IELTS ACADEMIC READING
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13.
which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
Tea and the Industrial Revolution
A Cambridge
professor says that a change in drinking babits was the reason for the
Industrial Revolution in Britain. Anjana Abuja reports
A Alan Macfarlane,
professor of anthropological science at King’s College, Cambridge has, like
other historians, spent decades wrestling with the enigma of the Industrial Revolution. Why
did this particular Big Bang – the world-changing birth of industry-happen in
Britain? And why did it strike at the end of the 18th century?
B Macfarlane
compares the puzzle to a combination lock. ‘There are about 20 different
factors and all of them need to be present before the revolution can
happen,’ he says. For industry to take off, there needs to be the technology and
power to drive factories, large urban populations to provide cheap labour, easy transport to
move goods around, an affluent middle-class willing to buy
mass-produced objects, a market-driven economy and a political system
that allows this to happen. While this was the case for England, other nations,
such as Japan, the Netherlands and France also met some of these criteria but
were not industrialising. All these factors must have been necessary. But not sufficient to
cause the revolution, says Macfarlane. ‘After all, Holland had
everything except coal while China also had many of these factors. Most
historians are convinced there are one or two missing factors that you need to
open the lock.’
C The missing
factors, he proposes, are to be found in almost even kitchen cupboard. Tea and
beer, two of the nation’s favourite drinks, fuelled the revolution. The
antiseptic properties of tannin, the active ingredient in tea, and of hops in
beer – plus the fact that both are made with boiled water – allowed urban
communities to flourish at close quarters without succumbing to water-borne
diseases such as dysentery. The theory sounds eccentric but
once he starts to explain the detective work that went into his deduction, the
scepticism gives way to wary admiration. Macfarlanes case has been strengthened
by support from notable quarters – Roy Porter, the distinguished medical historian,
recently wrote a favourable appraisal of his research.
D Macfarlane
had wondered for a long time how the Industrial Revolution came
about. Historians had alighted on one interesting factor around the
mid-18th century that required explanation. Between about 1650 and 1740，the population in Britain was static. But then there was a
burst in population growth. Macfarlane says: ‘The infant mortality rate halved
in the space of 20 years, and this happened in both rural areas and cities, and
across all classes. People suggested four possible causes. Was there a sudden
change in the viruses and bacteria around? Unlikely. Was there a revolution in medical science?
But this was a century before Lister’s revolution*. Was there a
change in environmental conditions? There were improvements in agriculture that
wiped out malaria, but these were small gains. Sanitation did not become widespread until
the 19th century. The only option left is food. But the height and
weight statistics show a decline. So the food must have got worse.
Efforts to explain this sudden reduction in child deaths appeared to draw a
blank.’
E This
population burst seemed to happen at just the right time to provide labour for
the Industrial Revolution. ‘When you start moving towards an
industrial revolution, it is economically efficient to have people
living close together,’ says Macfarlane. ‘But then you get disease,
particularly from human waste.’ Some digging around in historical records revealed that
there was a change in the incidence of water-borne disease at that
time, especially dysentery. Macfarlane deduced that whatever the
British were drinking must have been important in regulating disease. He says,
‘We drank beer. For a long time, the English were protected by the strong
antibacterial agent in hops, which were added to help preserve the beer. But in
the late 17th century a tax was introduced on malt, the basic ingredient of
beer. The poor turned to water and gin and in the 1720s the mortality rate
began to rise again. Then it suddenly dropped again. What caused this?’
F Macfarlane
looked to Japan, which was also developing large cities about the same time,
and also had no sanitation. Water-borne diseases had a much looser grip on the
Japanese population than those in Britain. Could it be the prevalence of tea in
their culture? Macfarlane then noted that the history of tea in
Britain provided an extraordinary coincidence of dates. Tea was relatively expensive
until Britain started a direct dipper trade with China in the early 18th
century. By the 1740s, about the time that infant mortality was dipping, the
drink was common. Macfarlane guessed that the fact that water had to be boiled,
together with the stomach-purifying properties of tea meant that the breast
milk provided by mothers was healthier than it had ever been. No other European
nation sipped tea like the British, which, by Macfarlanes logic, pushed
these other countries out of contention for the revolution.
G But, if tea
is a factor in the combination lock, why didn’t Japan forge ahead in
a tea-soaked industrial revolution of its own? Macfarlane notes that
even though 17th-century Japan had large cities, high literacy rates, even a
futures market, it had turned its back on the essence of any
work-based revolution by giving up labour-saving devices
such as animals, afraid that they would put people out of work. So, the nation
that we now think of as one of the most technologically advanced entered the
19th century having ‘abandoned the wheel’.
Questions 1-7
Reading Passage 1 has
seven paragraphs, A-G.
Choose the correct heading
for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet
List of Headings
i The search for the reasons for an increase in
population
ii Industrialisation and the fear of
unemployment
iii The development of cities in Japan 4 The time
and place of the Industrial Revolution
iv The time and place of the Industrial Revolution
v The cases of Holland, France and China
vi Changes in drinking habits in Britain
vii Two keys to Britain’s industrial revolution
viii Conditions required for industrialisation
ix Comparisons with Japan lead to the answer
1
Paragraph A
2
Paragraph B
3
Paragraph C
4
Paragraph D
5
Paragraph E
6
Paragraph F
7
Paragraph G
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
8. China’s transport system was not suitable for industry
in the 18th century.
9. Tea and beer both helped to prevent dysentery in
Britain.
10. Roy Porter disagrees with Professor Macfarlane’s
findings.
11. After 1740，there was a
reduction in population in Britain.
12. People in Britain used to make beer at home.
13. The tax on malt indirectly caused a rise in the death
rate.
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26,
which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
Gifted children and learning
A
Internationally, ‘giftedness’ is most frequently determined by a score on
a general intelligence test, known as an IQ test, which is above a chosen
cutoff point, usually at around the top 2-5%. Children’s educational
environment contributes to the IQ score and the way intelligence is used. For
example, a very close positive relationship was found when children’s IQ scores
were compared with their home educational provision (Freeman, 2010). The higher
the children’s IQ scores, especially over IQ 130, the better the quality of
their educational backup, measured in terms of reported verbal interactions
with parents, number of books and activities in their home etc. Because IQ
tests are decidedly influenced by what the child has learned, they are to some
extent measures of current achievement based on age-norms; that is, how well
the children have learned to manipulate their knowledge and know-how within the
terms of the test. The vocabulary aspect, for example, is dependent on having
heard those words. But IQ tests can neither identify the processes of learning
and thinking nor predict creativity.
B Excellence
does not emerge without appropriate help. To reach an exceptionally high
standard in any area very able children need the means to learn, which includes
material to work with and focused challenging tuition -and the encouragement to
follow their dream. There appears to be a qualitative difference in the way the
intellectually highly able think, compared with more average-ability or older
pupils, for whom external regulation by the teacher often compensates for lack
of internal regulation. To be at their most effective in their self-regulation,
all children can be helped to identify their own ways of learning –
metacognition – which will include strategies of planning, monitoring,
evaluation, and choice of what to learn. Emotional awareness is also part of
metacognition, so children should be helped to be aware of their feelings
around the area to be learned, feelings of curiosity or confidence, for example.
C High
achievers have been found to use self-regulatory learning strategies more often
and more effectively than lower achievers, and are better able to transfer
these strategies to deal with unfamiliar tasks. This happens to such a high
degree in some children that they appear to be demonstrating talent in
particular areas. Overviewing research on the thinking process of highly able children,
(Shore and Kanevsky, 1993) put the instructor’s problem succinctly: ‘If they
[the gifted] merely think more quickly, then .we need only teach more quickly.
If they merely make fewer errors, then we can shorten the practice’. But of
course, this is not entirely the case; adjustments have to be made in methods
of learning and teaching, to take account of the many ways individuals think.
D Yet in
order to learn by themselves, the gifted do need some support from their
teachers. Conversely, teachers who have a tendency to ‘overdirect’ can diminish
their gifted pupils’ learning autonomy. Although ‘spoon-feeding’ can produce
extremely high examination results, these are not always followed by equally
impressive life successes. Too much dependence on the teachers risks loss of
autonomy and motivation to discover. However, when teachers o pupils to reflect
on their own learning and thinking activities, they increase their pupils’
self-regulation. For a young child, it may be just the simple question ‘What
have you learned today?’ which helps them to recognise what they are doing.
Given that a fundamental goal of education is to transfer the control of
learning from teachers to pupils, improving pupils’ learning to learn
techniques should be a major outcome of the school experience, especially for
the highly competent. There are quite a number of new methods which can help,
such as child- initiated learning, ability-peer tutoring, etc. Such practices
have been found to be particularly useful for bright children from deprived
areas.
E But
scientific progress is not all theoretical, knowledge is a so vital to
outstanding performance: individuals who know a great deal about a specific
domain will achieve at a higher level than those who do not (Elshout, 1995).
Research with creative scientists by Simonton (1988) brought him to the
conclusion that above a certain high level, characteristics such as
independence seemed to contribute more to reaching the highest levels of
expertise than intellectual skills, due to the great demands of effort and time
needed for learning and practice. Creativity in all forms can be seen as
expertise se mixed with a high level of motivation (Weisberg, 1993).
F To sum up,
learning is affected by emotions of both the individual and significant others.
Positive emotions facilitate the creative aspects of earning and negative
emotions inhibit it. Fear, for example, can limit the development of curiosity,
which is a strong force in scientific advance, because it motivates
problem-solving behaviour. In Boekaerts’ (1991) review of emotion the learning
of very high IQ and highly achieving children, she found emotional forces in
harness. They were not only curious, but often had a strong desire to control
their environment, improve their learning efficiency and increase their own
learning resources.
Questions 14-17
Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A-F.
Which paragraph contains
the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet
NB You may use any letter
more than once.
14. a reference to the influence of the domestic
background on the gifted child
15. reference to what can be lost if learners are given
too much guidance
16. a reference to the damaging effects of anxiety
17. examples of classroom techniques which favour
socially-disadvantaged children
Questions 18-22
Look at the following
statements (Questions 18-22) and the
list of people below.
Match each statement with
the correct person or people, A-E.
Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 18-22 on your answer sheet.
18. Less time can be spent on exercises with gifted pupils
who produce accurate work.
19. Self-reliance is a valuable tool that helps gifted
students reach their goals.
20. Gifted children know how to channel their feelings to
assist their learning.
21. The very gifted child benefits from appropriate
support from close relatives.
22. Really successful students have learnt a considerable
amount about their subject.
List of People
A Freeman
B Shore and Kanevsky
C Elshout
D Simonton
E Boekaerts
Questions 6-26
Complete the sentences
below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in
boxes 23—26 on your answer sheet
23. One study found a strong connection between children’s
IQ and the availability of…………..and………..at home.
24. Children of average ability seem to need more
direction from teachers because they do not have………
25. Meta-cognition involves children understanding their
own learning strategies, as well as developing………..
26. Teachers who rely on what is known as………….often
produce sets of impressive grades in class tests.
You should
spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3
below.
Museums of fine art and their public
The fact that people go to
the Louvre museum in Paris to see the original painting Mona Lisa when they can
see a reproduction anywhere leads us to question some assumptions about the
role of museums of fine art in today’s world
One of the most famous
works of art in the world is Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Nearly everyone who
goes to see the original will already be familiar with it from reproductions,
but they accept that fine art is more rewardingly viewed in its original form.
However, if Mona Lisa was
a famous novel, few people would bother to go to a museum to read the writer’s
actual manuscript rather than a printed reproduction. This might be explained
by the fact that the novel has evolved precisely because of technological
developments that made it possible to print out huge numbers of texts, whereas
oil paintings have always been produced as unique objects. In addition, it
could be argued that the practice of interpreting or ‘reading’ each medium
follows different conventions. With novels, the reader attends mainly to the
meaning of words rather than the way they are printed on the page, whereas the
‘reader’ of a painting must attend just as closely to the material form of
marks and shapes in the picture as to any ideas they may signify.
Yet it has always been
possible to make very accurate facsimiles of pretty well any fine art work. The
seven surviving versions of Mona Lisa bear witness to the fact that in the 16th
century, artists seemed perfectly content to assign the reproduction of their
creations to their workshop apprentices as regular ‘bread and butter’ work. And
today the task of reproducing pictures is incomparably more simple and
reliable, with reprographic techniques that allow the production of
high-quality prints made exactly to the original scale, with faithful colour
values, and even with duplication of the surface relief of the painting.
But despite an implicit
recognition that the spread of good reproductions can be culturally valuable,
museums continue to promote the special status of original work.
Unfortunately, this seems
to place severe limitations on the kind of experience offered to visitors.
One limitation is related
to the way the museum presents its exhibits. As repositories of unique
historical objects, art museums are often called ‘treasure houses’. We are
reminded of this even before we view a collection by the presence of security
guards, attendants, ropes and display cases to keep us away from the exhibits.
In many cases, the architectural style of the building further reinforces that
notion. In addition, a major collection like that of London’s National Gallery
is housed in numerous rooms, each with dozens of works, any one of which is
likely to be worth more than all the average visitor possesses. In a society
that judges the personal status of the individual so much by their material
worth, it is therefore difficult not to be impressed by one’s own relative
‘worthlessness’ in such an environment.
Furthermore, consideration
of the ‘value’ of the original work in its treasure house setting impresses
upon the viewer that, since these works were originally produced, they have
been assigned a huge monetary value by some person or institution more powerful
than themselves. Evidently, nothing the viewer thinks about the work is going
to alter that value, and so today’s viewer is deterred from trying to extend
that spontaneous, immediate, self-reliant kind of reading which would
originally have met the work.
The visitor may then be
struck by the strangeness of seeing such diverse paintings, drawings and
sculptures brought together in an environment for which they were not
originally created. This ‘displacement effect’ is further heightened by the
sheer volume of exhibits. In the case of a major collection, there are probably
more works on display than we could realistically view in weeks or even months.
This is particularly
distressing because time seems to be a vital factor in the appreciation of all
art forms. A fundamental difference between paintings and other art forms is
that there is no prescribed time over which a painting is viewed. By contrast,
the audience encourage an opera or a play over a specific time, which is the
duration of the performance. Similarly novels and poems are read in a
prescribed temporal sequence, whereas a picture has no clear place at which to
start viewing, or at which to finish. Thus art works themselves encourage us to
view them superficially, without appreciating the richness of detail and labour
that is involved.
Consequently, the dominant
critical approach becomes that of the art historian, a specialised academic
approach devoted to ‘discovering the meaning’ of art within the cultural
context of its time. This is in perfect harmony with the museum s function,
since the approach is dedicated to seeking out and conserving ‘authentic’,
original, readings of the exhibits. Again, this seems to put paid to that
spontaneous, participators criticism which can be found in abundance in
criticism of classic works of literature, but is absent from most art history.
The displays of art
museums serve as a warning of what critical practices can emerge when
spontaneous criticism is suppressed. The museum public, like any other
audience, experience art more rewardingly when given the confidence to express
their views. If appropriate works of fine art could be rendered permanently
accessible to the public by means of high-fidelity reproductions, as literature
and music already are, the public may feel somewhat less in awe of them.
Unfortunately, that may be too much to ask from those who seek to maintain and
control the art establishment.
Questions 27-31
Complete the summary using
the list of words, A-L, below.
Write the correct letter, A-L, in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.
The value attached to original works of art
People go to art museums
because they accept the value of seeing an original work of art. But they do
not go to museums to read original manuscripts of novels, perhaps because the
availability of novels has depended on …..27…….for
so long, and also because with novels, the ……..28…….are
the most important thing.
However, in historical
times artists such as Leonardo were happy to instruct ……..29……..to produce copies of their work and these days new
methods of reproduction allow excellent replication of surface relief features
as well as colour and ……..30…….. It
is regrettable that museums still promote the superiority of original works of
art, since this may not be in the interests of the …….31………
A institution B mass production C mechanical
processes D public E paints F artist
G size H underlying ideas I basic technology J readers K
picture frames L assistants
Questions 32-35
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter
in boxes 32—35 on your answer sheet
32. The writer mentions London’s National Gallery to illustrate
A. the
undesirable cost to a nation of maintaining a huge collection of art.
B. the
conflict that may arise in society between financial and artistic values.
C. the
negative effect a museum can have on visitors’ opinions of themselves.
D. the need
to put individual well-being above large-scale artistic schemes.
33. The writer says that today, viewers may be
unwilling to criticise a because
A. they lack
the knowledge needed to support an opinion.
B. they fear
it may have financial implications.
C. they have
no real concept of the work’s value.
D. they feel
their personal reaction is of no significance.
34. According to the writer, the ‘displacement effect’
on the visitor is caused by
A. the
variety of works on display and the way they are arranged.
B. the
impossibility of viewing particular works of art over a long period.
C. the
similar nature of the paintings and the lack of great works.
D. the
inappropriate nature of the individual works selected for exhibition.
35. The writer says that unlike other forms of art, a
painting does not
A. involve
direct contact with an audience.
B. require a
specific location for a performance.
C. need the
involvement of other professionals.
D. have a
specific beginning or end.
Questions 36-42
Do the following statements
agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet, write
YES if the
statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO if the
statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN if
the is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
36. Art
history should focus on discovering the meaning of art using a range of media.
37. The
approach of art historians conflicts with that of art museums.
38. People
should be encouraged to give their opinions openly on works of art.
39.
Reproductions of fine art should only be sold to the public if they are of high
quality.
40. In the
future, those with power are likely to encourage more people to enjoy art.
ANSWERS
1. iv:
2. viii:
3. vii:
4. i:
5. vi:
6. ix:
7. ii:
8. NOT GIVEN:
9. TRUE:
10. FALSE:
11. FALSE:
12. NOT GIVEN:
13. TRUE:
14. A:
15. D:
16. F:
17. D:
18. B:
19. D:
20. E:
21. A:
22. C:
23. books and activities:
24. internal regulation/self-regulation:
25. emotional awareness:
26. spoon-feeding:
27. B:
28. H:
29. L:
30. G:
31. D:
32. C:
33. D:
34. A:
35. D:
36. NOT GIVEN:
37. NO:
38. YES:
39. NOT GIVEN:
40. NO:
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