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| IELTS Reading Practice Test-19 With Answers |
READING PASSAGE 1
You
should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which
are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
What
are you laughing at?
A
We
like to think that laughing is the height of human sophistication. Our big
brains let us see the humour in a strategically positioned pun, an unexpected
plot twist or a clever piece of wordplay. But while joking and wit are uniquely
human inventions, laughter certainly is not. Other creatures, including
chimpanzees, gorillas and even rats, chuckle. Obviously, they don’t crack up at
Homer Simpson or titter at the boss’s dreadful jokes, but the fact that they
laugh in the first place suggests that sniggers and chortles have been around
for a lot longer than we have. It points the way to the origins of laughter, suggesting
a much more practical purpose than you might think.
B
There
is no doubt that laughing typical involves groups of people. ‘Laughter evolved
as a signal to others – it almost disappears when we are alone,’ says Robert
Provine, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland. Provine found that
most laughter comes as a polite reaction to everyday remarks such as ‘see you
later’, rather than anything particularly funny. And the way we laugh depends
on the company we’re keeping. Men tend to laugh longer and harder when they are
with other men, perhaps as a way of bonding. Women tend to laugh more and at a
higher pitch when men are present, possibly indicating flirtation or even
submission.
C
To
find the origins of laughter, Provine believes we need to look at the play. He
points out that the masters of laughing are children, and nowhere is their
talent more obvious than in the boisterous antics, and the original context
plays,’ he says. Well-known primate watchers, including Dian Fossey and Jane
Goodall, have long argued that chimps laugh while at play. The sound they
produce is known as a panting laugh. It seems obvious when you watch their
behavior – they even have the same ticklish spots as we do. But remove the
context, and the parallel between human laughter and a chimp’s characteristic
pant laugh is not so clear. When Provine played a tape of the pant laughs to
119 of his students, for example, only two guessed correctly what it was.
D
These
findings underline how chimp and human laughter vary. When we laugh the sound
is usually produced by chopping up a single exhalation into a series of shorter
with one sound produced on each inward and outward breath. The question is:
does this pant laughter have the same source as our own laughter? New research
lends weight to the idea that it does. The findings come from Elke Zimmerman,
head of the Institute for Zoology in Germany, who compared the sounds made by
babies and chimpanzees in response to tickling during the first year of their
life. Using sound spectrographs to reveal the pitch and intensity of
vocalizations, she discovered that chimp and human baby laughter follow broadly
the same pattern. Zimmerman believes the closeness of baby laughter to chimp
laughter supports the idea that laughter was around long before humans arrived
on the scene. What started simply as a modification of breathing associated
with enjoyable and playful interactions has acquired a symbolic meaning as an
indicator of pleasure.
E
Pinpointing
when laughter developed is another matter. Humans and chimps share a common
ancestor that lived perhaps 8 million years ago, but animals might have been
laughing long before that. More distantly related primates, including gorillas,
laugh, and anecdotal evidence suggests that other social mammals nay do too.
Scientists are currently testing such stories with a comparative analysis of
just how common laughter is among animals. So far, though, the most compelling
evidence for laughter beyond primates comes from research done by Jaak Panksepp
from Bowling Green State University, Ohio, into the ultrasonic chirps produced
by rats during play and in response to tickling.
F
All
this still doesn’t answer the question of why we laugh at all. One idea is that
laughter and tickling originated as a way of sealing the relationship between
mother and child. Another is that the reflex response to tickling is
protective, alerting us to the presence of crawling creatures that might harm
us or compelling us to defend the parts of our bodies that are most vulnerable
in hand-to-hand combat. But the idea that has gained most popularity in recent
years is that laughter in response to tickling is a way for two individuals to
signal and test their trust in one another. This hypothesis starts from the
observation that although a little tickle can be enjoyable if it goes on too
long it can be torture. By engaging in a bout of tickling, we put ourselves at
the mercy of another individual, and laughing is a signal that we laughter is
what makes it a reliable signal of trust according to Tom Flamson, a laughter
researcher at the University of California, Los Angels. ‘Even in rats,
laughter, tickle, play and trust are linked. Rats chirp a lot when they play,’
says Flamson. ‘These chirps can be aroused by tickling. And they get bonded to
us as a result, which certainly seems like a show of trust.’
G
We’ll
never know which animal laughed the first laugh, or why. But we can be sure it
wasn’t in response to a prehistoric joke. The funny thing is that while the
origins of laughter are probably quite serious, we owe human laughter and our
language-based humor to the same unique skill. While other animals pant, we
alone can control our breath well enough to produce the sound of laughter.
Without that control, there would also be no speech – and no jokes to endure.
Questions 1-6
Look
at the following research findings (questions 1-6) and the list of people
below.
Match each finding with the correct
person A, B, C or D.
Write
the correct letter, A, B, C or D, in
boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.
NB You
may use any letter more than once.
A
Tom Flamson
B Elke Zimmerman
C Robert Provine
D Jaak Panksepp
1
Babies and chimps produce similar sounds of laughter.
2
Primates are not the only animals who produce laughter Pan
3
Laughter also suggests that we feel safe and easy with others.
4
Laughter is a response to a polite situation instead of humour.
5
Animal laughter evolved before human laughter
6
Laughter is a social activity.
Questions 7-10
Complete
the summary using the list of words, A-K, below.
Write
the correct letter, A-K, in boxes 7-10 on your answer sheet.
Some
researchers believe that laughter first evolved out of 7………………………. The
investigation has revealed that human and chimp laughter may have the
same 8……………………….. Besides, scientists have been aware
that 9……………………….. laugh, however, it now seems that laughter might be more
widespread than once we thought. Although the reasons why humans started to
laugh are still unknown, it seems that laughter may result from
the 10………………………. we feel with another person.
|
A
evolution |
B
chirps |
C
origins |
D
voice |
|
E
confidence |
F
rats |
G
primates |
H response |
|
I
play |
J
children |
K
tickling |
|
Questions 11-13
Do
the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In
boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE
if the statement is true
FALSE
if the statement is false
NOT
GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage
11
Both men and women laugh more when they are with members of the same sex.
12 Primates
lack sufficient breath control to be able to produce laughs the way humans do.
13 Chimpanzees
produce laughter in a wider range of situations than rats do.
READING PASSAGE 2
You
should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which are based on
Reading Passage 2 below.
Leaf-Cutting
Ants and Fungus
A
The
ants and their agriculture have been extensively studied over the years, but
the recent research has uncovered intriguing new findings of the fungus they
cultivate, how they domesticated it and how they cultivate it and preserve it
from pathogens. For example, the fungus farms, which the ants were thought to
keep free of pathogens, turn out to be vulnerable to a devastating mold, found
nowhere else but in ants’ nests. To keep the mold in check, the ants long ago
made a discovery that would do credit to any pharmaceutical laboratory.
B
Leaf-cutting
ants and their fungus farms are a marvel of nature and perhaps the best-known
example of symbiosis, the mutual dependence of two species. The ant’s
achievement is remarkable – the biologist Edward O. Wilson has called it “one
of the major breakthroughs in animal evolution” – because it allows them to
eat, courtesy of their mushroom’s digestive powers, the otherwise poisoned
harvest of tropical forests whose leaves are laden with terpenoids, alkaloids
and other chemicals designed to sicken browsers.
C
Fungus
growing seems to have originated only once in evolution because all gardening
ants belong to a single tribe, the descendants of the first fungus farmer.
There are more than 200 known species of the attine ant tribe, divided into 12
groups, or genera. The leaf-cutters use fresh vegetation; the other groups,
known as the lower attines because their nests are smaller and their techniques
more primitive, feed their gardens with detritus like dead leaves, insects and
faeces.
D
The
leaf-cutters’ fungus was indeed descended from a single strain, propagated
clonally, or just by budding, for at least 23 million years. But the lower
attine ants used different varieties of the fungus, and in one case a quite
separate species, the four biologists discovered. The pure strain of fungus
grown by the leaf-cutters, it seemed to Mr Currie, resembled the monocultures
of various human crops, that are very productive for a while and then succumb
to some disastrous pathogen, such as the Irish potato blight. Monocultures,
which lack the genetic diversity to respond to changing environmental threats,
are sitting ducks for parasites. Mr Currie felt there had to be a parasite in
the ant-fungus system. But a century of ant research offered no support for the
idea. Textbooks describe how leaf-cutter ants scrupulously weed their gardens
of all foreign organisms. “People kept telling me, ‘You know the ants keep
their gardens free of parasites, don’t you?’” Mr Currie said of his efforts to
find a hidden interloper.
E
But
after three years of sifting through attine ant gardens, Mr Currie discovered
they are far from free of infection. In last month’s issue of the Proceeding of
the National Academy of Sciences, he and two colleagues, Dr Mueller and David
Mairoch, isolated several alien organisms, particularly a family of parasitic
molds called Escovopsis.
F
Escovopsis
turns out to be a highly virulent pathogen that can devastate a fungus garden
in a couple of days. It blooms like a while cloud, with the garden dimly
visible underneath. In a day or two, the whole garden is enveloped. “Other ants
won’t go near it and the ants associated with the garden just starve to death,”
Dr. Rehner said. “They just seem to give up, except for those that have rescued
their larvae.” The deadly mold then turns greenish-brown as it enters its
spore-forming stage.
G
Evidently,
the ants usually manage to keep Escovopsis and other parasites under control.
But with any lapse in control, or if the ants are removed, Escovopsis will
quickly burst forth. Although new leaf-cutter gardens start off free of
Escovopsis, within two years some 60 percent become infected. The discovery of
Escovopsis’s role brings a new level of understanding of the evolution of the
attine ants. “In the last decade, evolutionary biologists have been
increasingly aware of the role of parasites as driving forces in evolution,” Dr
Schultz said. There is now a possible reason to explain why the lower attine
species keep changing the variety of fungus in their mushroom gardens, and
occasionally domesticating new ones – to stay one step ahead of the relentless
Escovopsis.
H
Interestingly,
Mr. Currie found that the leaf-cutters had in general fewer alien molds in
their gardens than the lower attines, yet they had more Escovopsis infections.
It seems that the price they pay for cultivating a pure variety of fungus is a
higher risk from Escovopsis. But the leaf-cutters may have a little
alternative: they cultivate a special variety of fungus which, unlike those
grown by the lower attines, produces nutritious swollen tips for the ants to
eat.
I
Discovery
of a third partner in the ant-fungus symbiosis raises the question of how the
attine ants, especially the leaf-cutters, keep this dangerous interloper under
control. Amazingly enough, Mr Currie has again provided the answer. “People
have known for a hundred years that ants have a whitish growth on the cuticle,”
said Dr Mueller, referring to the insects’ body surface. “People would say this
is like a cuticular wax. But Cameron was the first one in a hundred years to
put these things under a microscope. He was it was not inert wax. It is alive.”
Mr Currie discovered a specialized patch on the ants’ cuticle that harbors a
particular kind of bacterium, one well known to the pharmaceutical industry,
because it is the source of half the antibiotics used in medicine. From each of
22 species of attine ant studied, Mr. Cameron and colleagues isolated a species
of Streptomyces bacterium, they reported in Nature in April. The Streptomyces
does not have much effect on ordinary laboratory funguses. But it is a potent
poisoner of Escovopsis, inhibiting its growth and suppressing spore formation.
It also stimulates the growth of the ants’ mushroom fungus. The bacterium is
carried by virgin queens when they leave to establish new nests but is not
found on male ants, playboys who take no responsibility in nest-making or
gardening.
J
Because
both the leaf-cutters and the lower attines use Streptomyces, the bacterium may
have been part of their symbiosis for almost as long as the Escovopsis mold. If
so, some Alexander Fleming of an ant discovered antibiotics millions of years
before people did. Even now, the ants are accomplishing two feats beyond the
powers of human technology. The leaf-cutters are growing a monocultural crop
year after year without disaster, and they are using an antibiotic apparently
so wisely and prudently that, unlike people, they are not provoking antibiotic
resistance in the target pathogen.
Questions 14-19
Use
the information in the passage to match the options (listed A-C) with
activities or features of ants below.
Write
the appropriate letters A-C in boxes 14-19 on your answer
sheet.
NB You
may use any letter more than once
A
Leaf-cutting ants
B Lower attines
C Both
14
Build small nests and live with the different foreign fungus.
15
Use toxic leaves to feed the fungus.
16
Raise fungus which doesn’t live with other foreigners.
17
Use substance to fight against Escovopsis.
18
Use dead vegetable to feed the fungus.
19
Are free of parasites explained previously?
Questions 20-24
The
Reading Passage has ten paragraphs A-J.
Which
paragraph contains the following information?
Write
the correct letter A-J, in boxes 20-24 on your answer sheet.
20
Dangerous outcome of Escovopsis.
21
The disadvantage of growing single fungus.
22
comparison of features of two different nests.
23
Two achievements made by ants earlier than human.
24
Advantage of growing a new breed of fungus.
Questions 25-26
Choose
the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write
your answers in boxes 25-26 on your answer sheet.
25
How does the author think of Currie’s opinion?
A
his viewpoint was verified later.
B
earlier study has sufficient evidence.
C
no details mentioned in the article.
D
his opinion was proved to be wrong.
26
What did scientists find on the skin of ants under a microscope?
A
some white cloud mold embed in their skin
B
that Wax is all over their skin.
C
a substance which is useful to humans.
D
a substance which suppresses the growth of fungus.
READING
PASSAGE 3
You
should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on
Reading Passage 3 below.
Assessing
the risk
A
As a
title for a supposedly unprejudiced debate on scientific progress, “Panic
attack: interrogating our obsession with risk” did not bode well. Held last
week at the Royal Institution in London, the event brought together scientists
from across the world to ask why society is so obsessed with risk and to call
for a “more rational” approach. “We seem to be organising society around the
grandmotherly maxim of ‘better safe than sorry’,” exclaimed Spiked, the online
publication that organised the event. “What are the consequences of this
overbearing concern with risks?”
B
The
debate was preceded by a survey of 40 scientists who were invited to describe
how awful our lives would be if the “precautionary principle” had been allowed
to prevail in the past. Their response was: no heart surgery or antibiotics,
and hardly any drugs at all; no aeroplanes, bicycles or high-voltage power
grids; no pasteurisation, pesticides or biotechnology; no quantum mechanics; no
wheel; no “discovery” of America. In short, their message was: no risk, no
gain.
C
They
have absolutely missed the point. The precautionary principle is a subtle idea.
It has various forms, but all of them generally include some notion of
cost-effectiveness. Thus the point is not simply to ban things that are not
known to be absolutely safe. Rather, it says: “Of course you can make no
progress without risk. But if there is no obvious gain from taking the risk,
then don’t take it.”
D
Clearly,
all the technologies listed by the 40 well-chosen savants were innately risky
at their inception, as all technologies are. But all of them would have
received the green light under the precautionary principle because they all had
the potential to offer tremendous benefits – the solutions to very big problems
– if only the snags could be overcome.
E
If the
precautionary principle had been in place, the scientists tell us, we would not
have antibiotics. But of course, we would – if the version of the principle
that sensible people now understand had been applied. When penicillin was
discovered in the 1920s, infective bacteria were laying waste to the world.
Children died from diphtheria and whooping cough, every open-drain brought the
threat of typhoid, and any wound could lead to septicaemia and even gangrene.
F
Penicillin
was turned into a practical drug during the Second World War when the many
pestilences that result from were threatened to kill more people than the
bombs. Of course antibiotics were a priority. Of course, the risks, such as
they could be perceived, were worth taking.
G
And
so with the other items on the scientists’ list: electric light bulbs, blood
transfusions. CAT scans, knives, the measles vaccine – the precautionary
principle would have prevented all of them, they tell us. But this is just
plain wrong. If the precautionary principle had been applied properly, all
these creations would have passed muster, because all offered incomparable
advantages compared to the risks perceived at the time.
H
Another
issue is at stake here. Statistics are not the only concept people use when
weighing up risk. Human beings, subtle and evolved creatures that we are, do
not survive to three-score years and ten simply by thinking like pocket
calculators. A crucial issue is the consumer’s choice. In deciding whether to
pursue the development of new technology, the consumer’s right to choose should
be considered alongside considerations of risk and benefit. Clearly, skiing is
more dangerous than genetically modified tomatoes. But people who ski choose to
do so; they do not have skiing thrust upon them by portentous experts of the
kind who now feel they have the right to reconstruct our crops. Even with
skiing, there is the matter of cost-effectiveness to consider: skiing, I am
told, is exhilarating. Where is the exhilaration in GM soya?
I
Indeed,
in contrast to all the other items on Spiked’s list, GM crops stand out as an
example of a technology whose benefits are far from clear. Some of the risks
can at least be defined. But in the present economic climate, the benefits that
might accrue from them seem dubious. Promoters of GM crops believe that the
future population of the world cannot be fed without them. That is untrue. The
crops that really matter are wheat and rice, and there is no GM research in the
pipeline that will seriously affect the yield of either. GM is used to make
production cheaper and hence more profitable, which is an extremely
questionable ambition.
J
The
precautionary principle provides the world with a very important safeguard. If
it had been in place in the past it might, for example, have prevented
insouciant miners from polluting major rivers with mercury. We have come to a
sorry pass when scientists, who should above all be dispassionate scholars,
feel they should misrepresent such a principle for the purposes of commercial
and political propaganda. People at large continue to mistrust science and the
high technologies it produces partly because they doubt the wisdom of
scientists. On such evidence as this, these doubts are fully justified.
Questions 27-32
Do
the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?
In
boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE
if the statement is true
FALSE
if the statement is false
NOT
GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage
27
The title of the debate is not unbiased.
28
All the scientists invited to the debate were from the field of medicine.
29
The message those scientists who conducted the survey were sending was people
shouldn’t take risks.
30
All the 40 listed technologies are riskier than other technologies.
31
It was worth taking the risks to invent antibiotics.
32
All the other inventions on the list were also judged by the precautionary
principle.
Questions 33-39
Complete
the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage
Using NO
MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer.
Write
your answers in boxes 33-39 on your answer sheet.
When
applying the precautionary principle to decide whether to invent a new
technology, people should also the consideration of the 33………………………….,
along with the usual consideration of 34………………………….. For example, though
risky and dangerous enough, people still enjoy 35………………………….. for the
excitement it provides. On the other hand, experts believe that future
population desperately needs 36………………………… in spite of their undefined
risks. However, the researchers conducted so far have not been directed towards
increasing the yield of 37…………………………, but to reduce the cost
of 38………………………………. and to bring more profit out of it. In the end, such
selfish use of the precautionary principle for business and political gain has
often led people to 39………………………….. science for they believe scientists are
not to be trusted.
Question 40
Choose
the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write
your answers in boxes 40 on your answer sheet.
40
What is the main theme of the passage?
A
people have the right to doubt science and technologies
B
the precautionary principle could have prevented the development of science and
technology
C
there are not enough people who truly understand the precautionary principle
D
the precautionary principle bids us take risks at all costs
1. B
2. D
3. A
4. C
5. B
6. C
7. I
8. C
9. G
10. E
11. NOT GIVEN
12. TRUE
13. NOT GIVEN
14. B
15. A
16. A
17. C
18. B
19. A
20. F
21. H
22. C
23. J
24. G
25. A
26. C
27. TRUE
28. NOT GIVEN
29. FALSE
30. NOT GIVEN
31. TRUE
32. NOT GIVEN
33. consumer’s right (to
choose)/consumer’s choice
34. risk and benefit
35. Skiing
36. GM crops
37. wheat and rice
38. production
39. mistrust
40. A
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