IELTS General Reading Practice Test 06
This IELTS General Reading Practice Test Help IELTS Students to Improve their reading skills and get good score in ielts reading module.
About IELTS reading : However, it is worth noting that the IELTS reading test is a standardized test and follows a specific format and structure. The test consists of three reading passages with a total of 40 questions, and the questions are designed to test the candidate's reading comprehension and ability to understand the main ideas, arguments, and opinions presented in the passages. It is essential to note that while the reading passages may vary, the format and structure of the test remain the same. Therefore, candidates are advised to familiarize themselves with the IELTS reading test format and practice with past papers to improve their performance.
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
History of Timepiece
A. Little is known about the details of timekeeping in prehistoric eras, however, records and artifacts that are discovered, show that in every culture, people were preoccupied with measuring and recording the passage of time. Ice-age hunters in Europe over 20,000 years ago scratched lines and gouged holes in sticks and bones, possibly counting the days between phases of the moon. Five thousand years ago, Sumerians in the Tigris-Euphrates valley in today's Iraq had a calendar that divided the year into 30-day months, divided the day into 12 periods each corresponding to 2 of our hours), and divided these periods into 30 parts. After the Sumerian culture was lost without passing an its knowledge, the Egyptians were the next to formally divide their day into parts something like our hours. Obelisks (slender, tapering, four-sided monuments) were built as early as 3500 B.C. Their moving shadows formed a kind of sundial, enabling citizens to partition the day into two parts by indicating noon. They also showed the year's longest and shortest days when the shadow at noon was the shortest or longest of the year. Later, markers added around the base of the monument would indicate further time subdivisions.
B.Another Egyptian shadow clock, possibly the first portable timepiece, came into use around 1500 B.C. to measure the passage of "hours". This device divided a sunlit day into 10 parts plus two "twilight hours" in the morning and evening. When the long stem with 5 variably spaced marks was oriented east and west in the morning, an elevated crossbar on the east end cast a moving shadow over the marks. At noon, the device was turned in the opposite direction to measure the afternoon "hours". In the quest for more year-round accuracy, sundials evolved from flat horizontal or vertical plates to more elaborate forms. One version was the hemispherical dial, a bowl-shaped depression cut into a block of stone or made of bronze, carrying a central vertical gnomon (pointer) and scribed with sets of hour lines for different seasons. By 30 B.C., Vitruvius could describe 13 different sundial styles in use in Greece, Asia Minor, and Italy.
C. Water clocks were among the earliest timekeepers that didn't depend on the observation of celestial bodies. One of the oldest was found in the tomb of b Pharaoh Amenhotep I, buried around 1500 B.C. these were stone vessels with sloping sides that allowed water to drip at a nearly constant rate from a small hole near the bottom. Another version consisted of a metal bowl with a hole in the bottom; when placed in a container of water the bowl would fill and sink in a certain time. These were still in use in North Africa this century. Since the rate of flow of water is very difficult to control accurately, a clock based on that flow can never achieve excellent accuracy. People were naturally led to other approaches. In Europe during most of the Middle Ages (roughly 500 to 1500 A.D.), technological advancement was at a virtual standstill. Sundial styles evolved, but not for from ancient principles. Then, in the first half of the 14th century, large mechanical clocks began to appear in the towers of several large Italian cities.
D. There is no evidence or record of the working models preceding these public clocks, which were weight-driven and regulated by a verge-and-foliot escapement. Variations of the verge-and-foliot mechanism reigned for more than 300 years, but all had the same basic problem: the period of oscillation of the escapement depended heavily on the amount of driving force and the amount of friction in the drive. Like water flow, the rate was difficult to regulate. Another advance was the invention of spring-powered clocks between 1500 and 1510 by Peter Henlein of Nuremberg. Replacing the heavy drive weights permitted smaller (and portable) clocks and watches. Although they slowed down as the mainspring unwound, they were popular among wealthy individuals due to their small size and the fact that they could be put on a shelf or table instead of hanging on the wall or being housed in tall cases. Although they only an hour hand, the advances in design were precursors to truly accurate timekeeping.
E. In 1656, Christian Huygens, a Dutch scientist, made the first pendulum clock, regulated by a mechanism with a "natural" period of oscillation. Huygens' pendulum clock had an error of less than one minute a day, the first time such accuracy had been achieved. His later refinements reduced his clock's errors to less than 10 seconds a day. Refinements led in 1889 to Siegmund Riefler's clock with a nearly free pendulum, which had an accuracy of a hundredth of a second. a day. A true free-pendulum was introduced by R. J. Rudd about 1898, stimulating development of several free-pendulum clocks. One of the most famous, the Shortt clock, was demonstrated in 1921. The Shortt clock replaced Riefler's clock as a supreme timekeeper. This clock consists of two pendulums, one a slave and the other a master. The slave pendulum gives the master pendulum the gentle pushes needed to maintain its motion, and drives the clock's hands. This allows the master pendulum to remain free from tasks that would disturb its regularity.
F. The Shortt clock was replaced as the standard by quartz crystal clocks in the 1930s and 1940s. Quartz clock operation is based on a property of quartz crystals. If you apply an electric field to the crystal, it changes shape, and if you squeeze or bend it, it generates an electric field. When put in a suitable electronic circuit, the crystal can vibrate and generate an electric signal that can be used to operate an electronic clock display. Quartz crystal clocks were better because they had no gears or escapements to disturb their regular frequency. Such quartz clocks continue to dominate the market in numbers because their performance is excellent and they are inexpensive. But the timekeeping performance of quartz clocks has been substantially surpassed by atomic clocks.
Questions 1-8
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 1 -8 on your answer sheet write:
FALSE, if the information is not given in the passage.
TRUE, if the statement is true if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN, if there is no information about this in the passage.
1. The earliest measurements of time were based on the Sumerian lunar calendar.
2. The small measurement of time that the ancestors of present-day Iraq used was equivalent to four minutes.
3. The shortest shadow at midday meant it was the shortest day of the year
according to the Egyptians' Obelisks.
4. Obelisks were timepieces that could be carried around easily.
5. Egyptian water clocks could be used indoors and outdoors.
6. Spring-powered clocks were more accurate than weight-driven clocks but still had an error of more than one minute a day.
7. Rudd made the Shortt clock to replace Riefler's clock.
8. Quartz crystal clocks have no moving parts.
Questions 9 - 13
Complete the diagrams below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer:
Name: ..........9............
Name:.........10............
Name: ..........11..........
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which are based on
Reading Passage 2 below:
Mobile in the Sky GT Reading
A. In-flight use of mobile phones is coming soon - if public and regulatory concerns can be overcome. One of the bonuses of travelling by air- at least for the moment is communications "downtime". As soon as passengers are on board, the cacophony of mobile phone calls stops, silenced by airline industry safety concerns and regulatory issues. But that look certain to change as the in- flight mobile phone lobby gains momentum. They are confident that any technological issues have been overcome; the only task now is convincing the public and regulatory bodies that in-flight calls are desirable and safe. The consensus from interested parties, such as airlines and mobile providers, is that the technology needed to provide mile-high mobile telephony does not differ substantially from that needed to provide it on the ground. "We don't believe the technology's a problem" says Dave Tharp, on-board media development manager for Virgin Atlantic. "It's the social and political issues that have to be negotiated. As many people want it as don't, and there are an awful lot in the middle," he says.
B. One idea gaining popularity is to designate certain parts of the plane as "communications zones", where the disruption and annoyance caused by passengers bellowing to be heard above the background noise from jet engines is minimised. However, a recent IDC study of 50,000 American passengers found only 11% were in favour of phone use irrespective of the area of the plane. Conversely, 64% of the respondents approved of passengers being able to use their phones for quieter services such as text and e-mail. Clearly, though, some authorities do have concerns about safety. Research undertaken in 2003 by the Civil Aviation Authority found mobile usage, once the engines had started, could "adversely affect navigation and communication functions, producing significant errors on instrument displays and background noise on audio outputs". It cited pilots' observations on the impact of on-board mobile telephone use that pointed to interrupted communications due to noise in the crew's headphones, false notification of unsafe conditions and distractions to the crew from their normal duties due to the fact they were more likely to invoke emergency drills. In the US, the Association of Flight Attendants opposes the end of the ban on mobiles for the same reasons.
C. Recently, safety concerns of a different kind have been voiced. Representatives from the US Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security told a House of Representatives subcommittee that allowing mobile use on planes could facilitate terrorism by allowing bombs to be set off remotely. Although anyone determined enough to set off a bomb would presumably be unlikely to turn their phone off simply because the cabin crew asked them to, it is an illustration of just how many facets there are to this issue. Meanwhile the potential for providing mobile access is building steadily. Global satellite network owner Inmarsat has recently launched next-generation 1-4 satellites to expand bandwidth and coverage across the Indian Ocean. It thinks there is massive potential in providing Internet and mobile phone services to passengers on commercial airlines. Inmarsat's avionics are already installed on some 70% of long-haul wide-bodied aircraft, yet on most only a small amount of the available capacity is used. Clearly Inmarsat believes if there is a way of allowing passengers to make calls from their own phones, this excess capacity could be constructively utilised.
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D. The plane manufacturers too are stepping up their drive towards mobile services. Boeing, with its Connexion service, already provides Wi-Fi Internet access to on-board laptop users on around 70 planes operated by Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines and a few others. Its rival, Airbus, is part of the OnAir consortium, supported by SITA. the common services provider to the air travel industry, and Tenzing, which provides Internet and email technology to airlines. SITA estimates that by 2009 the market for in-flight mobile services will be worth $1.6 billion. Airbus aims to enable mobile calls on its planes by 2006. Although technology does not appear to be much of a barrier (a "pico cell" can easily be installed on an aircraft to act as a local ground station) regulatory bodies still have to be convinced. As Virgin Atlantic's Tharp explains: "Standards are going to have to be laid down- the regulatory authorities like the BAA and FAA [British Airports Authority and the Federal Aviation Administration in the US will decide on safety matters. There are also very powerful telecoms players, like Vodafone and AT&T, who have no intention in letting their brand be affected by safety concerns on board planes. As airlines we have to take both of these into account."
E. OnAir favours what it calls the "horizontal approach" to certification, with laws covering the use of mobiles set by the country where the plane is registered. As well as being consistent with the aviation law position generally, the advantage of this approach is that one only needs a licence from one country for each airline's aircraft," says Andrew Charlton, OnAir's head of regulatory affairs. Regulators could then work together to ensure the planes do not interfere with terrestrial operators. Alternatively, airlines could obtain GSM spectrum from all the countries they fly over. This means that they could not provide a service before all relevant countries had fully agreed and cross-national inconsistencies ironed out. Despite the alternatives, plenty of questions still remain about adoption. Passengers have had back-of-the-seat "Airfone" services available for several years, but have shied away from using these because of the cost ($ 100 plus per hour) and consideration for other passengers. Early reports on calls made over on-board Internet connections using voice-over-IP links such as Skype from laptops have suggested these are highly intrusive for other passengers. But the turning point will come when mobile phone usage is authorised-and that seems to be only a matter of time.
Questions 14-18
Complete the summary below
Choose your answers from the list below the summary.
NB There are more words than spaces, so you will not use them all.
Changes are in the air if the.......... 14.............. lobby has anything to do with it. Regarding to in flight calls, Virgin Atlantic says there is...............15.............. although there is a ...............16........... as the study showed only 11% passengers were ............17............ The CAA discovered that crew members could face extra...........18..........because of mobile phone usage in flight.
| List of Words |
| awful lot no technology problem |
| Social and political passenger problem |
| in-flight mobile phone observations |
| advocate emergency drills |
Question 19 - 22
Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 19-22 on your answer sheet.
19. Inmarsat believes that its avionics could be more widely used if
A) it installed them on the remaining 30% of long-haul aircraft.
B) it increased the available capacity.
C) it launched more next generation 1-4 satellites.
D) passengers could make in-flight calls.
20. The OnAir group already has
A) WiFi internet access on board.
B) mobile phone usage on all its planes.
C) a competitor in Boeing.
D) a rival in Airbus.
21. The final say in whether mobile phone usage will be allowed in flight will be decided by
A) the regulatory authorities.
B) the telecom companies.
C) the airline
D) the passengers
22. Internet voice usage is considered to be
A) too expensive.
B) too interruptive.
C) easily available.
D) not authorized yet.
Questions 23-26
Match the following companies or organizations as applying to
A) for mobile phone use on planes
B) against mobile phone use on planes
23. Vodafone
24. AFA
25. Airbus
26. CAA
READING PASSAGE 3
Questions 27-30
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.
Reading Passage 3 has 8 paragraphs A-H.
From the list of headings below choose the most suitable headings for paragraphs C, F, G and H. Write the appropriate numbers (i-viii).
NB There are more headings than paragraphs so you will not use all of them.
List of Headings
i. The critical time
ii. Difference between childhood and adulthood
iii. Thinking things through
iv. Children are simply the best
v. Specialist area vi. Early learning
vii. Intuitive use of the brain viii. A larger brain capacity
27. Paragraph C
28. Paragraph F
29. Paragraph G
30. Paragraph H
Linguistic Ability of Children GT Reading
A. Scientists may finally have an explanation for why children reign supreme when it comes to learning new languages. Using MRI and animation technology to study the brains of children, researchers like Dr. Paul Thompson of UCLA have discovered that children are processing language information in a different region of the brain than adults.
B. There are different areas in the brain controlling different functions in our lives. When we brush our teeth, sign our names or drive a car, we don't consciously think: "move the right hand up and down like this", "capitalize this letter", or "turn the wheel 30 degrees to the left". These are examples of automatic brain function. When children acquire language, this same part of the brain, called the "deep motor area", is what they use, so the language is like second nature.
C. But when adults learn a second or third language, their brains operates differently. The window of opportunity to imprint information and skills in the deep motor region of the brain is widest during early childhood and nearly shut by the time we reach about 18. Therefore, adults have to store information elsewhere, in a more active brain region. As a consequence, adults usually think sentences through in a native tongue and then translate them word-by-word, instead of thinking automatically in another language like a child would. Even for people with extensive training in a second language as an adult, who feel their speech is automatic, on a neurological level the brain is still operating differently from a child's.
D. Research into the neurology of language acquisition is proving useful because under-standing the "geographic" differences of language learning in children versus adults may influence educators and their decisions about foreign language instruction. As an example, Thompson says simply teaching young children the sounds and accents of other languages at an earlier age may be valuable, even if they are not getting full instruction in the language. Learning those sounds later in life from a neurological perspective can be more difficult.
E. There is no proof of any physiological change that fundamentally alters language learning between childhood and adulthood. Non-physiological explanations are available for every observation made thus far, and they are just as plausible as the physiological explanations. The notion that children are physiologically different from adults with respect to language learning is accepted linguistic dogma, not proven fact. The dogma is most readily accepted by linguists who can't learn other languages, and is considered the most questionable by people who have learned languages with native proficiency in adulthood.
F. It is wrong to say that changes happens after a certain age, because it happens all the time. At early age, brains develop rapidly and important for a child to receive enough input to form and develop the language center in his brain. It is believed that the critical age is about 7, and if a child was not taught any language before, then he/she will have seriously problem with acquiring even his/her first language. Some studies also suggest lateralization of language processing increase rapidly up to age 5, then continue more slowly up to 25, after that age it gradually decreases. While language is clearly localized in the brains of adults and older children, it is considerably less so in children. Thus, young children use a much larger area of the brain than adults to process language: Electrical measurements from young toddlers' brains show that they use a larger brain area to process words than older toddlers and the more precocious a toddler's language skill, the more focal his or her brain activation. Even older children (8-13 years) show a greater area of brain activation than adults during a word generation task.
G. Many researchers believe that the familiar language areas of the adult brain are not present in children; they emerge gradually during childhood. At the same time, the left hemisphere does show some specializations by birth (and before) which favor the development of language there. A child's experience with language (both hearing and producing it) converts the initial bias of the left hemisphere into a full-fledged language module. However, when something interferes with the development of this left hemisphere specialization in young children, their brains are plastic enough to reshape how the brain processes language. Children who suffer injuries to the left hemisphere are able to develop normal language skills using the right hemisphere. In extreme cases, some children have their left hemispheres surgically removed (the only treatment for some cases of epilepsy) and their language skills end up virtually normal. However, children with early damage to the left hemisphere are somewhat language delayed. They eventually catch up, but this delay indicates that specialized areas of the left hemisphere do make language-learning easier. Children without this circuitry are forced to solve the language problem in other ways.
H.Language-learning is thus a matter of cerebral specialization. Infants and young children "try out" large areas of the brain for language processing, but eventually select circuits in the left brain area, as these become faster and more highly- tuned to a child's native language. Most scientists believe there is a "critical period" for language acquisition - a limited phase in which a child must be exposed to normal language or his/her capacity to understand and produce will be permanently limited. The brain is thought to be maximally receptive to language experience during the first few years of life, and then gradually declines in sensitivity until the end of puberty.
Questions 31-35
Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage, answer the following questions.
31. Which part of the brain controls the movement of the hands?
32. What is almost closed when we become adults'?
33. What kind of teachers does the latest research affect?
34. What have non-physiological and physiological explanations have in common?
35. What is used to show that young children use a much larger area of the brain than older children or adults?
Questions 36-40
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
It is the brain's ...........36.......... which is more suitable for language development although if this is ..........37.......... children's brains are .............38 enough to commence standard language ability in the right side. Although young children use 39 of the brain for language processing early in life, they later utilize the 40 in the left brain area as this enhances language learning.