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| IELTS Reading Practice Test 24 Posted: 09 Dec 2016 02:09 AM PST Reading Passage 1You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. Can animals count? Prime among basic numerical faculties is the ability to distinguish between a larger and a smaller number, says psychologist Elizabeth Brannon. Humans can do this with ease – providing the ratio is big enough – but do other animals share this ability? In one experiment, rhesus monkeys and university students examined two sets of geometrical objects that appeared briefly on a computer monitor. They had to decide which set contained more objects. Both groups performed successfully but, importantly, Brannon's team found that monkeys, like humans, make more errors when two sets of objects are close in number. The students' performance ends up looking just like a monkey's. It's practically identical,' she says. Humans and monkeys are mammals, in the animal family known as primates. These are not the only animals whose numerical capacities rely on ratio, however. The same seems to apply to some amphibians. Psychologist Claudia Uller's team tempted salamanders with two sets of fruit flies held in clear tubes. In a series of trials, the researchers noted which tube the salamanders scampered towards, reasoning that if they had a capacity to recognise number, they would head for the larger number. The salamanders successfully discriminated between tubes containing 8 and 16 flies respectively, but not between 3 and 4, 4 and 6, or 8 and 12. So it seems that for the salamanders to discriminate between two numbers, the larger must be at least twice as big as the smaller. However, they could differentiate between 2 and 3 flies just as well as between 1 and 2 flies, suggesting they recognise small numbers in a different way from larger numbers. Further support for this theory comes from studies of mosquitofish, which instinctively join the biggest shoal* they can. A team at the University of Padova found that while mosquitofish can tell the difference between a group containing 3 shoal-mates and a group containing 4, they did not show a preference between groups of 4 and 5. The team also found that mosquitofish can discriminate between numbers up to 16, but only if the ratio between the fish in each shoal was greater than 2:1. This indicates that the fish, like salamanders, possess both the approximate and precise number systems found in more intelligent animals such as infant humans and other primates. While these findings are highly suggestive, some critics argue that the animals might be relying on other factors to complete the tasks, without considering the number itself. 'Any study that's claiming an animal is capable of representing number should also be controlling for other factors,' says Brannon. Experiments have confirmed that primates can indeed perform numerical feats without extra clues, but what about the more primitive animals? To consider this possibility, the mosquitofish tests were repeated, this time using varying geometrical shapes in place of fish. The team arranged these shapes so that they had the same overall surface area and luminance even though they contained a different number of objects. Across hundreds of trials on 14 different fish, the team found they consistently discriminated 2 objects from 3. The team is now testing whether mosquitofish can also distinguish 3 geometric objects from 4. Even more primitive organisms may share this ability. Entomologist Jurgen Tautz sent a group of bees down a corridor, at the end of which lay two chambers – one which contained sugar water, which they like, while the other was empty. To test the bees' numeracy, the team marked each chamber with a different number of geometrical shapes – between 2 and 6. The bees quickly learned to match the number of shapes with the correct chamber. Like the salamanders and fish, there was a limit to the bees' mathematical prowess – they could differentiate up to 4 shapes, but failed with 5 or 6 shapes. These studies still do not show whether animals learn to count through training, or whether they are born with the skills already intact. If the latter is true, it would suggest there was a strong evolutionary advantage to a mathematical mind. Proof that this may be the case has emerged from an experiment testing the mathematical ability of three- and four-day-old chicks. Like mosquitofish, chicks prefer to be around as many of their siblings as possible, so they will always head towards a larger number of their kin. If chicks spend their first few days surrounded by certain objects, they become attached to these objects as if they were family. Researchers placed each chick in the middle of a platform and showed it two groups of balls of paper. Next, they hid the two piles behind screens, changed the quantities and revealed them to the chick. This forced the chick to perform simple computations to decide which side now contained the biggest number of its "brothers". Without any prior coaching, the chicks scuttled to the larger quantity at a rate well above chance. They were doing some very simple arithmetic, claim the researchers. Why these skills evolved is not hard to imagine, since it would help almost any animal forage for food. Animals on the prowl for sustenance must constantly decide which tree has the most fruit, or which patch of flowers will contain the most nectar. There are also other, less obvious, advantages of numeracy. In one compelling example, researchers in America found that female coots appear to calculate how many eggs they have laid – and add any in the nest laid by an intruder – before making any decisions about adding to them. Exactly how ancient these skills are is difficult to determine, however. Only by studying the numerical abilities of more and more creatures using standardised procedures can we hope to understand the basic preconditions for the evolution of number. Questions 1-7 Complete the table below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your anwsers in boxes 1-7 on your anwer sheet.
Questions 8-13 Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet, write TRUE if the statement agrees with the information FALSE if the statement contradicts the information NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
Reading Passage 2You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below. Questions 14-18 Reading Passage 2 has five paragraphs A-E. Choose the correct heading for each paragraph, A-E, from the list of headings below. Write the correct number, i-viii, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.
A Close up, plastic packaging can be a marvellous thing. Those who make a living from it call it a forgotten infrastructure that allows modern urban life to exist. Plastics have helped society defy natural limits such as the seasons, the rotting of food and the distance most of us live from where our food is produced. And yet we do not like it. Partly we do not like waste, but plastic waste, with its hydrocarbon roots and industrial manufacture, is especially galling. In 2008, the UK, for example, produced around two million tonnes of plastic waste, twice as much as in the early 1990s. The very qualities of plastic – its cheapness, its indestructible aura – make it a reproachful symbol of an unsustainable way of life. The facts, however, do not justify our unease. All plastics are, at least theoretically, recyclable. Plastic packaging makes up just 6 to 7 per cent of the contents of British dustbins by weight and less than 3 per cent of landfill. Supermarkets and brands, which are under pressure to reduce the quantity of packaging of all types that they use, are finding good environmental reasons to turn to plastic: it is lighter, so requires less energy for transportation than glass, for example; it requires relatively little energy to produce; and it is often re-usable. An Austrian study found that if plastic packaging were removed from the supply chain, other packaging would have to increase fourfold to make up for it. B So are we just wrong about plastic packaging? Is it time to stop worrying and learn to love the disposable plastic wrapping around sandwiches? Certainly there are bigger targets for environmental savings such as improving household insulation and energy emissions. Naturally, the plastics industry is keen to point. them out. What's more, concern over plastic packaging has produced a squall of conflicting initiatives from retailers, manufacturers and local authorities. It's a squall that dies down and then blows harder from one month to the next. 'It is being left to the individual conscience and supermarkets playing the market,' says Tim Lang, a professor specialising in food policy. Tt's a mess.' C Dick Searle of the Packaging Federation points out that societies without sophisticated packaging lose half their food before it reaches consumers and that in the UK, waste in supply chains is about 3 per cent. In India, it is more than 50 per cent. The difference comes later: the British throw out 30 per cent of the food they buy – an environmental cost in terms of emissions equivalent to a fifth of the cars on their roads. Packagers agree that cardboard, metals and glass all have their good points, but there's nothing quite like plastic. With more than 20 families of polymers to choose from and then sometimes blend, packaging designers and manufacturers have a limitless variety of qualities to play with. D But if there is one law of plastic that, in environmental terms at least, prevails over all others, it is this: a little goes a long way. This means, first, that plastic is relatively cheap to use – it represents just over one-third of the UK packaging market by value but it wraps more than half the total number of items bought. Second, it means that even though plastic encases about 53 per cent of products bought, it only makes up 20 per cent by weight of the packaging consumed. And in the packaging equation, weight is the main issue because the heavier something is, the more energy you expend moving it around. In view of this, righteous indignation against plastic can look foolish. E One store commissioned a study to find precise data on which had less environmental impact: selling apples loose or ready-wrapped. Helene Roberts, head of packaging, explains that in fact they found apples in fours on a tray covered by plastic film needed 27 per cent less packaging in transportation than those sold loose. Steve Kelsey, a packaging designer, finds the debate frustrating. He argues that the hunger to do something quickly is diverting effort away from more complicated questions about how you truly alter supply chains. Rather than further reducing the weight of a plastic bottle, more thought should be given to how packaging can be recycled. Helene Roberts explains that their greatest packaging reduction came when the company switched to re-usable plastic crates and stopped consuming 62,000 tonnes of cardboard boxes every year. Plastic packaging is important, and it might provide a way of thinking about broader questions of sustainability. To target plastic on its own is to evade the complexity of the issues. There seems to be a universal eagerness to condemn plastic. Is this due to an inability to make the general changes in society that are really required? 'Plastic as a lightweight food wrapper is now built in as the logical thing,' Lang says. 'Does that make it an environmentally sound system of packaging? It only makes sense if you have a structure such as exists now. An environmentally driven packaging system would look completely different.' Dick Searle put the challenge another way. 'The amount of packaging used today is a reflection of modern life.' Questions 19-23 Look at the following statements (Questions 19-23) and the list of people below. Match each statement to the correct person A-D. Write the correct letter, A-D, in boxes 19-23 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.
Questions 24-26 Complete the summary below. Write NO MORE THAN ONE WORD from the text for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet. A revolutionary material Plastic packaging has changed the way we consume food. However, we instinctively dislike it, partly because it is the product of 24 ……… processes, but also because it seems to be 25 ……………. so we feel it is wasteful. Nevertheless, it is thanks to plastic that for many people their choice of food is no longer restricted by the 26 ……….. in which it is available or the location of its source.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A | adult | B | practical | C | verbal |
| D | spatial | E | inquisitive | F | uncertain |
| G | academic | H | plentiful | I | unfamiliar |
Researchers investigating the development of intelligence have shown that 37 …………… skills become more significant with age. One good predictor of 38……………………. intelligence is the degree to which small children are 39………………………… about their surroundings and how much interest they show on finding themselves in an 40………………………………….. setting.
ANSWERS (CLEAR EXPLANATION) FOR IELTS READING PRACTICE TEST 24
READING PASSAGE 1
Questions 1-13
(The table is arranged in a logical way, but the information is not in exactly the same order as it is given in the passage.)
- identical: The first paragraph says 'The students' performance ends up looking just like a monkey's. It's practically [= almost] identical'.
- balls of paper: The sixth paragraph says '… showed it two groups of balls of paper … changed the quantities' (although the text mentions 'siblings' and 'brothers', the experiment did not use other chicks).
- female: The last paragraph says 'researchers in America found that female coots appear to calculate' (the text also mentions 'an intruder', but it was the 'counting' behaviour/behavior of the coots that the researchers were interested in).
- fruit flies: The second paragraph says 'tempted salamanders with two sets of fruit flies held in clear tubes'.
- mosquito fish: The third paragraph says 'studies of mosquitofish, which instinctively join the biggest shoal'.
- surface area: The fourth paragraph says 'The team arranged these shapes so that they had the same overall [= total] surface area and luminance [= brightness] …'.
- sugar water: The fifth paragraph says 'two chambers – one which contained sugar water, which they like, while the other was empty. … The bees quickly learned … the correct chamber'.
(Questions 8-13 come in the same order as the information in the passage.)
- TRUE: The first paragraph says 'rhesus monkeys and university students … had to decide which set contained more objects…. monkeys, like humans, make more errors when two sets of objects are close in number'; primates are defined in the second paragraph:'Humans and monkeys are mammals, in the animal family known as primates.'
- FALSE: The fifth paragraph says 'the number of shapes [= how many shapes, not the actual shape of individual numerals]'.
- NOT GIVEN: Although the sixth paragraph says 'If chicks spend their first few days surrounded by certain objects', this is a general statement, not how long the experiment lasted; 'three- and four-day-old chicks' tells us the age of the chicks, but it does not say that the experiment took place on two days; we do not know whether it was repeated on more than one day.
- TRUE: The sixth paragraph says that these were almost newborn 'three- and four-day-old chicks' and that they 'scuttled [= ran] to the larger quantity at a rate well above chance. They were doing some very simple arithmetic, claim the researchers'.
- NOT GIVEN: Although the last paragraph says 'Animals on the prowl … decide which tree has the most fruit, or which patch of flowers will contain the most nectar' and that this would be an 'obvious advantage[s] of numeracy', we are not told whether any researchers have carried out experiments involving the animals searching for these foods.
- TRUE: The last paragraph says 'female coots appear to calculate … and add any in the nest laid by an intruder [= another bird]'.
READING PASSAGE 2
Questions 14-26
- vi: 'The facts, however, do not justify our unease.'
- i:'… a squall [= storm] of conflicting initiatives … It's a squall that dies down and then blows harder from one month to the next.'
- v: '… there's nothing quite like plastic.'
- iii: '… there is one law of plastic that… prevails over [= is more important than] all others …. a little goes a long way … And in the packaging equation, weight is the main issue … '
- vii: 'To target plastic on its own is to evade the complexity of the issues.'
- C: Paragraph E says '… explains that in fact they found apples in fours on a tray covered by plastic film needed 27 per cent less packaging in transportation than those sold loose [= not wrapped before they are sold]'.
- A: Paragraph B says 'It is being left to the individual conscience'.
- B: Paragraph C says '… in the UK, waste in supply chains [= the way goods get from producer to consumer] is about 3 per cent'.
- D: Paragraph E says 'the hunger [= desire] to do something quickly is diverting effort away from more complicated questions'.
- A: Paragraph E says 'Plastic as a lightweight food wrapper is now built in as the logical thing … It only makes sense if you have a structure [i.e. social structure, society] such as exists now.'
- industrial (Paragraph A)
- indestructible (Paragraph A)
- seasons (Paragraph A)
READING PASSAGE 3
Questions 27-40
27. A: The first paragraph says 'intelligence involves the capacity … to adapt to one's environment'.
Distraction B: There is no suggestion in the text that we change behaviour according to what other people do; C: The word 'environment' is used in this text in a more abstract way, i.e. 'surroundings'; D: Although the text states that the 'capacity … to learn from experience' is one feature of intelligence and we can suppose that coping with 'unexpected setbacks' would be one outcome of learning from experience, which is one feature of intelligence, this is not stated anywhere in the text.
- B: The second paragraph says 'The former group ['psychometricians' in the previous paragraph] has examined the issue by determining how children's abilities on a wide range of tasks intcrcorrelate, or go together.'
Distraction A: Although there is a wide range of 'tasks', there is no suggestion that any of them are 'cooperative'. However, psychometricians are interested in how the individual tasks 'intercorrelate, or go together'; C: The text only states that psychometricians have used statistics in their research, not that they use mathematical models to predict results; D: 'Common sense' [- good practical, logical abilities] is not the same as 'general intelligence' [overall intellectual ability],
- D: The third paragraph says 'studies of age-related changes …
For instance, … Horn and Cattell … fluid abilities peak in early adult life, whereas crystallised abilities increase up to advanced old age'.
Distraction A: Horn and Cattell didn't argue with each other. Instead they 'argued for' something [= they put forward the idea]; B: It is true that Their research concerned both linguistic and mathematical abilities' (tests of'mental manipulation of abstract symbols' and 'comprehension and information') but this is not why Horn and Cattell are mentioned; C: Their research was about certain special skills, but not general intelligence.
- B: The fifth paragraph says 'the focus should be on the thinking processes involved rather than on levels of cognitive achievement'.
Distraction A: In fact the text tells us the opposite: 'a second element concerns the notion that development proceeds … in a set order'; C: The text does not tell us what materials he used, only that his work was 'backed up by observations'; D: The text does not describe exactly the range of either ages or intelligence.
- NO: The first paragraph says 'quite difficult to define [= what is meant by] in unambiguous terms and unexpectedly controversial [= people disagree about it]'.
- YES: The second paragraph says 'general measures of intelligence tend to have considerable powers …. Nevertheless, it is plain that it is not at all uncommon for individuals to be very good at some sorts of task and yet quite poor at some others'.
- NO: The third paragraph says the test suggests the opposite of the statement: 'Crystallised abilities' which are 'assessed by tests of comprehension … increase up to advanced old age', whereas 'Fluid abilities … that require mental manipulation of abstract symbols' 'by contrast… peak in early adult life'.
- YES: The fourth paragraph says 'These findings seemed to suggest a substantial lack of continuity [= a big difference] between infancy and middle childhood. However, it is important to realise that the apparent discontinuity [= what appears to be a difference] will vary according to which of the cognitive skills were assessed in infancy.'
- NOT GIVEN: In the fifth paragraph we are told Piaget was influential regarding both ('immense body of research' and 'subsequent thinking') but there is no mention that either one of these things had a bigger impact than the other.
- NO: The last paragraph says 'his view that the child is an active agent of learning … has stood the test of time [= it is still respected]', even if the previous paragraph states that 'most of his concepts have had to be … radically revised, or rejected'.
The summary outlines the ideas in the fourth paragraph.
- C: verbal: 'verbal abilities are more important later on'.
- A: adult: 'It has been found that tests of coping with novelty do predict later intelligence' (the text does not deal with 'academic ability' in particular).
Note: ‘academic ability'is the natural collocation, not 'academic intelligence '
- E: inquisitive: 'their interest in and curiosity about the environment'.
- I: unfamiliar: 'the extent to which this is applied to new situations'.
Facade – Word Of The Day For IELTS
Posted: 09 Dec 2016 12:59 AM PST
Facade – Word Of The Day For IELTS Speaking And Writing
Facade: (Noun) /fəˈsɑːd/
Definition:
- the front of a building, especially a large and important one
- a way of behaving that hides your real feelings
Synonyms:
Exterior, Front, Veneer
Collocations:
With verb: maintain the facade
Example:
For IELTS Speaking:.
“Now the wise extra-mural department would doubtless maintain a facade of what appear to be voluntary committees.”
“At the same time, she remained a perfectionist, equally determined to present a flawless facade.”
“The facade of the building at least escaped from rigour.”
For IELTS Writing:
“The facade will be changed by the removal of the old canopy and the installation of an illuminated screen above the entrance.”
Exercise:
Choose the following words to fill in the blank: valid, relies, excluded, facade, deduce, specify, initial, philosophy, convened, components.
- Psychologists have observed that most of the process of forgetting occurs soon after _______________ exposure.
- We didn’t have time to finish our discussion of the issue so an additional meeting will be _______________ tomorrow morning.
- The various _______________ are manufactured by different suppliers around the world and assembled in our factory in Mexico.
- My parking pass is only _______________ for another week.
- The police say the evidence to this point does not _______________ the possibility that the victim was murdered.
- There was no expression on his face, just the blank skin __________ of hunger and tiredness.
- He doesn’t have a car so he always _______________ on his friends to give him a lift when they go out.
- Western _______________ was largely founded on the writings of Plato and Aristotle.
- The detectives were able to _______________ valuable information about the killer through careful examination of the murder scene.
- The television report stated that many people had died, but didn’t _______________ the exact number.
Answer key
1. initial
2. convened
3. components
4. valid
5. exclude
6. facade
7. relies
8. philosophy
9. deduce
10.specify
Check out Vocabulary for IELTS Speaking & Writing on IELTS Material website to improve your vocabulary for IELTS and get a high score in IELTS.
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