READING 02.12.23

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READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading
Passage 1 on pages 2 and 3.
Categorizing societies
When research scholars, including archaeologists and anthropologists, study societies

past or present, it can be very useful to have a system of ranking against which to test
their ideas. A fourfold categorizing system was developed by the American
anthropologist Elman Service; each grouping is associated with certain types of site and
settlement. The four types are known as bands, tribes, chiefdoms and early states.
Bands
These are small-scale societies, generally of fewer than 100 people, who live by hunting
and gathering, moving seasonally to take advantage of wild (undomesticated) food
sources. Most groups who live in this way today, such as the Hadza of Tanzania or the
San of southern Africa, would be classified as bands. The members of one band are
generally related to each other, either by descent or by marriage. Bands lack formal
leaders, so that there are no clear economic differences or other differences in status
among the members. Because bands are composed of mobile groups, their sites
consist mainly of seasonally occupied camps, and some other sites, such as work sites,
where tools are made or other specific activities are carried out Archaeological sites
associated with this type of society may show evidence of insubstantial dwellings, along
with the debris of residential occupation. Most sites from the Paleolithic period (more
than 12,000 years ago) seem to be associated with groups of this type.
Tribes
These are generally larger than bands, but rarely number more than a few thousand
people, whose diet is mainly based on plants or domestic animals. Typically, these
people are settled farmers, but for some groups life is nomadic, with a mobile economy
based on herds of animals. Although some tribes have officials, these lack the
economic base necessary for effective use of power. The typical settlement pattern for
tribes is one of permanent agricultural homesteads or villages. Characteristically, no
one settlement dominates any of the others in the region. Instead; the archaeologist
often finds evidence of isolated, permanently occupied houses, or permanent villages.
These latter may be made up of a collection of free-standing houses like those of the
first farmers of the Danube Valley in Europe, or their houses may be grouped together,
as in the pueblos of the American southwest, or the early farming village of Catalhoyik
in what is now Turkey.
Chiefdoms
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These operate on the principle of ranking - differences in social status between people.
Different lineages (groups claiming descent from a common ancestor) are graded on a
scale of prestige, and the senior lineage, and hence the society as a whole, is governed
by a chief. Prestige and rank are determined by how closely related one is to the chief,
and there is no true stratification into classes. The role of the chief is crucial. Often,
there is local specialisation in craft products such as pottery, cloth and leatherware, and
any surplus of these and of foodstuffs is periodically paid to the chief, He uses these to
pay his retainers, and may also redistribute them to his subjects as rewards. The
chiefdom generally has a centre of power, often with temples, residences of the chief
and his retainers, and craft specialists, Chiefdoms vary greatly in size, but the range is
generally between 5,000and 20,000 persons Chiefdoms give indications that some sites
were more important than others, and may have operated as permanent ritual and
ceremonial centres, although the were not centres with an established bureaucracy.
Examples are Moundville in Alabama USA, or the late Neolithic monuments of Wessex
in southern Britain, including the famous ceremonial centre of Stonehenge.
Early states
These preserve many of the features of chiefdoms, but the ruler, perhaps a king or
queen has explicit authority to establish laws and to enforce them by the use of a
standing army The society no longer depends on kin relationships, but is stratified into
different classes.
Agricultural workers and the poorer urban dwellers make up the base of the pyramid,
with the craft specialists above them and the priests and relatives of the ruler higher still.
The
society is regarded as a territory owned by the ruling lineage, and populated by tenants
w have the obligation to pay taxes. The central capital houses the officials of a
bureaucratic administration. One of their main functions is to collect revenue (often in
the form of taxes and tolls) and distribute it to government, ary and craft specialists.
Many early states developed complex distribution systems to support these essential
services.
Early state societies show a characteristic settlement pattern in which cities play the
predominant part. The city is typically a large population centre, often of more than
5,000 people, with major public buildings, and often there is a pronounced settlement
hierarchy with the capital city as the major centre, and subsidiary or regional centres as
well as loc villages. Certainly, it would be wrong to overemphasise the importance of the
four types society given above, or to spend too long agonising as to whether a particular
society should be classified in one category or another, However, in seeking to talk
about early societies, we must use words and hence concepts to do so, Elman Service's
categories provide us with a good framework to organize our thoughts. They should not,
however, deflect us from focusing on changes over time in the different institutions of a
society. whether in the social sphere, the organisation of the food quest, technology,
contact and tor exchange, or the spiritual life.
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Questions 1-7
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 12
In boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
TRUE FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN there is no information on this
1. There is usually little difference in wealth between the various members of a

band.
2. In tribes, farmers typically grow a wide range of food plants.
3. A typical tribe has one settlement which is more important than others.
4. In a chiefdom, social status usually depends on the amount of land a person
owns
5. A chiefdom typically contains some workers who are engaged in making goods.
6. An early state may depend on military power to maintain law and order.
7. Bureaucratic officials in early states receive higher salaries than any other
workers
Questions 8 - 13
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for
each answer
Wite your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.
8. What items do bands produce at work sites?
9. Which way of life, apart from settled farming, may be followed by people in tribes?
10. How were houses arranged in the village of Catalh&yak?
11. Which items, apart from craft goods, may be given by a chief to members of his
chiefdom?
12. What is usually the maximum number of people living in a society which has a
chief?
13. Apart from less wealthy inhabitants of cities, which group forms the lowest class in
an early state?
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READING PASSAGE 2
Undoing our emotions

A. Three generations ago, 180 young women wrote essays describing why they wanted
to join a convent (a religious community of nuns). Years later, a team of psychological
researchers came across these autobiographies in the convent's archives. The
researchers were seeking material to confirm earlier studies hinting at a link between
having a good vocabulary in youth and a low risk of Alzheimer's disease in old age.
What they found was even more amazing. The researchers found that, although the
young women were in their early twenties when they wrote their essays, the emotions
expressed in these writings were predictive of how long they would live: those with
upbeat autobiographies lived more than ten years longer than those whose language
was more neutral. Deborah Danner, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky who
spearheaded the study, noted that the results were particularly striking because all
members of the convent lived similar lifestyles, eliminating many findings that normally
make it difficult to interpret longevity studies. It was a phenomenal finding, she says. "A
researcher gets a finding like that maybe once in a lifetime. However, she points out
that no one has been able to determine why positive emotions might have such life-
extending effects.
B. Barbara Fredrickson, Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, believes

that part of the answer is the undo effect. According to this theory, positive emotions
help you live longer by shutting down the effects of negative ones. Fredrickson's theory
begins with the observation that negative emotions, like fear and stress, enhance our
flight-or-fight response to very real threats. However, even when the emergency is
gone, negative emotions produce lingering effects. Brooks Gump, a stress researcher at
the State University of New York, explains that one of these effects is excessive
cardiovascular reactivity. Behaviorally, Gump says, this reactivity is related to excessive
vigilance: the state of being constantly on guard for potential dangers. Not only is it
physically draining to live in a perpetual state of high vigilance, but high cardiovascular
reactivity could be linked to increased chances of a heart attack.
C. Fredrickson believes positive emotions work their magic by producing a rapid

unwinding of pent-up tension, restoring the system to normal. People who quickly
bounce back from stress often speed the process by harnessing such emotions as
amusement, interest, excitement, and happiness, she says. To test her theory,
Fredrickson told a group of student volunteers that they. had only a few minutes lo
prepare a speech that would be critiqued by experts. After letting the students get
nervous about that, Fredrickson then told them they wouldn't actually have to deliver
their speeches. She monitored heart rates and blood pressure. Not surprisingly, all
students got nervous about their speeches, but those who viewed the experiment with
good-humored excitement saw their heart rates return to normal much more quickly
than those who were angry about being fooled. In a second experiment, Fredrickson
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reported that even those who normally were slow to bounce back could be coached to
recover more quickly by being told to view the experiment as a challenge, rather than a
threat.
D. Fredrickson believes that positive emotions make people more flexible and
creative. Negative emotions, she says, give a heightened sense of detail that makes us
hypersensitive to minute clues related to the source of a threat. But that also produces
‘tunnel vision’ in which we ignore anything unrelated to the danger. Fredrickson
speculated that just as positive emotions can undo the cardiovascular effects of
negative ones, they may also reverse the attention-narrowing effects of negative
feelings: broadening our perspectives.
E. To verify her theory, Fredrickson showed a group of students some film clips- some
saw frightening clips, some saw humorous ones or peaceful ones. They then did a
matching test in which they were shown a simple drawing and asked which of two other
drawings it most resembled. The drawings were designed so that people would tend to
give one answer if they focused on details, and another answer if they focused on the
big picture. The results confirmed Fredrickson’s suspicion that positive emotions affect
our perceptions. Students who had seen the humorous or peaceful clips were more
likely to match objects according to broad impressions.
F. This fits with the role that positive emotions might have played in early human
tribes, Fredrickson says. Negative emotions provided focus, which was important for
surviving in life-or-death situations, but the ability to feel positive emotions was of long-
term value because it opened the mind to new ideas. Humour is a good example of this.
She says: ‘The emotions are transient, but the resources are durable. If you build a
friendship through being playful, that friendship is a lasting resource.’ So while the good
feelings may pass, the friendship remains. On an individual level, Fredrickson’s theory
also says that taking time to do things that make you feel happy isn’t simply self-
indulgent. Not only are these emotions good for the individual, but they are also good
for society.
G. Other researchers are intrigued by Fredrickson’s findings. Susan Folkman, of the

University of California, has spent two decades studying how people cope with long-
term stresses such as bereavement, or caring for a chronically ill child. Contrary to what
one might expect, she says, these people frequently experience positive emotions.
‘These emotions aren’t there by accident’, she adds. ‘Mother Nature doesn’t work that
way, I think that they give a person time out from the intense stress to restore their
resources and keep going. This is very consistent with Fredrickson’s work.’
QUESTIONS 1-6
Reading Passage has seven sections, A-G.
Which section contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.
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NB You may use any letter more than once.
1. a conclusion that it is possible to train people to deal with anxiety conclusive evidence
that lifespan can be influenced by emotions.
2. an explanation of the way negative emotions affect what people concentrate on
3. an experiment that showed how a positive outlook can help people adjust to
4. a stressful situation faster than others
5. a discovery beyond what researchers were investigating
6. an experiment where the nature of a material seen by participants affected the way they
performed a task
QUESTIONS 7-10
Look at the following statements (Questions 7-10) and the list of researchers below.
Match each statement with the correct researcher, A-D.
Write the correct letter, A-D, in boxes 7-10 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.

List of Researchers
A Deborah Danner
B Barbara Fredrickson
C Brooks Gump
D Susan Folkman
7.People whose daily lives are stressful often have surprisingly positive emotions.
8.The body’s reaction to a crisis may trigger a life-threatening event.
9.It is unusual to have a study group whose circumstances were very alike.
10.The reasons for a link between positive emotions and a longer life have not been established.
QUESTIONS 11-13
Complete the sentences below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet.
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11. In early tribes, negative emotions gave humans the 11……………….

that they needed to deal with emergencies.
12. Fredrickson believes that a passing positive emotion can lead to an enduring asset such as a
12………………., which is useful in times to come.
13. Fredrickson also believes that both individuals and 13………………. benefit from positive
emotions.
READING PASSAGE 3
The Voynich Manuscript
The starkly modern Beinecke Library at Yale University is home to some of the most
valuable books in the world: first folios of Shakespeare, Gutenberg Bibles and
manuscripts from the early Middle Ages, Yet the library's most controversial possession
is an unprepossessing vellum manuscript about the size of a hardback book, containing
240-odd pages of drawings and text of unknown age and authorship. Catalogued as
MS408, the manuscript would attract little attention were it not for the fact that the
drawings hint at esoteric knowledge, while the text seems to be some sort of code - one
that no-one has been able to break. It's known to scholars as the Voynich manuscript,
after the American book dealer Wilfrid Voynich, who bought the manuscript from a
Jesuit college in Italy in 1912.
Over the years, the manuscript has attracted the attention of everyone from amateur
dabblers to top codebreakers, all determined to succeed where countless others have
failed. Academic research papers, books and websites are devoted to making sense of
the contents of the manuscript, which are freely available to all "Most other mysteries
involve secondhand reports,' says Dr Gordon Rugg of Keele University, a leading
Voynich expert. But this is one that you can see for yourself.
It is certainly strange: page after page of drawings of weird plants, astrological

symbolism and human figures, accompanied by a script that looks like some form of
shorthand. What does it say and what are the drawings about? Voynich himself
believed that the manuscript was the work of the 13th century English monk Roger
Bacon, famed for his knowledge of alchemy, philosophy and science. In 1921 Voynich's
view that Bacon was the writer appeared to win support from the work of William
Newbold, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, who claimed to
have found the key to the cipher system used by Bacon. According to Newbold, the
manuscript proved that Bacon had access to a microscope centuries before they were
supposedly first invented. They claim that this mediaeval monk had observed living cells
created a sensation. It soon became clear, however, that Newbold had fallen victim to
wishful thinking. Other scholars showed that his 'decoding' methods produced a host of
possible interpretations. The Voynich manuscript has continued to defy the efforts of
world-class experts. In 1944, a team was assembled to tackle the mystery, led by
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William Friedman, the renowned American codebreaker. They began with the most
basic code breaking task: analysing the relative frequencies of the characters making
up the text, looking for signs of an underlying structure. Yet Friedman’s team soon
found themselves in deep water. The precise size of the ‘alphabet’ of the Voynich
manuscript was unclear: it's possible to make out more than 70 distinct symbols among
the 170,000-character text. Furthermore, Friedman discovered that some words and
phrases appeared more often than expected in a standard language, casting doubt on
claims that the manuscript concealed a real language, as encryption typically reduces
word frequencies.
Friedman concluded that the most plausible resolution of this paradox was that
"Voynichese' is some sort of specially created artificial language, whose words are
devised from concepts, rather than linguistics. So, could the Voynich manuscript be the
earliest known example of an artificial language? Friedman's hypothesis commands
respect because of the lifetime of crypt analytical expertise he brought to bear,' says
Rob Churchill, co-. author of 7heVoynich Manuscript, that still leaves a host of questions
unanswered, however, such as the identity of the author and the meaning of the bizarre
drawings. 'It does little to advance our understanding of the manuscript as a whole,'
says Churchill. Even though Friedman was working more than 60 years ago, he
suspected that major insights would come reality that the device that had already
transformed codebreaking: the computer. In this he was right - it is now the key tool for
uncovering clues about the pleasure from manuscript's language.
The insights so far have been perplexing. For example, in 2001 another leading Voynich
scholar, Dr Gabriel Landin of Birmingham University in the UK, published the results of
his study of the manuscript using a pattern-detecting method called spectral analysis.
This revealed evidence that the manuscript contains genuine words, rather than random
nonsense, consistent with the existence of some underlying natural language. Yet the
following year, Voynich expert Ren Zandbergen of the European Space Agency in
Darmstadt, Germany showed that the entropy of the text (a measure of the rate of
transfer of information) was consistent with Friedman's suspicions that an artificial
language had been used.
Many are convinced that the Voynich manuscript isn't a hoax. For how could a medieval
hoaxer create so many telltale signs of a message from random nonsense? Yet even
this has been challenged in new research by Rugg.
Using a system, first published by the Italian mathematician Girolamo Cardano in

1150in which a specially constructed grille issued to pick out symbols from a table,
Rugg found he could rapidly generate text with many of the basic traits of the Voynich
manuscript. Publishing his results in 2004Rugg stresses that he hadn't set out to prove
the manuscript a hoax. 'I simply demonstrated that it's feasible to hoax something this
complex in a few months, he says. Inevitably, others beg to differ. Some scholars, such
as Zandbergen, still suspect the text has genuine meaning, though believe it may never
be decipherable. Others, such as Churchill, have suggested that the sheer weirdness of
the illustrations and text hint at an author who had lost touch with reality. What is clear is
that the book-sized manuscript kept under lock and key at Yale University has lost none
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of its fascination. "Many derive great intellectual pleasure from solving puzzles,' says
Rugg. The Voynich manuscript is as challenging a puzzle as anyone could ask for.
Questions 27- 30
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet, write
27. It is uncertain when the Voynich manuscript was written.
28. Wilfrid Voynich donated the manuscript to the Beinecke Library.
29. Interest in the Voynich manuscript extends beyond that of academics and
professional codebreakers.
30. The text of the Voynich manuscript contains just under 70 symbols
Questions 31 - 34
Look at the following statements (Questions 31-34) and the list of people below.
Match each statement with the correct person, A-H.
Write the correct letter, A-H, in boxes 31-34 on your answer sheet.
31. The number of times that some words occur make it unlikely that the manuscript is
based on an authentic language.
32. Unlike some other similar objects of fascination, people can gain direct access to
the Voynich manuscript.
33. The person who wrote the manuscript may not have been entirely sane.
34. It is likely that the author of the manuscript is the same person as suggested by
Wilfrid Voynich
List of People
A Gordon Rugg
B Roger Bacon
C William Newbold
D William Friedman
E Rob Churchill
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F Gabriel Landini
G Ren Zandbergen
H Girolamo Cardano
Questions 35-39
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 35-39 on your answer sheet.
Voynich Researchers
William Newbold believed that the author of the Voynich manuscript had been able to
look at cells through a 35…………………., Other researchers later demonstrated that
there were flaws in his argument. William Friedman concluded that the manuscript was
written in an artificial language that was based on 36……………… He couldn’t find out
the meaning of this language but he believed that the 37 ……………………would
continue to bring advances in code breaking.
Dr Gabriel Landini used a system known as 38…………………… in his research, and

claims to have demonstrated the presence of genuine words.
Dr Gordon Rugg's system involved a grille, that made it possible to quickly select
symbols that appeared in a 39……………………Rugg's conclusion was that the
manuscript lacked genuine meaning.
Question 40
Choose the correct letter, A, B, Cor D
Write the correct letter in box 40 on your answer sheet.
The writer's main aim in this passage is to
A. explain the meaning of the manuscript.

B. determine the true identity of the manuscript's author.
C. describe the numerous attempts to decode the manuscript.
D. identify which research into the manuscript has had the most media coverage.
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IELTS TƯ DUY PEEL TO CORE

When research scholars, including archaeologists and anthropologists, study societies

In boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

TRUE FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN there is no information on this

1. There is usually little difference in wealth between the various members of a

Answer the questions below.

Wite your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.

8. What items do bands produce at work sites?

10. How were houses arranged in the village of Catalh&yak?

Undoing our emotions

B. Barbara Fredrickson, Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, believes

C. Fredrickson believes positive emotions work their magic by producing a rapid

G. Other researchers are intrigued by Fredrickson’s findings. Susan Folkman, of the

Reading Passage has seven sections, A-G.

Which section contains the following information?

NB You may use any letter more than once.

2. an explanation of the way negative emotions affect what people concentrate on

4. a stressful situation faster than others

5. a discovery beyond what researchers were investigating

Match each statement with the correct researcher, A-D.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

8.The body’s reaction to a crisis may trigger a life-threatening event.

Complete the sentences below.

Write your answers in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet.

11. In early tribes, negative emotions gave humans the 11……………….

It is certainly strange: page after page of drawings of weird plants, astrological

Using a system, first published by the Italian mathematician Girolamo Cardano in

In boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet, write

27. It is uncertain when the Voynich manuscript was written.

28. Wilfrid Voynich donated the manuscript to the Beinecke Library.

Match each statement with the correct person, A-H.

Write your answers in boxes 35-39 on your answer sheet.

Dr Gabriel Landini used a system known as 38…………………… in his research, and

Choose the correct letter, A, B, Cor D

Write the correct letter in box 40 on your answer sheet.

The writer's main aim in this passage is to

A. explain the meaning of the manuscript.

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