Author: Admin

Reading Passage 1

The Risks Agriculture Faces In Developing Countries

A Two things distinguish food production from all other productive activities: first, every single person needs food each day and has a right to it; and second, it is hugely dependent on nature. These two unique aspects, one political, the other natural, make food production highly vulnerable and different from any other business. At the same time, cultural values are highly entrenched in food and agricultural systems worldwide.

B Farmers everywhere face major risks; including extreme weather, long-term climate change, and price volatility in input and product markets. However, smallholder farmers in developing countries must in addition deal with adverse environments, both natural, in terms of soil quality, rainfall, etc. and human, in terms of infrastructure, financial systems, markets, knowledge and technology. Counter-intuitively, hunger is prevalent among many smallholder farmers in the developing world.

C Participants in the online debate argued that our biggest challenge is to address the underlying causes of the agricultural system’s inability to ensure sufficient food for all, and they identified as drivers of this problem our dependency on fossil fuels and unsupportive government policies.

D On the question of mitigating the risks farmers face, most essayists called for greater state intervention. In his essay, Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, argued that governments can significantly reduce risks for farmers by providing basic services like roads to get produce more efficiently to markets, or water and food storage facilities to reduce losses. Sophia Murphy, senior advisor to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, suggested that the procurement and holding of stocks by governments can also help mitigate wild swings in food prices by alleviating uncertainties about market supply.

E Shenggen Fan, Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute, held up social safety nets and public welfare programmes in Ethiopia, Brazil and Mexico as valuable ways to address poverty among farming families and reduce their vulnerability to agriculture shocks. However, some commentators responded that cash transfers to poor families do not necessarily translate into increased food security, as these programmes do not always strengthen food production or raise incomes. Regarding state subsidies for agriculture, Rokeya Kabir, Executive Director of Bangladesh Nari Progati Sangha, commented in her essay that these ‘have not compensated for the stranglehold exercised by private traders. In fact, studies show that sixty percent of beneficiaries of subsidies are not poor, but rich landowners and non-farmer traders.

F Nwanze, Murphy and Fan argued that private risk management tools, like private insurance, commodity futures markets, and rural finance can help small-scale producers mitigate risk and allow for investment in improvements. Kabir warned that financial support schemes often encourage the adoption of high-input agricultural practices, which in the medium term may raise production costs beyond the value of their harvests. Murphy noted that when futures markets become excessively financialised they can contribute to short-term price volatility, which increases farmers’ food insecurity. Many participants and commentators emphasised that greater transparency in markets is needed to mitigate the impact of volatility, and make evident whether adequate stocks and supplies are available. Others contended that agribusiness companies should be held responsible for paying for negative side effects.

G Many essayists mentioned climate change and its consequences for small-scale agriculture. Fan explained that in addition to reducing crop yields, climate change increases the magnitude and the frequency of extreme weather events, which increase smallholder vulnerability. The growing unpredictability of weather patterns increases farmers’ difficulty in managing weather-related risks. According to this author, one solution would be to develop crop varieties that are more resilient to new climate trends and extreme weather patterns. Accordingly, Pat Mooney, co-founder and executive director of the ETC Group, suggested that ‘if we are to survive climate change, we must adopt policies that let peasants diversify the plant and animal species and varieties/breeds that make up our menus.

H Some participating authors and commentators argued in favour of community- based and autonomous risk management strategies through collective action groups, co-operatives or producers’ groups. Such groups enhance market opportunities for small-scale producers, reduce marketing costs and synchronise buying and selling with seasonal price conditions. According to Murphy, ‘collective action offers an important way for farmers to strengthen their political and economic bargaining power, and to reduce their business risks. One commentator, Giel Ton, warned that collective action does not come as a free good. It takes time, effort and money to organise, build trust and to experiment. Others, like Marcel Vernooij and Marcel Beukeboom, suggested that in order to ‘apply what we already know’, all stakeholders, including business, government, scientists and civil society, must work together, starting at the beginning of the value chain.

I Some participants explained that market price volatility is often worsened by the presence of intermediary purchasers who, taking advantage of farmers’ vulnerability, dictate prices. One commentator suggested farmers can gain greater control over prices and minimise price volatility by selling directly to consumers. Similarly, Sonali Bisht, founder and advisor to the Institute of Himalayan Environmental Research and Education (INHERE), India, wrote that copipunity-supported agriculture, where consumers invest in local farmers by subscription and guarantee producers a fair price, is a risk-sharing model worth more attention. Direct food distribution systems not only encourage small-scale agriculture but also give consumers more control over the food they consume, she wrote.

Questions 1-3

Reading passage 1 has nine paragraphs A-I.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

1. a reference to characteristics that only apply to food production
2. a reference to challenges faced only by farmers in certain parts of the world
3. a reference to difficulties in bringing about co-operation between farmers

Questions 4-9

Look at the following statements (questions 4-9) and list of people below.

Match each statement with the correct person A-G.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

4. Financial assistance from the government does not always go to the farmers who most need it.
5. Farmers can benefit from collaborating as a group.
6. Financial assistance from the government can improve the standard of living of farmers.
7. Farmers may be helped if there is financial input by the same individuals who buy from them.
8. Governments can help to reduce variation in prices.
9. Improvements to infrastructure can have a major impact on risk for farmers.

List of people

1. Kanayo F. Nwanze
2. Sophia Murphy
3. Shenggen Fan
4. Rokeya Kabir
5. Pat Mooney
6. Giel Ton
7. Sonali Bisht

Questions 10 and 11

Choose TWO letters A-E.

Which TWO problems are mentioned which affect farmers with small farms in developing countries?

1. lack of demand for locally produced food
2. lack of irrigation programmes
3. being unable to get insurance
4. the effects of changing weather patterns
5. having to sell their goods to intermediary buyers

Questions 12 and 13

Choose TWO letters A-E.

Which TWO actions are recommended for improving conditions for farmers?

1. reducing the size of food stocks
2. attempting to ensure that prices rise at certain times of the year
3. organizing co-operation between a wide range of interested parties
4. encouraging consumers to take a financial stake in farming
5. making customers aware of the reasons for changing food prices

Reading passage 2

The Lost City

A When the US explorer and academic Hiram Bingham arrived in South America in 1911, he was ready for what was to be the greatest achievement of his life: the exploration of the remote hinterland to the west of Cusco, the old capital of the Inca empire in the Andes mountains of Peru. His goal was to locate the remains of a city called Vitcos, the last capital of the Inca civilisation. Cusco lies on a high plateau at an elevation of more than 3,000 metres, and Bingham’s plan was to descend from this plateau along the valley of the Urubamba river, which takes a circuitous route down to the Amazon and passes through an area of dramatic canyons and mountain ranges.

B When Bingham and his team set off down the Urubamba in late July, they had an advantage over travellers who had preceded them: a track had recently been blasted down the valley canyon to enable rubber to be brought up by mules from the jungle. Almost all previous travellers had left the river at Ollantaytambo and taken a high pass across the mountains to rejoin the river lower down, thereby cutting a substantial corner, but also therefore never passing through the area around Machu Picchu.

C On 24 July they were a few days into their descent of the valley. The day began slowly, with Bingham trying to arrange sufficient mules for the next stage of the trek. His companions showed no interest in accompanying him up the nearby hill to see some ruins that a local farmer, Melchor Arteaga, had told them about the night before. The morning was dull and damp, and Bingham also seems to have been less than keen on the prospect of climbing the hill. In his book Lost City of the Incas, he relates that he made the ascent without having the least expectation that he would find anything at the top.

D Bingham writes about the approach in vivid style in his book. First, as he climbs up the hill, he describes the ever-present possibility of deadly snakes, ‘capable of making considerable springs when in pursuit of their prey’; not that he sees any. Then there’s a sense of mounting discovery as he comes across great sweeps of terraces, then a mausoleum, followed by monumental staircases and, finally, the grand ceremonial buildings of Machu Picchu. ‘It seemed like an unbelievable dream the sight held me spellbound ’, he wrote.

E We should remember, however, that Lost City of the Incas is a work of hindsight, not written until 1948, many years after his journey. His journal entries of the time reveal a much more gradual appreciation of his achievement. He spent the afternoon at the ruins noting down the dimensions of some of the buildings, then descended and rejoined his companions, to whom he seems to have said little about his discovery. At this stage, Bingham didn’t realise the extent or the importance of the site, nor did he realise what use he could make of the discovery.

F However, soon after returning it occurred to him that he could make a name for himself from this discovery. When he came to write the National Geographic magazine article that broke the story to the world in April 1913, he knew he had to produce a big idea. He wondered whether it could have been the birthplace of the very first Inca, Manco the Great, and whether it could also have been what chroniclers described as ‘the last city of the Incas’. This term refers to Vilcabamba the settlement where the Incas had fled from Spanish invaders in the 1530s. Bingham made desperate attempts to prove this belief for nearly 40 years. Sadly, his vision of the site as both the beginning and end of the Inca civilisation, while a magnificent one, is inaccurate. We now know, that Vilcabamba actually lies 65 kilometres away in the depths of the jungle.

G One question that has perplexed visitors, historians and archaeologists alike ever since Bingham, is why the site seems to have been abandoned before the Spanish Conquest. There are no references to it by any of the Spanish chroniclers – and if they had known of its existence so close to Cusco they would certainly have come in search of gold. An idea which has gained wide acceptance over the past few years is that Machu Picchu was a moya, a country estate built by an Inca emperor to escape the cold winters of Cusco, where the elite could enjoy monumental architecture and spectacular views. Furthermore, the particular architecture of Machu Picchu suggests that it was constructed at the time of the greatest of all the Incas, the emperor Pachacuti (1438-71). By custom, Pachacuti’s descendants built other similar estates for their own use, and so Machu Picchu would have been abandoned after his death, some 50 years before the Spanish Conquest.

Questions 14-20

Reading passage 2 has seven paragraphs A-G.

Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.

List of headings

1. Different accounts of the same journey
2. Bingham gains support
3. A common belief
4. The aim of the trip
5. dramatic description
6. A new route
7. Bingham publishes his theory
8. Bingham’s lack of enthusiasm

14. Paragraph A
15. Paragraph B
16. Paragraph C
17. Paragraph D
18. Paragraph E
19. Paragraph F
20. Paragraph G

Questions 21-24

Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage 2?

• TRUE                        if the statement agrees with the information
• FALSE                      if the statement contradicts the information
• NOT GIVEN          if there is no information on this

21. Bingham went to South America in search of an Inca city.
22. Bingham chose a particular route down the Urubamba valley because it was the most common route used by travelers.
23. Bingham understood the significance of Machu Picchu as soon as he saw it.
24. Bingham returned to Machu Picchu in order to find evidence to support his theory.

Questions 25 and 26

Complete the sentences below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage

25. The track that took Bingham down the Urubamba valley had been created for the transportation of……………..
26. Bingham found out about the ruins of Machu Picchu from a…………………………….in the Urubamba valley.

Reading passage 3

The Benefits Of Being Bilingual

A According to the latest figures, the majority of the world’s population is now bilingual or multilingual, having grown up speaking two or more languages. In the past, such children were considered to be at a disadvantage compared with their monolingual peers. Over the past few decades, however, technological advances have allowed researchers to look more deeply at how bilingualism interacts with and changes the cognitive and neurological systems, thereby identifying several clear benefits of being bilingual.

B Research shows that when a bilingual person uses one language, the other is active at the same time. When we hear a word, we don’t hear the entire word all at once: the sounds arrive in sequential order. Long before the word is finished, the brain’s language system begins to guess what that word might be. If you hear ‘can’, you will likely activate words like ‘candy’ and ‘candle’ as well, at least during the earlier stages of word recognition. For bilingual people, this activation is not limited to a single language; auditory input activates corresponding words regardless of the language to which they belong. Some of the most compelling evidence for this phenomenon, called ‘language co-activation’, comes from studying eye movements. A Russian-English bilingual asked to ‘pick up a marker’ from a set of objects would look more at a stamp than someone who doesn’t know Russian, because the Russian word for ‘stamp’, marka, sounds like the English word he or she heard, ‘marker’. In cases like this, language co-activation occurs because what the listener hears could map onto words in either language.

C Having to deal with this persistent linguistic competition can result in difficulties, however. For instance, knowing more than one language can cause speakers to name pictures more slowly, and can increase ‘tip-of-the-tongue states’, when you can almost, but not quite, bring a word to mind. As a result, the constant juggling of two languages creates a need to control how much a person accesses a language at any given time. For this reason, bilingual people often perform better on tasks that require conflict management. In the classic Stroop Task, people see a word and are asked to name the colour of the word’s font. When the colour and the word match (i., the word ‘red’ printed in red), people correctly name the colour more quickly than when the colour and the word don’t match (i., the word ‘red’ printed in blue). This occurs because the word itself (‘red’) and its font colour (blue) conflict. Bilingual people often excel at tasks such as this, which tap into the ability to ignore competing perceptual information and focus on the relevant aspects of the input. Bilinguals are also better at switching between two tasks; for example, when bilinguals have to switch from categorizing objects by colour (red or green) to categorizing them by shape (circle or triangle), they do so more quickly than monolingual people, reflecting better cognitive control when having to make rapid changes of strategy.

D It also seems that the neurological roots of the bilingual advantage extend to brain areas more traditionally associated with sensory processing. When monolingual and bilingual adolescents listen to simple speech sounds without any intervening background noise, they show highly similar brain stem responses. When researchers play the same sound to both groups in the presence of background noise, however, the bilingual listeners’ neural response is considerably larger, reflecting better encoding of the sound’s fundamental frequency, a feature of sound closely related to pitch perception.

E Such improvements in cognitive and sensory processing may help a bilingual person to process information in the environment, and help explain why bilingual adults acquire a third language better than monolingual adults master a second language. This advantage may be rooted in the skill of focussing on information about the new language while reducing interference from the languages they already know.

F Research also indicates that bilingual experience may help to keep the cognitive mechanisms sharp by recruiting alternate brain networks to compensate for those that become damaged during aging. Older bilinguals enjoy improved memory relative to monolingual people, which can lead to real-world health benefits. In a study of over 200 patients with Alzheimer’s disease, a degenerative brain disease, bilingual patients reported showing initial symptoms of the disease an average of five years later than monolingual patients. In a follow-up study, researchers compared the brains of bilingual and monolingual patients matched on the severity of Alzheimer’s symptoms. Surprisingly, the bilinguals’ brains had more physical signs of disease than their monolingual counterparts, even though their outward behaviour and abilities were the same. If the brain is an engine, bilingualism may help it to go farther on the same amount of fuel.

G Furthermore, the benefits associated with bilingual experience seem to start very early. In one study, researchers taught seven-month-old babies growing up in monolingual or bilingual homes that when they heard a tinkling sound, a puppet appeared on one side of a screen. Halfway through the study, the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen. In order to get a reward, the infants had to adjust the rule they’d learned; only the bilingual babies were able to successfully learn the new rule. This suggests that for very young children, as well as for older people, navigating a multilingual environment imparts advantages that transfer far beyond language.

Questions 27-31

Complete the table below.

Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage.

Test	Findings
Observing the (27)………………..of Russina-English bilingual people when asked to select certain objects	bilingual people engage both languages simultaneously a mechanism known as (28)…………………
A test called the (29)……………….focusing on naming colors	bilingual people are more able to handle tasks involving a skill called (30)………………….
A test involving switching between tasks	when changing strategies bilingual people have started (31)…………..

Questions 32-36

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in reading passage 3?

• YES                         if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
• NO                           if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
• NOT GIVEN        if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

32. Attitudes towards bilingualism have changed in recent years.
33. Bilingual people are better than monolingual people at guessing correctly what words are before they are finished.
34. Bilingual people consistently name images faster than monolingual people.
35. Bilingual people’s brains process single sounds more efficiently than monolingual people in all situations.
36. Fewer bilingual people than monolingual people suffer from brain disease in old age.

Questions 37-40

Reading passage 3 has seven paragraphs A-G.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

37. an example of how bilingual and monolingual people’s brains respond differently to a certain type of non-verbal auditory input
38. a demonstration of how a bilingual upbringing has benefits even before we learn to speak
39. a description of the process by which people identify words that they hear
40. reference to some negative consequences of being bilingual

Cambridge IELTS 12 Academic Reading Test 2 The Risks Agriculture Faces In Developing Countries Answers

1. A
2. B
3. H
4. D
5. B
6. C
7. G
8. B
9. A
10. D
11. E
12. C
13. D

Cambridge IELTS 12 Academic Reading Test 2 The Lost City Answers

14. iv
15. vi
16. viii
17. v
18. i
19. vii
20. iii
21. true
22. false
23. false
24. not given
25. rubber
26. farmer

Cambridge IELTS 12 Academic Reading Test 2 The Benefits Of Being Bilingual Answers

27. eye movements
28. language coactivation
29. stroop task
30. conflict management
31. cognitive control
32. yes
33. not given
34. no
35. no
36. not given
37. D
38. G
39. B
40. C

Reading Passage 1

The Coconut Palm

For millennia, the coconut has been central to the lives of Polynesian and Asian peoples. In the western world, on the other hand, coconuts have always been exotic and unusual, sometimes rare. The Italian merchant traveller Marco Polo apparently saw coconuts in South Asia in the late 13th century, and among the mid-14th-century travel writings of Sir John Mandeville there is mention of ‘great Notes of Ynde’ (great Nuts of India). Today, images of palm-fringed tropical beaches are cliches in the west to sell holidays, chocolate bars fizzy drinks and even romance.

Typically, we envisage coconuts as brown cannonballs that, when opened, provide sweet white flesh. But we see only part of the fruit and none of the plant from which they come. The coconut palm has a smooth, slender, grey trunk, up to 30 metres tall. This is an important source of timber for building houses, and is increasingly being used as a replacement for endangered hardwoods in the furniture construction industry. The trunk is surmounted by a rosette of leaves, each of which may be up to six metres long. The leaves have hard veins in their centres which, in many parts of the world, are used as brushes after the green part of the leaf has been stripped away. Immature coconut flowers are tightly clustered together among the leaves at the top of the trunk. The flower stems may be tapped for their sap to produce a drink, and the sap can also be reduced by boiling to produce a type of sugar used for cooking.

Coconut palms produce as many as seventy fruits per year, weighing more than a kilogram each. The wall of the fruit has three layers: a waterproof outer layer, a fibrous middle layer and a hard, inner layer. The thick fibrous middle layer produces coconut fibre, ‘coir’, which has numerous uses and is particularly important in manufacturing ropes. The woody innermost layer, the shell, with its three prominent ‘eyes’, surrounds the seed. An important product obtained from the shell is charcoal, which is widely used in various industries as well as in the home as a cooking fuel. When broken in half, the shells are also used as bowls in many parts of Asia.

Inside the shell are the nutrients (endosperm) needed by the developing seed. Initially, the endosperm is a sweetish liquid, coconut water, which is enjoyed as a drink, but also provides the hormones which encourage other plants to grow more rapidly and produce higher yields. As the fruit matures, the coconut water gradually solidifies to form the brilliant white, fat-rich, edible flesh or meat. Dried coconut flesh, ‘copra’, is made into coconut oil and coconut milk, which are widely used in cooking in different parts of the world, as well as in cosmetics. A derivative of coconut fat, glycerine, acquired strategic importance in a quite different sphere, as Alfred Nobel introduced the world to his nitroglycerine-based invention: dynamite.

Their biology would appear to make coconuts the great maritime voyagers and coastal colonizers of the plant world. The large, energy-rich fruits are able to float in water and tolerate salt, but cannot remain viable indefinitely; studies suggest after about 110 days at sea they are no longer able to germinate. Literally cast onto desert island shores, with little more than sand to grow in and exposed to the full glare of the tropical sun, coconut seeds are able to germinate and root. The air pocket in the seed, created as the endosperm solidifies, protects the embryo. In addition, the fibrous fruit wall that helped it to float during the voyage stores moisture that can be taken up by the roots of the coconut seedling as it starts to grow.

There have been centuries of academic debate over the origins of the coconut. There were no coconut palms in West Africa, the Caribbean or the east coast of the Americas before the voyages of the European explorers Vasco da Gama and Columbus in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. 16th century trade and human migration patterns reveal that Arab traders and European sailors are likely to have moved coconuts from South and Southeast Asia to Africa and then across the Atlantic to the east coast of America. But the origin of coconuts discovered along the west coast of America by 16th century sailors has been the subject of centuries of discussion. Two diametrically opposed origins have been proposed: that they came from Asia, or that they were native to America. Both suggestions have problems. In Asia, there is a large degree of coconut diversity and evidence of millennia of human use – but there are no relatives growing in the wild. In America, there are close coconut relatives, but no evidence that coconuts are indigenous. These problems have led to the intriguing suggestion that coconuts originated on coral islands in the Pacific and were dispersed from there.

Questions 1-8
Complete the table below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage.

The Coconut Palm

Part	Description	Uses
Trunk	up to 30 meters	timber for houses and the making of (1)…………………..
Leaves	up to 6 meters long	to make brushes
Flowers	at the top of the trunk	stems provide sap, used as a drink or a source of (2)…………….
Fruits	– outer layer – middle layer (coir) – inner layer (shell) – coconut water – coconut flesh	– used for (3)………………..etc – a source of (4)………………(when halved) for (5)……………….. – a drink and a source of (6)…………………for other plants – oil and milk for cooking and (7)………………glycerine (an ingredient in (8)…………………

Questions 9-13

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage?

In 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 mention of this

9. Coconut seeds need shade in order to germinate.
10. Coconuts were probably transported to Asia from America in the 16th century.
11. Coconuts found on the west coast of America were a different type from those found on the east coast.
12. All the coconuts found in Asia are cultivated varieties.
13. Coconuts are cultivated in different ways in America and the Pacific.

Reading passage 2

How Baby Talk Gives Infant Brains A Boost

A The typical way of talking to a baby – high-pitched, exaggerated and repetitious – is a source of fascination for linguists who hope to understand how ‘baby talk’ impacts on learning. Most babies start developing their hearing while still in the womb, prompting some hopeful parents to play classical music to their pregnant bellies. Some research even suggests that infants are listening to adult speech as early as 10 weeks before being born, gathering the basic building blocks of their family’s native tongue.

B Early language exposure seems to have benefits to the brain – for instance, studies suggest that babies raised in bilingual homes are better at learning how to mentally prioritize information. So how does the sweet if sometimes absurd sound of infant- directed speech influence a baby’s development? Here are some recent studies that explore the science behind baby talk.

C Fathers don’t use baby talk as often or in the same ways as mothers – and that’s perfectly OK, according to a new study. Mark Van Dam of Washington State University at Spokane and colleagues equipped parents with recording devices and speech-recognition software to study the way they interacted with their youngsters during a normal day. ‘We found that moms do exactly what you’d expect and what’s been described many times over,’ VanDam explains. ‘But we found that dads aren’t doing the same thing. Dads didn’t raise their pitch or fundamental frequency when they talked to kids.’ Their role may be rooted in what is called the bridge hypothesis, which dates back to 1975. It suggests that fathers use less familial language to provide their children with a bridge to the kind of speech they’ll hear in public. The idea is that a kid gets to practice a certain kind of speech with mom and another kind of speech with dad, so the kid then has a wider repertoire of kinds of speech to practice,’ says VanDam.

D Scientists from the University of Washington and the University of Connecticut collected thousands of 30-second conversations between parents and their babies, fitting 26 children with audio-recording vests that captured language and sound during a typical eight-hour day. The study found that the more baby talk parents used, the more their youngsters began to babble. And when researchers saw the same babies at age two, they found that frequent baby talk had dramatically boosted vocabulary, regardless of socioeconomic status. Those children who listened to a lot of baby talk were talking more than the babies that listened to more adult talk or standard speech,’ says Nairan Ramirez-Esparza of the University of Connecticut. ‘We also found that it really matters whether you use baby talk in a one-on-one context,’ she adds. The more parents use baby talk one-on-one, the more babies babble, and the more they babble, the more words they produce later in life.’

E Another study suggests that parents might want to pair their youngsters up so they can babble more with their own kind. Researchers from McGill University and Universite du Quebec a Montreal found that babies seem to like listening to each other rather than to adults – which may be why baby talk is such a universal tool among parents. They played repeating vowel sounds made by a special synthesizing device that mimicked sounds made by either an adult woman or another baby. This way, only the impact of the auditory cues was observed. The team then measured how long each type of sound held the infants’ attention. They found that the ‘infant’ sounds held babies’ attention nearly 40 percent longer. The baby noises also induced more reactions in the listening infants, like smiling or lip moving, which approximates sound making. The team theorizes that this attraction to other infant sounds could help launch the learning process that leads to speech. It may be some property of the sound that is just drawing their attention,’ says study co-author Linda Polka. ‘Or maybe they are really interested in that particular type of sound because they are starting to focus on their own ability to make sounds. We are speculating here but it might catch their attention because they recognize it as a sound they could possibly make.’

F In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a total of 57 babies from two slightly different age groups – seven months and eleven and a half months – were played a number of syllables from both their native language (English) and a non-native tongue (Spanish). The infants were placed in a brain- activation scanner that recorded activity in a brain region known to guide the motor movements that produce speech. The results suggest that listening to baby talk prompts infant brains to start practicing their language skills. Finding activation in motor areas of the brain when infants are simply listening is significant, because it means the baby brain is engaged in trying to talk back right from the start, and suggests that seven-month-olds’ brains are already trying to figure out how to make the right movements that will produce words,’ says co-author Patricia Kuhl. Another interesting finding was that while the seven-month-olds responded to all speech sounds regardless of language, the brains of the older infants worked harder at the motor activations of non-native sounds compared to native sounds. The study may have also uncovered a process by which babies recognize differences between their native language and other tongues.

Questions 14-17

Look at the following ideas (Questions 14-17) and the list of researchers below.

Match each idea with the correct researcher, A, B or C.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

14. the importance of adults giving babies individual attention when talking to them
15. the connection between what babies hear and their own efforts to create speech
16. the advantage for the baby of having two parents each speaking in a different way
17. the connection between the amount of baby talk babies hear and how much vocalising they do themselves

List of researchers

1. Mark VanDam
2. Nairan Ramirez-Esparza
3. Patricia Kuhl

Questions 18-23

Complete the summary below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Research into how parents talk to babies

Researchers at Washington State University used (18)……………………………., together with specialised computer programs, to analyse how parents interacted with their babies during a normal day. The study revealed that (19)………………………..tended not to modify their ordinary speech patterns when interacting with their babies. According to an idea known as the (20)……………………………, they may use a more adult type of speech to prepare infants for the language they will hear outside the family home. According to the researchers, hearing baby talk from one parent and ‘normal’ language from the other expands the baby’s (21)………………………..of types of speech which they can practise.

Meanwhile, another study carried out by scientists from the University of Washington and the University of Connecticut recorded speech and sound using special (22)…………………………that the babies were equipped with. When they studied the babies again at age two, they found that those who had heard a lot of baby talk in infancy had a much larger (23)………………………..than those who had not.

Questions 24-26

Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A-F.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

24. a reference to a change which occurs in babies’ brain activity before the end of their first year
25. an example of what some parents do for their baby’s benefit before birth
26. a mention of babies’ preference for the sounds that other babies make

Reading passage 3

Whatever Happened To The Harappan Civilisation?

A The Harappan Civilisation of ancient Pakistan and India flourished 5,000 years ago, but a thousand years later their cities were abandoned. The Harappan Civilisation was a sophisticated Bronze Age society who built ‘megacities’ and traded internationally in luxury craft products, and yet seemed to have left almost no depictions of themselves. But their lack of self-imagery – at a time when the Egyptians were carving and painting representations of themselves all over their temples – is only part of the mystery.

B ‘There is plenty of archaeological evidence to tell us about the rise of the Harappan Civilisation, but relatively little about its fall,’ explains archaeologist Dr Cameron Petrie of the University of Cambridge. ‘As populations increased, cities were built that had great baths, craft workshops, palaces and halls laid out in distinct sectors. Houses were arranged in blocks, with wide main streets and narrow alleyways, and many had their own wells and drainage systems. It was very much a “thriving civilisation.’ Then around 2100 BC, a transformation began. Streets went uncleaned, buildings started to be abandoned, and ritual structures fell out of use. After their final demise, a millennium passed before really large-scale cities appeared once more in South Asia.

C Some have claimed that major glacier-fed rivers changed their course, dramatically affecting the water supply and agriculture; or that the cities could not cope with an increasing population, they exhausted their resource base, the trading economy broke down or they succumbed to invasion and conflict; and yet others that climate change caused an environmental change that affected food and water provision. ‘It is unlikely that there was a single cause for the decline of the civilisation. But the fact is, until now, we have had little solid evidence from the area for most of the key elements,’ said Petrie. ‘A lot of the archaeological debate has really only been well- argued speculation.’

D A research team led by Petrie, together with Dr Ravindanath Singh of Banaras Hindu University in India, found early in their investigations that many of the archaeological sites were not where they were supposed to be, completely altering understanding of the way that this region was inhabited in the past. When they carried out a survey of how the larger area was settled in relation to sources of water, they found inaccuracies in the published geographic locations of ancient settlements ranging from several hundred metres to many kilometres. They realised that any attempts to use the existing data were likely to be fundamentally flawed. Over the course of several seasons of fieldwork they carried out new surveys, finding an astonishing 198 settlement sites that were previously unknown.

E Now, research published by Dr Yama Dixit and Professor David Hodell, both from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, has provided the first definitive evidence for climate change affecting the plains of north-western India, where hundreds of Harappan sites are known to have been situated. The researchers gathered shells of Melanoides tuberculata snails from the sediments of an ancient lake and used geochemical analysis as a means of tracing the climate history of the region. ’As today, the major source of water into the lake is likely to have been the summer monsoon,’ says Dixit. ‘But we have observed that there was an abrupt change about 4,100 years ago, when the amount of evaporation from the lake exceeded the rainfall – indicative of a drought.’ Hodell adds: ‘We estimate that the weakening of the Indian summer monsoon climate lasted about 200 years before recovering to the previous conditions, which we still see today.’

F It has long been thought that other great Bronze Age civilisations also declined at a similar time, with a global-scale climate event being seen as the cause. While it is possible that these local-scale processes were linked, the real archaeological interest lies in understanding the impact of these larger-scale events on different environments and different populations. ‘Considering the vast area of the Harappan Civilisation with its variable weather systems,’ explains Singh, ‘it is essential that we obtain more climate data from areas close to the two great cities at Mohenjodaro and Harappa and also from the Indian Punjab.’

G Petrie and Singh’s team is now examining archaeological records and trying to understand details of how people led their lives in the region five millennia ago. They are analysing grains cultivated at the time, and trying to work out whether they were grown under extreme conditions of water stress, and whether they were adjusting the combinations of crops they were growing for different weather systems. They are also looking at whether the types of pottery used, and other aspects of their material culture, were distinctive to specific regions or were more similar across larger areas. This gives us insight into the types of interactive networks that the population was involved in, and whether those changed.

H Petrie believes that archaeologists are in a unique position to investigate how past societies responded to environmental and climatic change. ’By investigating responses to environmental pressures and threats, we can learn from the past to engage with the public, and the relevant governmental and administrative bodies, to be more proactive in issues such as the management and administration of water supply, the balance of urban and rural development, and the importance of preserving cultural heritage in the future.’

Questions 27-31

Reading Passage 3 has eight paragraphs, A-H.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

NB You may use any letter more than once.

27. proposed explanations for the decline of the Harappan Civilisation
28. reference to a present-day application of some archaeological research findings
29. a difference between the Harappan Civilisation and another culture of the same period
30. a description of some features of Harappan urban design
31. reference to the discovery of errors made by previous archaeologists

Questions 32-36

Complete the summary below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for answer.

Looking at evidence of climate change

Yama Dixit and David Hodell have found the first definitive evidence of climate change affecting the plains of north-western India thousands of years ago. By collecting the (32)……………………………of snails and analysing them, they discovered evidence of a change in water levels in a (33)……………………….in the region. This occurred when there was less (34)…………………………… than evaporation, and suggests that there was an extended period of drought.

Petrie and Singh’s team are using archaeological records to look at (35)…………………………….. from five millennia ago, in order to know whether people had adapted their agricultural practices to changing climatic conditions. They are also examining objects including (36)……………………………., so as to find out about links between inhabitants of different parts of the region and whether these changed over time.

Questions 37-40

Look at the following statements (Questions 37-40) and the list of researchers below.

Match each statement with the correct researcher, A, B, C or D.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

37. Finding further information about changes to environmental conditions in the region is vital.
38. Examining previous patterns of behaviour may have long-term benefits.
39. Rough calculations indicate the approximate length of a period of water shortage.
40. Information about the decline of the Harappan Civilisation has been lacking.

List of researchers 

1. Cameron Petrie
2. Ravindanath Singh
3. Yama Dixit
4. David Hodell

Cambridge IELTS 13 Academic Reading Test 3 The Coconut Palm Answers

1. furniture
2. sugar
3. ropes
4. charcoal
5. bowls
6. hormones
7. cosmetics
8. dynamite
9. false
10. false
11. not given
12. true
13. not given

Cambridge IELTS 13 Academic Reading Test 3 How Baby Talk Gives Infant Brains A Boost Answers

14. B
15. C
16. A
17. B
18. recording devices
19. dads
20. bridge hypothesis
21. repertoire
22. vests
23. vocabulary
24. F
25. A
26. E

Cambridge IELTS 13 Academic Reading Test 3 Whatever Happened To The Harappan Civilisation? Answers

27. C
28. H
29. A
30. B
31. D
32. shells
33. lake
34. rainfall
35. grains
36. pottery
37. B
38. A
39. D
40. A

Reading passage 1

Case Study: Tourism New Zealand Website

New Zealand is a small country of four million inhabitants, a long-haul flight from all the major tourist-generating markets of the world. Tourism currently makes up 9% of the country’s gross domestic product, and is the country’s largest export sector. Unlike other export sectors, which make products and then sell them overseas, tourism brings its customers to New Zealand. The product is the country itself – the people, the places and the experiences. In 1999, Tourism New Zealand launched a campaign to communicate a new brand position to the world. The campaign focused on New Zealand’s scenic beauty, exhilarating outdoor activities and authentic Maori culture, and it made New Zealand one of the strongest national brands in the world.

A key feature of the campaign was the website www.newzealand.com, which provided potential visitors to New Zealand with a single gateway to everything the destination had to offer. The heart of the website was a database of tourism services operators, both those based in New Zealand and those based abroad which offered tourism services to the country. Any tourism-related business could be listed by filling in a simple form. This meant that even the smallest bed and breakfast address or specialist activity provider could gain a web presence with access to an audience of long-haul visitors. In addition, because participating businesses were able to update the details they gave on a regular basis, the information provided remained accurate. And to maintain and improve standards, Tourism New Zealand organised a scheme whereby organisations appearing on the website underwent an independent evaluation against a set of agreed national standards of quality. As part of this, the effect of each business on the environment was considered.

To communicate the New Zealand experience, the site also carried features relating to famous people and places. One of the most popular was an interview with former New Zealand All Blacks rugby captain Tana Umaga. Another feature that attracted a lot of attention was an interactive journey through a number of the locations chosen for blockbuster films which had made use of New Zealand’s stunning scenery as a backdrop. As the site developed, additional features were added to help independent travellers devise their own customised itineraries. To make it easier to plan motoring holidays, the site catalogued the most popular driving routes in the country, highlighting different routes according to the season and indicating distances and times.

Later a Travel Planner feature was added, which allowed visitors to click and ‘bookmark’ : paces or attractions they were interested in, and then view the results on a map. The Travel Planner offered suggested routes and public transport options between the chosen locations. There were also links to accommodation in the area. By registering with the website, users could save their Travel Plan and return to it later, or print it out take on the visit. The website also had a ‘Your Words’ section where anyone could submit a blog of their New Zealand travels for possible inclusion on the website.

The Tourism New Zealand website won two Webby awards for online achievement and innovation. More importantly perhaps, the growth of tourism to New Zealand was impressive. Overall tourism expenditure increased by an average of 6.9% per year between 1999 and 2004. From Britain, visits to New Zealand grew at an average annual rate of 13% between 2002 and 2006, compared to a rate of 4% overall for British visits abroad.

The website was set up to allow both individuals and travel organisations to create itineraries and travel packages to suit their own needs and interests. On the website, visitors can search for activities not solely by geographical location, but also by the particular nature of the activity. This is important as research shows that activities are the key driver of visitor satisfaction, contributing 74% to visitor satisfaction, while transport and accommodation account for the remaining 26%. The more activities that visitors undertake, the more satisfied they will be. It has also been found that visitors enjoy cultural activities most when they are interactive, such as visiting a marae (meeting ground) to learn about traditional Maori life. Many long-haul travellers enjoy such earning experiences, which provide them with stories to take home to their friends and family. In addition, it appears that visitors to New Zealand don’t want to be ‘one of the crowd’ and find activities that involve only a few people more special and meaningful.

It could be argued that New Zealand is not a typical destination. New Zealand is a small country with a visitor economy composed mainly of small businesses. It is generally perceived as a safe English-speaking country with a reliable transport infrastructure. Because of the long-haul flight, most visitors stay for longer (average 20 days) and want to see as much of the country as possible on what is often seen as a once-in-a-lifetime visit. However, the underlying lessons apply anywhere-the effectiveness of a strong brand, a strategy based on unique experiences and a comprehensive and user-friendly website.

Questions 1-7

Complete the table below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.

Section of website	Comments
Database of tourism	– easy for tourism-related businesses to get on the list – allowed businesses to (1)………………………information regularly – provided a country-wide evaluation of businesses including their impact on the (2)……………..
Special features on local topics	– e.g. an interview with a former a sports (3)………………..and an interactive tour of various locations used in (4)………………….
Information on driving routes	– varied depending on the (5)……………….
Travel planner	– included a map showing selected places, details of public transport and local (6)……………..
Your Words	– travellers could send a link to their (7)………………….

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. The website www.newzealand.com aimed to provide ready-made itineraries and packages for travel companies and individual tourists.
9. It was found that most visitors started searching on the website by geographical location.
10. According to research, 26% of visitor satisfaction is related to their accommodation.
11. Visitors to New Zealand like to become involved in the local culture.
12. Visitors like staying in small hotels in New Zealand rather than in larger ones.
13. Many visitors feel it is unlikely that they will return to New Zealand after their visit.

Reading passage 2

Why Being Bored Is Stimulating – And Useful Too

A We all know how it feels – it’s impossible to keep your mind on anything, time stretches out, and all the things you could do seem equally unlikely to make you feel better. But defining boredom so that it can be studied in the lab has proved difficult. For a start, it can include a lot of other mental states, such as frustration, apathy, depression and indifference. There isn’t even agreement over whether Boredom is always a low-energy, flat kind of emotion or whether feeling agitated and restless counts as boredom, too. In his book, Boredom: A Lively History, Peter Toohey at the University of Calgary, Canada, compares it to disgust – an emotion that motivates us to stay away from certain situations. ‘If disgust protects humans from infection, boredom may protect them from “infectious” social situations,’ he suggests.

B By asking people about their experiences of boredom, Thomas Goetz and his team at the University of Konstanz in Germany have recently identified five distinct types: indifferent, calibrating, searching, reactant and apathetic. These can be plotted on two axes – one running left to right, which measures low to high arousal, and the other from top to bottom, which measures how positive or negative the feeling is. Intriguingly, Goetz has found that while people experience all kinds of boredom, they tend to specialise in one. Of the five types, the most damaging is ‘reactant’ boredom with its explosive combination of high arousal and negative emotion. The most useful is what Goetz calls ‘indifferent’ boredom: someone isn’t engaged in anything satisfying but still feels relaxed and calm. However, it remains to be seen whether there are any character traits that predict the kind of boredom each of us might be prone to.

C Psychologist Sandi Mann at the University of Central Lancashire, UK, goes further. All emotions are there for a reason, including boredom,’ she says Mann has found that being bored makes us more creative. ‘We’re all afraid of being bored but in actual fact it can lead to all kinds of amazing things,’ she says. In experiments published last year, Mann found that people who had been made to feel bored by copying numbers out of the phone book for 15 minutes came up with more creative ideas about how to use a polystyrene cup than a control group. Mann concluded that a passive, boring activity is best for creativity because it allows the mind to wander. In fact, she goes so far as to suggest that we should seek out more boredom in our lives.

D Psychologist John Eastwood at York University in Toronto, Canada isn’t convinced. ‘If you are in a state of mind-wandering you are not bored,’ he says. ‘In my view, by definition boredom is an undesirable state.’ That doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t adaptive, he adds. ‘Pain is adaptive – if we didn’t have physical pain, bad things would happen to us. Does that mean that we should actively cause pain? No. But even if boredom has evolved to help us survive, it can still be toxic if allowed to fester.’ For Eastwood, the central feature of boredom is a failure to put our ‘attention system’ into gear. This causes an inability to focus on anything, which makes time seem to go painfully slowly. What’s more, your efforts to improve the situation can end up making you feel worse. ‘People try to connect with the world and if they are not successful there’s that frustration and irritability,’ he says. Perhaps most worryingly, says Eastwood, repeatedly failing to engage attention can lead to a state where we don’t know what to do any more, and no longer care.

E Eastwood’s team is now trying to explore why the attention system fails. It’s early days but they think that at least some of it comes down to personality. Boredom proneness has been linked with a variety of traits. People who are motivated by pleasure seem to suffer particularly badly. Other personality traits, such as curiosity, are associated with a high boredom threshold. More evidence that boredom has detrimental effects comes from studies of people who are more or less prone to boredom. It seems those who bore easily face poorer prospects in education, their career and even life in general. But of course, boredom itself cannot kill -it’s the things we do to deal with it that may put us in danger. What can we do to alleviate it before it comes to that? Goetz’s group has one suggestion. Working with teenagers, they found that those who ‘approach’ a boring situation – in other words, see that it’s boring and get stuck in anyway – report less boredom than those who try to avoid it by using snacks, TV or social media for distraction.

F Psychologist Francoise Wemelsfelder speculates that our over-connected lifestyles might even be a new source of boredom. ‘In modern human society there is a lot of overstimulation but still a lot of problems finding meaning,’ she says. So instead of seeking yet more mental stimulation, perhaps we should leave our phones alone, and use boredom to motivate us to engage with the world in a more meaningful way.

Questions 14-19

Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A-F.

Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.

Write the correct number, i-viii, in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

1. The productive outcomes that may result from boredom
2. What teachers can do to prevent boredom
3. A new explanation and a new cure for boredom
4. Problems with a scientific approach to boredom
5. A potential danger arising from boredom
6. Creating a system of classification for feelings of boredom
7. Age groups most affected by boredom
8. Identifying those most affected by boredom

14. Paragraph A
15. Paragraph B
16. Paragraph C
17. Paragraph D
18. Paragraph E
19. Paragraph F

Questions 20-23

Look at the following people (Questions 20-23) and the list of ideas below.

Match each person with the correct idea, A-E.

Choose the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 20-23 on your answer sheet.

20. Peter Toohey
21. Thomas Goetz
22. John Eastwood
23. Francoise Wemelsfelder

List of Ideas

1. The way we live today may encourage boredom.
2. One sort of boredom is worse than all the others.
3. Levels of boredom may fall in the future.
4. Trying to cope with boredom can increase its negative effects.
5. Boredom may encourage us to avoid an unpleasant experience.

Questions 24-26

Complete the summary below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet.

Responses to boredom

For John Eastwood, the central feature of boredom is that people cannot (24)………………………………, due to a failure in what he calls the ‘attention system’, and as a result they become frustrated and irritable. His team suggests that those for whom (25) …………………………………….is an important aim in life may have problems in coping with boredom, whereas those who have the characteristic of (26)………….. generally cope with it.

Reading passage 3

Artificial Artists

The Painting Fool is one of a growing number of computer programs which, so their makers claim, possess creative talents. Classical music by an artificial composer has had audiences enraptured, and even tricked them into believing a human was behind the score. Artworks painted by a robot have sold for thousands of dollars and been hung in prestigious galleries. And software has been built which creates art that could not have been imagined by the programmer.

Human beings are the only species to perform sophisticated creative acts regularly. If we can break this process down into computer code, where does that leave human creativity? This is a question at the very core of humanity,’ says Geraint Wiggins, a computational creativity researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London. ‘It scares a lot of people. They are worried that it is taking something special away from what it means to be human.’

To some extent, we are all familiar with computerised art. The question is: where does the work of the artist stop and the creativity of the computer begin? Consider one of the oldest machine artists, Aaron, a robot that has had paintings exhibited in London’s Tate Modern and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Aaron can pick up a paintbrush and paint on canvas on its own. Impressive perhaps, but it is still little more than a tool to realise the programmer’s own creative ideas.

Simon Colton, the designer of the Painting Fool, is keen to make sure his creation doesn’t attract the same criticism. Unlike earlier ‘artists’ such as Aaron, the Painting Fool only needs minimal direction and can come up with its own concepts by going online for material. The software runs its own web searches and trawls through social media sites. It is now beginning to display a kind of imagination too, creating pictures from scratch. One of its original works is a series of fuzzy landscapes, depicting trees and sky. While some might say they have a mechanical look, Colton argues that such reactions arise from people’s double standards towards software-produced and human-produced art. After all, he says, consider that the Painting Fool painted the landscapes without referring to a photo. ‘If a child painted a new scene from its head, you’d say it has a certain level of imagination,’ he points out. The same should be true of a machine.’ Software bugs can also lead to unexpected results. Some of the Painting Fool’s paintings of a chair came out in black and white, thanks to a technical glitch. This gives the work an eerie, ghostlike quality. Human artists like the renowned Ellsworth Kelly are lauded for limiting their colour palette – so why should computers be any different?

Researchers like Colton don’t believe it is right to measure machine creativity directly to that of humans who have had millennia to develop our skills’. Others, though, are fascinated by the prospect that a computer might create something as original and subtle as our best artists So far, only one has come close. Composer David Cope invented a program called Experiments in Musical Intelligence, or EMI, Not only did EMI create compositions in Cope s style, but also that of the most revered classical composers, including Bach, Chopin and Mozart. Audiences were moved to tears, and EMI even fooled classical music experts into thinking they were hearing genuine Bach. Not everyone was impressed however. Some, such as Wiggins, have blasted Cope’s work as pseudoscience, and condemned him for his deliberately vague explanation of how the software worked. Meanwhile. Douglas Hofstadter of Indiana University said EMI created replicas which still rely completely on the original artist’s creative impulses, When audiences found out the truth they were often outraged with Cope, and one music lover even tried to punch him. Amid such controversy, Cope destroyed EMI’s vital databases.

But why did so many people love the music, yet recoil when they discovered how it was composed? A study by computer scientist David Moffat of Glasgow Caledonian University provides a clue. He asked both expert musicians and non-experts to assess six compositions. The participants weren’t told beforehand whether the tunes were composed by humans or computers, but were asked to guess, and then rate how much they liked each one. People who thought the composer was a computer tended to dislike the piece more than those who believed it was human. This was true even among the experts, who might have been expected to be more objective in their analyses.

Where does this prejudice come from? Paul Bloom of Yale University has a suggestion: he reckons part of the pleasure we get from art stems from the creative process behind the work. This can give it an ‘irresistible essence’, says Bloom. Meanwhile, experiments by Justin Kruger of New York University have shown that people s enjoyment of an artwork increases if they think more time and effort was needed to create it. Similarly, Colton thinks that when people experience art, they wonder what the artist might have been thinking or what the artist is trying to tell them. It seems obvious, therefore, that with computers producing art, this speculation is cut short – there’s nothing to explore. But as technology becomes increasingly complex, finding those greater depths in computer art could become possible. This is precisely why Colton asks the Painting Fool to tap into online social networks for its inspiration: hopefully this way it will choose themes that will already be meaningful to us.

Questions 27-31

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

27. What is the writer suggesting about computer-produced works in the first paragraph?
    1. People’s acceptance of them can vary considerably.
    2. A great deal of progress has already been attained in this field.
    3. They have had more success in some artistic genres than in others.
    4. The advances are not as significant as the public believes them to be.
28. According to Geraint Wiggins, why are many people worried by computer art?
    1. It is aesthetically inferior to human art.
    2. It may ultimately supersede human art.
    3. It undermines a fundamental human quality.
    4. It will lead to a deterioration in human ability.
29. What is a key difference between Aaron and the Painting Fool?
    1. its programmer’s background
    2. public response to its work
    3. the source of its subject matter
    4. the technical standard of its output
30. What point does Simon Colton make in the fourth paragraph?
    1. Software-produced art is often dismissed as childish and simplistic.
    2. The same concepts of creativity should not be applied to all forms of art.
    3. It is unreasonable to expect a machine to be as imaginative as a human being.
    4. People tend to judge computer art and human art according to different criteria.
31. The writer refers to the paintings of a chair as an example of computer art which
    1. achieves a particularly striking effect.
    2. exhibits a certain level of genuine artistic skill.
    3. closely resembles that of a well-known artist.
    4. highlights the technical limitations of the software.

Questions 32-37

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G below.

Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 32-37 on your answer sheet.

32. Simon Colton says it is important to consider the long-term view when
33. David Cope’s EMI software surprised people by
34. Geraint Wiggins criticised Cope for not
35. Douglas Hofstadter claimed that EMI was
36. Audiences who had listened to EMI’s music became angry after
37. The participants in David Moffat’s study had to assess music without

List of Ideas

1. generating work that was virtually indistinguishable from that of humans.
2. knowing whether it was the work of humans or software.
3. producing work entirely dependent on the imagination of its creator.
4. comparing the artistic achievements of humans and computers.
5. revealing the technical details of his program.
6. persuading the public to appreciate computer art.
7. discovering that it was the product of a computer program.

Questions 38-40

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?

In boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet, write

• YES                              if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
• NO                                if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
• NOT GIVEN            if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

38. Moffat’s research may help explain people’s reactions to EMI.
39. The non-experts in Moffat’s study all responded in a predictable way.
40. Justin Kruger s findings cast doubt on Paul Bloom’s theory about people’s prejudice towards computer art.

Cambridge IELTS 13 Academic Reading Test 1 Case Study: Tourism New Zealand Website Reading Answers

1. update
2. environment
3. captain
4. films
5. season
6. accommodation
7. blog
8. false
9. not given
10. false
11. true
12. not given
13. true

Cambridge IELTS 13 Academic Reading Test 1 Why Being Bored Is Stimulating – And Useful Too Reading Answers

14. iv
15. vi
16. i
17. v
18. viii
19. iii
20. E
21. B
22. D
23. A
24. focus
25. pleasure
26. curiosity

Cambridge IELTS 13 Academic Reading Test 1 Artificial Artists Reading Answers

27. B
28. C
29. C
30. D
31. A
32. D
33. A
34. E
35. C
36. G
37. B
38. yes
39. not given
40. no