technology, Holmberg noted, the Siriono "may be classified among the most
handicapped peoples of the world". Other than bows, arrows and crude digging
sticks, the only tools the Siriono seemed to possess were "two machetes worn to the
size of pocket- knives".
C. Although the lives of the Siriono have changed in the intervening decades, the image
of them as Stone Age relics has endured. Indeed, in many respects the Siriono
epitomise the popular conception of life in Amazonia. To casual observers, as well as
to influential natural scientists and regional planners, the luxuriant forests of
Amazonia seem ageless, unconquerable, a habitat totally hostile to human
civilization. The apparent simplicity of Indian ways of life has been judged an
evolutionary adaptation to forest ecology, living proof that Amazonia could not - and
cannot - sustain a more complex society. Archaeological traces of far more elaborate
cultures have been dismissed as the ruins of invaders from outside the region,
abandoned to decay in the uncompromising tropical environment.
D. The popular conception of Amazonia and its native residents would be enormously
consequential if it were true. But the human history of Amazonia in the past 11,000
years betrays that view as myth. Evidence gathered in recent years from
anthropology and archaeology indicates that the region has supported a series of
indigenous cultures for eleven thousand years; an extensive network of complex
societies - some with populations perhaps as large as 100,000 - thrived there for
more than 1,000 years before the arrival of Europeans. (Indeed, some contemporary
tribes, including the Siriono, still live among the earthworks of earlier cultures.) Far
from being evolutionarily retarded, prehistoric Amazonian people developed
technologies and cultures that were advanced for their time. If the lives of Indians
today seem "primitive", the appearance is not the result of some environmental
adaptation or ecological barrier; rather it is a comparatively recent adaptation to
centuries of economic and political pressure. Investigators who argue otherwise have
unwittingly projected the present onto the past.
E. The evidence for a revised view of Amazonia will take many people by surprise.
Ecologists have assumed that tropical ecosystems were shaped entirely by natural
forces and they have focused their research on habitats they believe have escaped
human influence. But as the University of Florida ecologist, Peter Feinsinger, has
noted, an approach that leaves people out of the equation is no longer tenable. The
archaeological evidence shows that the natural history of Amazonia is to a surprising
extent tied to the activities of its prehistoric inhabitants.
F. The realisation comes none too soon. In June 1992 political and environmental
leaders from across the world met in Rio de Janeiro to discuss how developing
countries can advance their economies without destroying their natural resources.
The challenge is especially difficult in Amazonia. Because the tropical forest has
been depicted as ecologically unfit for large-scale human occupation, some
environmentalists have opposed development of any kind.

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G. Ironically, one major casualty of that extreme position has been the environment
itself. While policy makers struggle to define and implement appropriate legislation,
development of the most destructive kind has continued apace over vast areas.
H. The other major casualty of the "naturalism" of environmental scientists has been the
indigenous Amazonians, whose habits of hunting, fishing, and slash-and-burn
cultivation often have been represented as harmful to the habitat. In the clash
between environmentalists and developers, the Indians, whose presence is in fact
crucial to the survival of the forest, have suffered the most. The new understanding of
the pre-history of Amazonia, however, points toward a middle ground. Archaeology
makes clear that with judicious management selected parts of the region could
support more people than anyone thought before. The long- buried past, it seems,
offers hope for the future.
Secrets Of The Forest IELTS Reading Questions
Secrets Of The Forest Reading Questions 1-3
Reading Passage 2 has six sections A-F.
Choose the most suitable headings for sections A, B and D from the list of headings below.
Write the appropriate numbers i-vii in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i Amazonia as unable to sustain complex societies

ii The role of recent technology in ecological research in Amazonia
iii The hostility of the indigenous population to North American influences
iv Recent evidence
v Early research among the Indian Amazons
vi The influence of prehistoric inhabitants on Amazonian natural history
vii The great difficulty of changing local attitudes and practices
1. Section A
2. Section B
3. Section D
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 2?
YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

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Example
Question: The prehistoric inhabitants of Amazonia were relatively backward in technological

terms.
Answer: NO
4. The reason for the simplicity of the Indian way of life is that Amazonia has always been
unable to support a more complex society.
5. There is a crucial popular misconception about the human history of Amazonia.
6. There are lessons to be learned from similar ecosystems in other parts of the world.
7. Most ecologists were aware that the areas of Amazonia they were working in had been
shaped by human settlement.
8. The indigenous Amazonian Indians are necessary to the well-being of the forest.
9. It would be possible for certain parts of Amazonia to support a higher population.
Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.
10. In 1942 the US anthropology student concluded that the Siriono
A were unusually aggressive and cruel.

B had had their way of life destroyed by invaders.
C were an extremely primitive society.
D had only recently made permanent settlements.
11. The author believes recent discoveries of the remains of complex societies in Amazonia
A are evidence of early indigenous communities.

B are the remains of settlements by invaders.
C are the ruins of communities established since the European invasions.
D show the region has only relatively recently been covered by forest.
12. The assumption that the tropical ecosystem of Amazonia has been created solely by
natural forces
A has often been questioned by ecologists in the past.

B has been shown to be incorrect by recent research.

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C was made by Peter Feinsinger and other ecologists.
D has led to some fruitful discoveries.
13. The application of our new insights into the Amazonian past would
A warn us against allowing any development at all.

B cause further suffering to the Indian communities.
C change present policies on development in the region.
D reduce the amount of hunting, fishing, and ‘slash-and-burn’.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/secrets-of-the-forest-reading-answers/
Tea times
A. The chances are that you have already drunk a cup or glass of tea today, Perhaps,
you are sipping one as you read this. Tea, now an everyday beverage in many parts
of the world, has over the centuries been an important part of rituals of hospitality
both in the home and in wider society.
B. Tea originated in China, and in Eastern Asia, tea making and drinking ceremonies
have been popular for centuries. Tea was first shipped to North-Western Europe by
English and Dutch maritime traders in the sixteenth century. At about the same time,
a land route from the Far East, via Moscow, to Europe was opened up. Tea also
figured in America’s bid for independence from British rule – the Boston Tea Party.
C. As, over the last four hundred years, tea leaves became available throughout much
of Asia and Europe, the ways in which tea was drunk changed. The Chinese
considered the quality of the leaves and the ways in which they were cured all
important. People in other cultures added new ingredients besides tea leaves and hot
water. They drank tea with milk, sugar, spices like cinnamon and cardamom, and
herbs such as mint or sage. The variations are endless. For example, in Western
Sudan on the edge of the Sahara Desert, sesame oil is added to milky tea on cold
mornings. In England tea, unlike coffee, acquired a reputation as a therapeutic drink
that promoted health. Indeed, in European and Arab countries as well as In Persia
and Russia, tea was praised for its restorative and health-giving properties. One
Dutch physician, Cornelius Blankaart, advised that to maintain health a minimum of
eight to ten cups a day should be drunk and that up to 50 to 100 daily cups could be
consumed safely.
D. While European coffee houses were frequented by men discussing politics and
closing business deals, respectable middle-class women stayed at home and held
tea parties. When the price of tea fell in the nineteenth century poor people took up
the drink with enthusiasm. Different grades and blends of tea were sold to suit every
pocket.

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E. Throughout the world today, few religious groups object to tea drinking. In Islamic
cultures, where drinking alcohol is forbidden, tea and coffee consumption is an
important part of social life. However, Seventh-Day Adventists, recognizing the
beverage as a drug containing the stimulant caffeine, frown upon the drinking of tea.
F. Nomadic Bedouin are well known for the traditions of hospitality in the desert.
According to Middle Eastern tradition, guests are served both tea and coffee from
pots kept ready on the fires of guest tents where men of the family and male visitors
gather. Cups of “bitter” cardamom coffee and glasses of sugared tea should be
constantly refilled by the host.
G. For over a thousand years, Arab traders have been bringing Islamic culture, including
tea drinking, to northern and western Africa. Techniques of tea preparation have
been adapted. In West African countries, such as Senegal and The Gambia, it is
fashionable for young men to gather in small groups to brew Chinese “gun-powder”
tea. The tea is boiled with large amounts of sugar for a long time.
H. Tea drinking in India remains an important part of daily life. There, tea made entirely
with milk is popular. “Chai” is made by boiling milk and adding tea, sugar, and some
spices. This form of tea making has crossed the Indian Ocean and is also popular in
East Africa, where tea is considered best when it is either very milky or made with
water only. Curiously, this “milk or water” formula has been carried over to the
preparation of instant coffee, which is served in cafes as either black or sprinkled on
a cup of hot milk.
I. In Britain, coffee drinking, particularly in the informal atmosphere of coffee shops, is

currently in vogue. Yet, the convention of afternoon tea lingers. At conferences, it
remains common practice to serve coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon.
Contemporary China, too, remains true to its long tradition. Delegates at conferences
and seminars are served tea in cups with lids to keep the infusion hot. The cups are
topped up throughout the proceedings. There are as yet no signs of coffee on such
occasions.
Tea times reading questions
Questions 1-8
The above reading passage has nine paragraphs (A-I).
Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Find and write the appropriate numbers (i-xiii) on your answer sheet.
There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use all of them.
1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
3. Paragraph C

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4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
6. Paragraph F
7. Paragraph G
8. Paragraph H
9. Paragraph I
List of Headings
i. Diverse drinking methods
ii. Limited objections to drinking tea
iii. Today’s continuing tradition – In Britain and China
iv. Tea – a beverage of hospitality
v. An important addition – tea with milk
vi. Tea and alcohol
vii. The everyday beverage in all parts of the world
viii. Tea on the move
ix. African tea
x. The fall in the cost of tea
xi. The value of tea
xii. Tea-drinking in Africa
xiii. Hospitality among the Bedouin
Questions 9-14
Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage to complete each blank space.
Write the correct word on your answer sheet
10. For centuries, both at home and In society, tea has had an important role in______
11. Falling tea prices in the nineteenth century meant that people could choose the________
of tea they could afford.

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12. Because it contains ______ Seventh-Day Adventists do not approve of the drinking
13. In the desert, one group that is well known for Its traditions of hospitality is the_______
14. In India, _______, as well as tea, are added to boiling milk to make “chai”.
15. In Britain, while coffee is in fashion, afternoon tea is still a________
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/tea-times-reading-answers/
The Concept Of Role Theory
Any individual in any situation occupies a role in relation to other people. The particular
individual with whom one is concerned in the analysis of any situation is usually given the
name of focal person. He has the focal role and can be regarded as sitting in the middle of a
group of people, with whom he interacts in some way in that situation. This group of people
is called his role set. For instance, in the family situation, an individual’s role set might be
shown as in Figure 6.
Figure 6
The role set should include all those with whom the individual has more than trivial
interactions.

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Role definition
The definition of any individual’s role in any situation will be a combination of the role
expectations that the members of the role set have of the focal role. These expectations are
often occupationally denned, sometimes even legally so. The role definitions of lawyers and
doctors are fairly clearly defined both in legal and in cultural terms. The role definitions of,
say, a film star or bank manager, are also fairly clearly defined in cultural terms, too clearly
perhaps.
Individuals often find it hard to escape from the role that cultural traditions have defined for
them. Not only with doctors or lawyers is the required role behaviour so constrained that if
you are in that role for long it eventually becomes part of you, part of your personality.
Hence, there is some likelihood that all accountants will be alike or that all blondes are
similar - they are forced that way by the expectations of their role.
It is often important that you make it clear what your particular role is at a given time. The
means of doing this are called, rather obviously, role signs. The simplest of role signs is a
uniform. The number of stripes on your arm or pips on your shoulder is a very precise role
definition which allows you to do certain very prescribed things in certain situations. Imagine
yourself questioning a stranger on a dark street at midnight without wearing the role signs of
a policeman!
In social circumstances, dress has often been used as a role sign to indicate the nature and
degree of formality of any gathering and occasionally the social status of people present.
The current trend towards blurring these role signs in dress is probably democratic, but it
also makes some people very insecure. Without role signs, who is to know who has what
role?
Place is another role sign. Managers often behave very differently outside the office and in it,
even to the same person. They use a change of location to indicate a change in role from,
say, boss to friend. Indeed, if you wish to change your roles you must find some outward
sign that you are doing so or you won’t be permitted to change - the subordinate will
continue to hear you as his boss no matter how hard you try to be his friend. In very
significant cases of role change, e.g. from a soldier in the ranks to officer, from bachelor to
married man, the change of role has to have a very obvious sign, hence rituals. It is
interesting to observe, for instance, some decline in the emphasis given to marriage rituals.
This could be taken as an indication that there is no longer such a big change in role from
single to married person, and therefore no need for a public change in sign.
In organisations, office signs and furniture are often used as role signs. These and other
perquisites of status are often frowned upon, but they may serve a purpose as a kind of
uniform in a democratic society; roles without signs often lead to confused or differing
expectations of the role of the focal person.
Role ambiguity
Role ambiguity results when there is some uncertainty in the minds, either of the focal
person or of the members of his role set, as to precisely what his role is at any given time.

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One of the crucial expectations that shape the role definition is that of the individual, the
focal person himself. If his occupation of the role is unclear, or if it differs from that of the
others in the role set, there will be a degree of role ambiguity. Is this bad? Not necessarily,
for the ability to shape one’s own role is one of the freedoms that many people desire, but
the ambiguity may lead to role stress which will be discussed later on. The virtue of j ob
descriptions is that they lessen this role ambiguity. Unfortunately, job descriptions are seldom
complete role definitions, except at the lower end of the scale. At middle and higher
management levels, they are often a list of formal jobs and duties that say little about the
more subtle and informal expectations of the role. The result is therefore to give the
individual an uncomfortable feeling that there are things left unsaid, i. e. to heighten the
sense of role ambiguity.
Looking at role ambiguity from the other side, from the point of view of the members of the
role set, lack of clarity in the role of the focal person can cause insecurity, lack of confidence,
irritation and even anger among members of his role set. One list of the roles of a manager
identified the following: executive, planner, policy maker, expert, controller of rewards and
punishments, counsellor, friend, teacher. If it is not clear, through role signs of one sort or
another, which role is currently the operational one, the other party may not react in the
appropriate way — we may, in fact, hear quite another message if the focal person speaks to
us, for example, as a teacher and we hear her as an executive.
The Concept of Role Theory Reading Questions 1-7
Do the following statements reflect the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
YES if the statement reflects the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to know what the writer thinks about this
1. It would be a good idea to specify the role definitions of soldiers more clearly.
2. Accountants may be similar to one another because they have the same type of job.
3. It is probably a good idea to keep dress as a role sign even nowadays.
4. The decline in emphasis on marriage rituals should be reversed.
5. Today furniture operates as a role sign in the same way as dress has always done.
6. It is a good idea to remove role ambiguity.
7. Job descriptions eliminate role ambiguity for managers.

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The Concept of Role Theory Reading Questions 8-11
Choose ONE OR TWO WORDS from Reading Passage 3 for each answer.
8. A new headmaster of a school who enlarges his office and puts in expensive carpeting is
using the office as a _______.
9. The graduation ceremony in many universities is an important _______.
10. The wig which judges wear in UK courts is a _______.
11. The parents of students in a school are part of the headmaster’s ________.
The Concept of Role Theory Reading Question 12
Choose the appropriate letter A-D and write it in box 12 on your answer sheet.
This text is taken from
A. a guide for new managers in a company.
B. a textbook analysis of behaviour in organisations.
C. a critical study of the importance of role signs in modern society.
D. a newspaper article about role changes.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/the-concept-of-role-theory-reading-answers/
The Department of Ethnography
The Department of Ethnography was created as a separate department within the British
Museum in 1946, offering 140 years of gradual development from the original Department of
Antiquities. It is concerned with the people of Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Pacific, and
parts of Europe. While this includes complex kingdoms, as in Africa, and ancient empires,
such as those of the Americas, the primary focus of attention in the twentieth century has
been on small-scale societies. Through its collections, the Department's specific interest is to
document how objects are created and used and to understand their importance and
significance to those who produce them. Such objects can include both the extraordinary
and the mundane, the beautiful and the banal.

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The collections of the Department of Ethnography include approximately 300,000 artefacts,
of which about half are the product of the present century. The Department has a vital role to
play in providing information on non-Western cultures to visitors and scholars. To this end,
the collecting emphasis has often been less on individual objects than on groups of material
which allow the display of a broad range of a society's cultural expressions.
Much of the more recent collecting was carried out in the field, sometimes by Museum staff
working on general anthropological projects in collaboration with a wide variety of national
governments and other institutions. The material collected includes great technical series -
for instance, textiles from Bolivia, Guatemala, Indonesia, and areas of West Africa - or
artefact types such as boats. The latter includes working examples of coracles from India,
reed boars from Lake Titicaca in the Andes, kayaks from the Arctic, and dug-out canoes
from several countries. The field assemblages, such as those from Sudan, Madagascar, and
Yemen, include a whole range of material cultures representative of one person. This might
cover the necessities of life of an African herdsman or an Arabian farmer, ritual objects, or
even on occasion airport art. Again, a series of acquisitions might represent a decade's
fieldwork documenting the social experience as expressed in the varieties of clothing and
jewellery styles, tents, and camel trappings from various Middle Eastern countries, or in the
developing preferences in personal adornment and dress from Papua New Guinea.
Particularly interesting is a series of collections that continue to document the evolution of
ceremony and of material forms for which the Department already possesses early (if not the
earliest) collections formed after the first contact with Europeans.
The importance of these acquisitions extends beyond the objects themselves. They come to
the Museum with documentation of the social context, ideally including photographic
records. Such acquisitions have multiple purposes. Most significantly they document for
future change. Most people think of the cultures represented in the collection in terms of the
absence of advanced technology. In fact, traditional practices draw on a continuing wealth of
technological ingenuity. Limited resources and ecological constraints are often overcome by
personal skills that would be regarded as exceptional in the West. Of growing interest is the
way in which much of what we might see as disposable is, elsewhere, recycled and reused.
With the Independence of much of Asia and Africa after 1945, it was assumed that economic
progress would rapidly lead to the disappearance or assimilation of many small-scale
societies. Therefore, it was felt that the Museum should acquire materials representing
people whose art or material culture, ritual, or political structures were on the point of
irrevocable change. This attitude altered with the realization that marginal communities can
survive and adapt In spire of partial integration into a notoriously fickle world economy. Since
the seventeenth century, with the advent of trading companies exporting manufactured
textiles to North America and Asia, the importation of cheap goods has often contributed to
the destruction of local skills and indigenous markets. On the one hand, modern imported
goods may be used in an everyday setting, while on the other hand other traditional objects
may still be required for ritually significant events. Within this context trade and exchange,
attitudes are inverted. What are utilitarian objects to a Westerner may be prized objects in
other cultures - when transformed by local ingenuity - principally for aesthetic value. In some
way, the West imports goods from other peoples and in certain circumstances categorizes
them as ‘art'.

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Collections act as an ever-expanding database, nor merely for scholars and anthropologists,
but for people involved in a whole range of educational and artistic purposes. These include
schools and universities as well as colleges of art and design. The provision of information
about non-Western aesthetics and techniques, not just for designers and artists but for all
visitors, is a growing responsibility for a Department whose own context is an increasingly
multicultural European society.
The department of ethnography reading questions
Questions (1-6)
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
Write answers for questions (1-6) on your answer sheet
TRUE if the statement is true according to the passage
FALSE if the statement is false according to the passage
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage
1. The twentieth-century collections come mainly from mainstream societies such as the US
and Europe.
2. The Department of Ethnography focuses mainly on modern societies.
3. The Department concentrates on collecting single unrelated objects of great value.
4. The textile collection of the Department of Ethnography is the largest in the world.
5. Traditional societies are highly inventive in terms of technology.
6. Many small-scale societies have survived and adapted in spite of predictions to the
contrary.
Questions (7-12)
Some of the exhibits at the Department of Ethnography are listed below (Questions 7-12).
The writer gives these exhibits as examples of different collection types.
Match each exhibit with the collection type with which it is associated in Reading Passage 1.
Write the appropriate letters for questions (7-12) on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any collection type more than once.
7. Bolivian textiles

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8. Indian coracles
9. airport art
10. Arctic kayaks
11. necessities of life of an Arabian farmer
12. tents from the Middle East
Collection Types
AT Artefact Types
EC Evolution of Ceremony
FA Field Assemblages
SE Social Experience
TS Technical Series
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/the-department-of-ethnography-reading-answers/
The Development of Museums
The conviction that historical relics provide infallible testimony about the past is rooted in the
nineteenth and early twentieth century, when science was regarded as objective and value
free. As one writer observes: 'Although it is now evident that artefacts are as easily altered
as chronicles, public faith in their veracity endures: a tangible relic seems ipso facto real.'
Such conviction was, until recently, reflected in museum displays. Museums used to look -
and some still do - much like storage rooms of objects packed together in showcases: good
for scholars who wanted to study the subtle differences in design, but not for the ordinary
visitor, to whom it all looked alike. Similarly, the information accompanying the objects often
made little sense to the lay visitor. The content and format of explanations dated back to a
time when the museum was the exclusive domain of the scientific researcher.
Recently, however, attitudes towards history and the way it should be presented have
altered. The key word in heritage display is now 'experience', the more exciting the better
and, if possible, involving all the senses. Good examples of this approach in the UK are the
Jorvik Centre in York; the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford;
and the Imperial War Museum in London. In the US the trend emerged much earlier:
Williamsburg has been a prototype for many heritage developments in other parts of the
world. No one can predict where the process will end. On so-called heritage sites the

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re-enactment of historical events is increasingly popular, and computers will soon provide
virtual reality experiences, which will present visitors with a vivid image of the period of their
choice, in which they themselves can act as if part of the historical environment. Such
developments have been criticized as an intolerable vulgarization, but the success of many
historical theme parks and similar locations suggests that the majority of the public does not
share this opinion.
In a related development, the sharp distinction between museum and heritage sites on the
one hand, and theme parks on the other, is gradually evaporating. They already borrow
ideas and concepts from one another. For example, museums have adopted story lines for
exhibitions, sites have accepted theming as a relevant tool, and theme parks are moving
towards more authenticity and research-based presentations. In zoos, animals are no longer
kept in cages, but in great spaces, either in the open air or in enormous greenhouses, such
as the jungle and desert environments in Burgers Zoo in Holland. This particular trend is
regarded as one of the major developments in the presentation of natural history in the
twentieth century.
Theme parks are undergoing other changes, too, as they try to present more serious social
and cultural issues, and move away from fantasy. This development is a response to market
forces and, although museums and heritage sites have a special, rather distinct, role to fulfill
they are also operating in a very competitive environment, where visitors make choices on
how and where to spend their free time. Heritage and museum experts do not have to invent
stories and recreate historical environments to attract their visitors: their assets are already
in place. However, exhibits must be both based on artifacts and facts as we know them, and
attractively presented. Those who are professionally engaged in the art of interpreting history
are thus in a difficult position, as they must steer a narrow course between the demands of
'evidence' and 'attractiveness', especially given the increasing need in the heritage industry
for income-generating activities.
It could be claimed that in order to make everything in heritage more 40 'real', historical
accuracy must be increasingly altered. For example, Pithecanthropus erectus is depicted in
an Indonesian museum with Malay facial features, because this corresponds to public
perceptions. Similarly, in the Museum of Natural History in Washington, Neanderthal man is
shown making a dominant gesture to his wife. Such presentations tell us more about
contemporary perceptions of the world than about our ancestors. There is one
compensation, however, for the professionals who make these interpretations: if they did not
provide the interpretation, visitors would do it for themselves, based on their own ideas,
misconceptions and prejudices. And no matter how exciting the result, it would contain a lot
more bias than the presentations provided by experts.
Human bias is inevitable, but another source of bias in the representation of history has to
do with the transitory nature of the materials themselves. The simple fact is that not
everything from history survives the historical process. Castles, palaces and cathedrals have
a longer lifespan than the dwellings of ordinary people. The same applies to the furnishings
and other contents of the premises. In a town like Leyden in Holland, which in the
seventeenth century was occupied by approximately the same number of inhabitants as
today, people lived within the walled town, an area more than five times smaller than modern
Leyden. In most of the houses several families lived together in circumstances beyond our

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imagination. Yet in museums, fine period rods give only an image of the lifestyle of the upper
class of that era. No wonder that people who stroll around exhibitions are filled with
nostalgia; the evidence in museums indicates that life was so much better in the past. This
notion is induced by the bias in its representation in museums and heritage centres.
Questions 27 - 30 (Matching Headings)
The Development of museums reading passage has six paragraphs, A-F.

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B-E from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-vii, in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i. Commercial pressures on people in charge

ii. Mixed views on current changes to museums
iii. Interpreting the facts to meet visitor expectations
iv. The international dimension
v. Collections of factual evidence
vi. Fewer differences between public attractions
vii. Current reviews and suggestions
Example
Paragraph A = v
27. Paragraph B
28. Paragraph C
29. Paragraph D
30. Paragraph E
Questions 5 - 10 (Multiple Choice Questions)
Write the correct letter to the questions 5-10 on your answer sheet.
31. Compared with today’s museums, those of the past
A did not present history in a detailed way.

B were not primarily intended for the public.
C were more clearly organised.
D preserved items with greater care.
32. According to the writer, current trends in the heritage industry
A emphasise personal involvement.

B have their origins in York and London.

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C rely on computer images.
D reflect minority tastes.
33. The writer says that museums, heritage sites and theme parks
A often work in close partnership.

B try to preserve separate identities.
C have similar exhibits.
D are less easy to distinguish than before.
34. The writer says that in preparing exhibits for museums, experts
A should pursue a single objective.

B have to do a certain amount of language translation.
C should be free from commercial constraints.
D have to balance conflicting priorities.
35. In paragraph E, the writer suggests that some museum exhibits
A fail to match visitor expectations.

B are based on the false assumptions of professionals.
C reveal more about present beliefs than about the past.
D allow visitors to make more use of their imagination.
36. The passage ends by noting that our view of history is biased because
A we fail to use our imagination.

B only very durable objects remain from the past.
C we tend to ignore things that displease us.
D museum exhibits focus too much on the local area.
Questions 11 - 14 (True False Not Given)
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Development of
Museums Reading Passage?
For the questions 11-14 on your answer sheet, write

37. Consumers prefer theme parks which avoid serious issues.
38. More people visit museums than theme parks.
39. The boundaries of Leyden have changed little since the seventeenth century.
40. Museums can give a false impression of how life used to be.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/the-development-of-museums-reading-answers/

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A Neuroscientist Reveals How To Think Differently
In the last decade a revolution has occurred In the way that scientists think about the brain.
We now know that the decisions humans make can be traced to the firing patterns of
neurons in specific parts of the brain. These discoveries have led to the field known as
neuroeconomics, which studies the brain's secrets to success in an economic environment
that demands innovation and being able to do things differently from competitors. A brain
that can do this is an iconoclastic one. Briefly, an iconoclast is a person who does something
that others say can't be done.
This definition implies that iconoclasts are different from other people, but more precisely, it
is their brains that are different in three distinct ways: perception, fear response, and social
intelligence. Each of these three functions utilizes a different circuit in the brain. Naysayers
might suggest that the brain is irrelevant, that thinking in an original, even revolutionary, way
is more a matter of personality than brain function. But the field of neuroeconomics was born
out of the realization that the physical workings of the brain place limitations on the way we
make decisions. By understanding these constraints, we begin to understand why some
people march to a different drumbeat.
The first thing to realize is that the brain suffers from limited resources. It has a fixed energy
budget, about the same as a 40 watt light bulb, so it has evolved to work as efficiently as
possible. This is where most people are impeded from being an iconoclast. For example,
when confronted with information streaming from the eyes, the brain will interpret this
information in the quickest way possible. Thus it will draw on both past experience and any
other source of information, such as what other people say, to make sense of what it is
seeing. This happens all the time. The brain takes shortcuts that work so well we are hardly
ever aware of them.
We think our perceptions of the world are real, but they are only biological and electrical
rumblings. Perception is not simply a product of what your eyes or ears transmit to your
brain. More than the physical reality of photons or sound waves, perception is a product of
the brain.
Perception is central to iconoclasm. Iconoclasts see things differently to other people. Their
brains do not fall into efficiency pitfalls as much as the average person's brain. Iconoclasts,
either because they were born that way or through learning, have found ways to work
around the perceptual shortcuts that plague most people. Perception is not something that is
hardwired into the brain. It is a learned process, which is both a curse and an opportunity for
change. The brain faces the fundamental problem of interpreting physical stimuli from the
senses. Everything the brain sees, hears, or touches has multiple interpretations. The one
that is ultimately chosen is simply the brain's best theory. In technical terms, these
conjectures have their basis in the statistical likelihood of one interpretation over another and
are heavily influenced by past experience and, importantly for potential iconoclasts, what
other people say.

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The best way to see things differently to other people is to bombard the brain with things it
has never encountered before. Novelty releases the perceptual process from the chains of
past experience and forces the brain to make new judgments. Successful iconoclasts have
an extraordinary willingness to be exposed to what is fresh and different. Observation of
iconoclasts shows that they embrace novelty while most people avoid things that are
different.
The problem with novelty, however, is that it tends to trigger the brain's fear system. Fear is a
major impediment to thinking like an iconoclast and stops the average person in his tracks.
There are many types of fear, but the two that inhibit iconoclastic thinking and people
generally find difficult to deal with are fear of uncertainty and fear of public ridicule. These
may seem like trivial phobias. But fear of public speaking, which everyone must do from time
to time, afflicts one-third of the population. This makes it too common to be considered a
mental disorder. It is simply a common variant of human nature, one which iconoclasts do
not let inhibit their reactions.
Finally, to be successful iconoclasts, individuals must sell their ideas to other people. This is
where social intelligence comes in. Social intelligence is the ability to understand and
manage people in a business setting. In the last decade there has been an explosion of
knowledge about the social brain and how the brain works when groups coordinate decision
making. Neuroscience has revealed which brain circuits are responsible for functions like
understanding what other people think, empathy, fairness, and social identity. These brain
regions play key roles in whether people convince others of their ideas. Perception is
important in social cognition too. The perception of someone's enthusiasm, or reputation,
can make or break a deal. Understanding how perception becomes intertwined with social
decision making shows why successful iconoclasts are so rare.
Iconoclasts create new opportunities in every area from artistic expression to technology to
business. They supply creativity and innovation not easily accomplished by committees.
Rules aren't important to them. Iconoclasts face alienation and failure, but can also be a
major asset to any organization. It is crucial for success in any field to understand how the
iconoclastic mind works.
A Neuroscientist Reveals How To Think Differently IELTS Reading Questions
Questions 1-5
Write the correct letter in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.
1. Neuroeconomics is a field of study which seeks to
A cause a change in how scientists understand brain chemistry.

B understand how good decisions are made in the brain.
C understand how the brain is linked to achievement in competitive fields.
D trace the specific firing patterns of neurons in different areas of the brain.

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2. According to the writer, iconoclasts are distinctive because
A they create unusual brain circuits.

B their brains function differently.
C their personalities are distinctive.
D they make decisions easily.
3. According to the writer, the brain works efficiently because
A it uses the eyes quickly.

B it interprets data logically.
C it generates its own energy.
D it relies on previous events.
4. The writer says that perception is
A a combination of photons and sound waves.

B a reliable product of what your senses transmit.
C a result of brain processes.
D a process we are usually conscious of.
5. According to the writer, an iconoclastic thinker
A centralises perceptual thinking in one part of the brain.

B avoids cognitive traps.
C has a brain that is hardwired for learning.
D has more opportunities than the average person.
Questions 6-11
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage?
NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
6. Exposure to different events forces the brain to think differently.
7. Iconoclasts are unusually receptive to new experiences.
8. Most people are too shy to try different things.

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9. If you think in an iconoclastic way, you can easily overcome fear.
10. When concern about embarrassment matters less, other fears become irrelevant.
11. Fear of public speaking is a psychological illness.
Questions 12-14
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-E, below.
Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 12-14 on your answer sheet.
A requires both perceptual and social intelligence skills.
B focuses on how groups decide on an action.
C works in many fields, both artistic and scientific.
D leaves one open to criticism and rejection.
E involves understanding how organisations manage people.
12. Thinking like a successful iconoclast is demanding because it
13. The concept of the social brain is useful to iconoclasts because it
14. Iconoclasts are generally an asset because their way of thinking
Answers:
https://www.kanan.co/ielts/a-neuroscientist-reveals-how-to-think-differently-reading-answer/
Absenteeism in Nursing : A longitudinal study
Absence from work is a costly and disruptive problem for any organisation.
The cost of absenteeism in Australia has been put at 1.8 million hours per day or $1400
million annually. The study reported here was conducted in the Prince William Hospital in
Brisbane, Australia, where, prior to this time, few active steps had been taken to measure,
understand or manage the occurrence of absenteeism.
Nursing Absenteeism

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A prevalent attitude amongst many nurses in the group selected for study was that there was
no reward or recognition for not utilising the paid sick leave entitlement allowed them in their
employment conditions. Therefore, they believed they may as well take the days off sick or
otherwise. Similar attitudes have been noted by James (1989), who noted that sick leave is
seen by many workers as a right, like annual holiday leave.
Miller and Norton (1986), in their survey of 865 nursing personnel, found that 73 percent felt
they should be rewarded for not taking sick leave because some employees always used
their sick leave. Further, 67 percent of nurses felt that the administration was not
sympathetic to the problems shift work causes to employees' personal and social lives. Only
53 percent of the respondents felt that every effort was made to schedule staff fairly.
In another longitudinal study of nurses working in two Canadian hospitals, Hacket Bycio and
Guion (1989) examined the reasons why nurses were absent from work. The most frequent
reason stated for absence was minor illness to self. Other causes, in decreasing order of
frequency, were illness in the family, family social function, work to do at home, and
bereavement.
Method
In an attempt to reduce the level of absenteeism amongst the 250 Registered and Enrolled
Nurses in the present study, the Prince William management introduced three different, yet
potentially complementary, strategies over 18 months.
Strategy 1: Non-financial (material) incentives
Within the established wage and salary system it was not possible to use hospital funds to
support this strategy. However, it was possible to secure incentives from local businesses,
including free passes to entertainment parks, theatres, restaurants, etc. At the end of each
roster period, the ward with the lowest absence rate would win the prize.
Strategy 2 Flexible fair rostering
Where possible, staff were given the opportunity to determine their working schedule within
the limits of clinical needs.
Strategy 3: Individual absenteeism and counselling
Each month, managers would analyse the pattern of absence of staff with excessive sick
leave (greater than ten days per year for full-time employees). Characteristic patterns of
potential 'voluntary absenteeism' such as absence before and after days off, excessive
weekend and night duty absence, and multiple single days off were communicated to all
ward nurses and then, as necessary, followed up by action.
Results
Absence rates for the six months prior to the Incentive scheme ranged from 3.69 percent to
4.32 percent. In the following six months they ranged between 2.87 percent and 3.96

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percent. This represents a 20 percent improvement. However, analysing the absence rates
on a year-to-year basis, the overall absence rate was 3.60 percent in the first year and 3.43
percent in the following year. This represents a 5 percent decrease from the first to the
second year of the study. A significant decrease in absence over the two-year period could
not be demonstrated.
Discussion
The non-financial incentive scheme did appear to assist in controlling absenteeism in the
short term. As the scheme progressed it became harder to secure prizes and this
contributed to the program's losing momentum and finally ceasing. There were mixed results
across wards as well. For example, inwards with staff members who had a long-term
genuine illness, there was little chance of winning, and to some extent, the staff on those
wards were disempowered. Our experience would suggest that the long-term effects of
incentive awards on absenteeism are questionable.
Over the time of the study, staff were given a larger degree of control over their rosters. This
led to significant improvements in communication between managers and staff. A similar
effect was found in the implementation of the third strategy. Many of the nurses had not
realised the impact their behaviour was having on the organisation and their colleagues but
there were also staff members who felt that talking to them about their absenteeism was
'picking' on them and this usually had a negative effect on management-employee
relationships.
Conclusion
Although there has been some decrease in absence rates, no single strategy or combination
of strategies has had a significant impact on absenteeism per se. Notwithstanding the
disappointing results, it is our contention that the strategies were not in vain. Shared
ownership of absenteeism and a collaborative approach to problem-solving has facilitated
improved cooperation and communication between management and staff. It is our belief
that this improvement alone, while not tangibly measurable, has increased the ability of
management to manage the effects of absenteeism more effectively since this study.
Absenteeism in Nursing reading questions
Questions 1-7
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Cambridge 2 Reading test 3
Reading Passage 1
Write your solutions for questions (1-7) on your answer sheet
YES if the statement agrees with the information
NO if the statement contradicts the information

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1. The Prince William Hospital has been trying to reduce absenteeism amongst nurses for
many years.
2. Nurses in the Prince William Hospital study believed that there were benefits in taking as
little sick leave as possible.
3. Just over half the nurses in the 1986 study believed that management understood the
effects that shift work had on them.
4. The Canadian study found that 'illness in the family' was a greater cause of absenteeism
than 'work to do at home'.
5. In relation to management attitude to absenteeism the study at the Prince William Hospital
found similar results to the two 1989 studies.
6. The study at the Prince William Hospital aimed to find out the causes of absenteeism
amongst 250 nurses.
7. The study at the Prince William Hospital involved changes in management practices.
Questions (8-13)
Choose ONE OR TWO WORDS from the passage, for each answer.
● In the first strategy, wards with the lowest absenteeism in different periods would win
prizes donated by 8 ___________.
● In the second strategy, staff were given more control over their 9 ____________.
● In the third strategy, nurses who appeared to be taking 10 ____________ sick leave
or 11 ___________ were identified and counselled.
● Initially, there was a 12 _________ percent decrease in absenteeism.
● The first strategy was considered ineffective and stopped. The second and third
strategies generally resulted in better 13 ____________ among staff.
8. Answer is (local) businesses

9. Answer is (work/working) schedule/rostering/roster(s)
10. Answer is excessive

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11. Answer is voluntary absence/absenteeism
12. Answer is twenty/ 20
13. Answer is communication
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/absenteeism-in-nursing-reading-answers/
Why we need to protect polar bears
Polar bears are being increasingly threatened by the effects of climate change, but their
disappearance could have far-reaching consequences. They are uniquely adapted to the
extreme conditions of the Arctic Circle, where temperatures can reach -40°C. One reason for
this is that they have up to 11 centimetres of fat underneath their skin. Humans with
comparative levels of adipose tissue would be considered obese and would be likely to
suffer from diabetes and heart disease. Yet the polar bear experiences no such
consequences.
A 2014 study by Shi Ping Liu and colleagues sheds light on this mystery. They compared the
genetic structure of polar bears with that of their closest relatives from a warmer climate, the
brown bears. This allowed them to determine the genes that have allowed polar bears to
survive in one of the toughest environments on Earth. Liu and his colleagues found the polar
bears had a gene known as APoB, which reduces levels of low-density lipoproteins (LDLs) –
a form of ‘bad’ cholesterol. In humans, mutations of this gene are associated with increased
risk of heart disease. Polar bears may therefore be an important study model to understand
heart disease in humans.
The genome of the polar bear may also provide the solution for another condition, one that
particularly affects our older generation: osteoporosis. This is a disease where bones show
reduced density, usually caused by insufficient exercise, reduced calcium intake or food
starvation. Bone tissue is constantly being remodelled, meaning that bone is added or
removed, depending on nutrient availability and the stress that the bone is under. Female
polar bears, however, undergo extreme conditions during every pregnancy. Once autumn
comes around, these females will dig maternity dens in the snow and will remain there
throughout the winter, both before and after the birth of their cubs. This process results in
about six months of fasting, where the female bears have to keep themselves and their cubs
alive, depleting their own calcium and calorie reserves. Despite this, their bones remain
strong and dense.
Physiologists Alanda Lennox and Allen Goodship found an explanation for this paradox in
2008. They discovered that pregnant bears were able to increase the density of their bones
before they started to build their dens. In addition, six months later, when they finally
emerged from the den with their cubs, there was no evidence of significant loss of bone
density. Hibernating brown bears do not have this capacity and must therefore resort to
major bone reformation in the following spring. If the mechanism of bone remodelling in polar
bears can be understood, many bedridden humans, and even astronauts, could potentially
benefit.

Kanan.co
The medical benefits of the polar bear for humanity certainly have their importance in our
conservation efforts, but these should not be the only factors taken into consideration. We
tend to want to protect animals we think are intelligent and possess emotions, such as
elephants and primates. Bears, on the other hand, seem to be perceived as stupid and in
many cases violent. And yet anecdotal evidence from the field challenges those
assumptions, suggesting for example that polar bears have good problem-solving abilities. A
male bear called GoGo in Tennoji Zoo, Osaka, has even been observed making use of a tool
to manipulate his environment. The bear used a tree branch on multiple occasions to
dislodge a piece of meat hung out of his reach. Problem-solving ability has also been
witnessed in wild polar bears, although not as obviously as with GoGo. A calculated move by
a male bear involved running and jumping onto barrels in an attempt to get to a
photographer standing on a platform four metres high.
In other studies, such as one by Alison Ames in 2008, polar bears showed deliberate and
focused manipulation. For example, Ames observed bears putting objects in piles and then
knocking them over in what appeared to be a game. The study demonstrates that bears are
capable of agile and thought-out behaviours. These examples suggest bears have greater
creativity and problem-solving abilities than previously thought.
As for emotions, while the evidence is once again anecdotal, many bears have been seen to
hit out at ice and snow – seemingly out of frustration – when they have just missed out on a
kill. Moreover, polar bears can form unusual relationships with other species, including
playing with the dogs used to pull sleds in the Arctic. Remarkably, one hand-raised polar
bear called Agee has formed a close relationship with her owner Mark Dumas to the point
where they even swim together. This is even more astonishing since polar bears are known
to actively hunt humans in the wild.
If climate change were to lead to their extinction, this would mean not only the loss of
potential breakthroughs in human medicine, but more importantly, the disappearance of an
intelligent, majestic animal.
Questions 1 – 7

1. Polar bears suffer from various health problems due to the build-up of fat under their
skin.
2. The study done by Liu and his colleagues compared different groups of polar bears.

Kanan.co
3. Liu and colleagues were the first researchers to compare polar bears and brown bears
genetically.
4. Polar bears are able to control their levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol by genetic means.
5. Female polar bears are able to survive for about six months without food.
6. It was found that the bones of female polar bears were very weak when they came out of
their dens in spring.
7. The polar bear’s mechanism for increasing bone density could also be used by people
one day.
Questions 8 – 13
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Reasons why polar bears should be protected
People think of bears as unintelligent and 8 ________________
However, this may not be correct. For example:
● In Tennoji Zoo, a bear has been seen using a branch as a 9 ________________

● This allowed him to knock down some 10 ___________________
● A wild polar bear worked out a method of reaching a platform where a 11
____________ was located.
● Polar bears have displayed behaviour such as conscious manipulation of objects and
activity similar to a 12 _________________
Bears may also display emotions. For example

:
● They may make movements suggesting 13 ____________ if disappointed when
hunting.
● They may form relationships with other species.
Answers: https://www.kanan.co/ielts/why-we-need-to-protect-polar-bears-reading-answers/

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IELTS Reading

Practice Test with

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This reading passage has eight paragraphs labeled A-I.

I. Change in the environment has always been a part of our lives.

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Choose the appropriate letters A-D

9. The author contends that

10 According to the writer,

11. Humanity's connection with water has always been fraught.

Bring back the big cats

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Rewilding is one of the rare examples of environmental movement where campaigners

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Bring back the big cats IELTS reading questions

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

a. It has distinctive physical appearance

a. Biodiversity will increase by its presence

3. What is suggested by the writer about British conservation?

a. The target was missed to achieve

a. Loss for the fishing industry

a. The message is appealing and positive.

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Complete the summary below

Do the following statements match the information with the passage?

TRUE if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

William Gilbert and Magnetism

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E. Gilbert’s discoveries were so important to modern physics. He investigated the nature

F. He also questioned the traditional astronomical beliefs. He didn’t express in his

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G. In his revolutionary research methods he used experiments instead of reasoning and

William Gilbert and Magnetism IELTS Reading questions

IELTS Reading Table Completion Questions 1-5

Complete the table below.

1 ______________ Gilbert was born

2. ______________ Queen Elizabeth died

3. ______________ Spanish Armada was defeated

4. ______________ Gilbert graduated from St. John’s College

1580 William Gilbert conducted 5. ___________ ingenious

IELTS Reading Locating Information Questions 6-10

This reading passage has eight paragraphs, A–G.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A - G, as your answer to each question.

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8. Gilbert coined the word “electric”.

9. He believed that stars have their own earth-like planets.

10. Gilbert was interested in chemistry first.

IELTS Reading Summary Completion Questions 11-14

Complete the summary below.

European Transport System

A. It is hard to imagine serious economic development without an efficient transportation

B. As far as freight is concerned, development is largely due to changes in the

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European transport system IELTS reading questions

This reading passage has nine paragraphs, A–I.