Top Ten Tips for IELTS Reading

Everyone knows the IELTS reading exam is tough. You a very short amount of time
to answer a large number of questions on very complicated texts. You need to
develop very good reading skills to get a 6.5. Band Score or higher and have a range
of strategies prepared in order to tackle it. Here are some tips:

Read Academic Texts

Read in your free time! The IELTS texts are “general academic texts”. This means they
are taken from sources such as textbooks and specialist magazines and journals. If you
are not familiar with reading these kinds of texts in English, it is essential that you start
reading them in your free time so that you are used to the types of language and structure
used when you meet them in the exam. Three typical sources for IELTS texts are (in
order of difficulty – easiest first) the National Geographic, the New Scientist and the
Economist. You can get these magazines in most newsagents.

Focus
Focus on the text first, the questions second! A good understanding of the text helps you
answer the questions more efficiently and effectively.

Categories
IELTS exam writers select a range of specific types of texts. Learning to recognize the
type of text you are reading can help you predict its structure and therefore understand
it more quickly. There are four types of IELTS texts a) analytic texts, which discuss the
reasons why something happened or make recommendations or explain a concept b)
descriptive texts, which describe a situation, explain how something is done or categories
something c) discursive texts, in which different opinions are expressed about an issue
and d) narrative texts, which explain a chronological sequence of events.

Skim
Develop your ability to skim. Skimming is reading quickly by skipping over unimportant
words like prepositions and ignoring difficult words that you don’t need to understand.
Do this to get a general idea about a text or a paragraph or to intensively search for the
answer to a question.

PAGE 1
Scan
Learn to scan. Scanning is what you do when you look for a price in an advertising text
or a name in a telephone book. When you scan you do not actually need to read the text
but move your eyes quickly over it. You can scan from left to right or right to left, from
top to bottom or bottom to top. Do this to find the location of answers in the texts looking
out for easy to spot words like numbers, dates and words beginning with capital letters
such as place names.

Structure
Learn to recognize paragraph structure. This often involves spotting the relationship
between the main ideas and supporting ideas in a paragraph. Paragraphs are most
frequently descending, i.e. they begin with the main idea somewhere near the start and
develop from there, although some, frequently the first and last paragraphs of a text, are
ascending – the main idea is located towards the end. This can be particularly helpful
when matching headings to paragraphs.

Overview
Get an overview of a text before dealing with the questions. Do this by reading the title
and subtitle as well as focusing on the beginnings and ends (but not JUST the first and
last sentences) of paragraphs. This helps you process the information in a text (and
thereby answer the questions) more quickly.

Parallel Phrases
Learn to spot parallel phrases. These are different ways of expressing the same thing,
such as, “I like to ski” and “skiing is enjoyable”. Many questions, e.g. YES NO NOT GIVEN
questions and gap fills, test your ability to match up a similar phrase in the task with its
equivalent in the text.

Don't Panic
Don’t panic when you encounter an unknown or difficult word. IELTS texts are packed
with highly specialized vocabulary. Skip over difficult words which are not essential for
your understanding of the text. For words you do need to understand, practice trying to
guess their meaning using the overall context of the text and sentence as well as the
form of the word – e.g. is it a noun or verb.

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Manage Your Time
Time manage in the exam. Most IELTS candidates run out of time in the third reading
section. Each text should take you roughly 20 minutes (the examiners will tell you after
20 minutes have passed). Never spend too long on a single question – guess the answer
or leave it to return to later.

Also if you feel you are running out of time, tackle questions like gap-fills before doing
“easy to guess” tasks like YES NO NOT GIVEN questions. Don’t forget you also have to
have all your answers on your mark sheet by the end of the test. A good tip is to write
them on the mark sheet in pencil as you go, correcting where necessary at the end.

PAGE 3
Speed Reading:
How to Increase Your Reading Speed?
Do you know how many words you will have to read on the IELTS reading test?
About 900! When you think about having to answer 40 questions, in an hour, in
a foreign language, it seems impossible. Don’t worry, there are lots of ways you
can improve both your exam technique and reading skills, so that you will not
only finish the exam, but also do really well.

Many students fail to finish the IELTS reading test because they read at a very
slow pace. The two main reasons for this are poor exam technique and slow
reading speed.

This article will discuss:

• the problems reading slowly can cause

• why some people read more slowly than others
• advantages of speed reading
• when to read fast and when to read slow
• how to read more quickly
• exam tips

Why is reading slowly a problem?

Reading slowly is sometimes required and very important, but at other times it
can cause problems, such as:

• not finishing the text and/or exam

• making yourself more nervous because you are running out of time
• wasting time on parts of the text that do not give you the correct
answers
• taking too long to read a text when you are practicing reading before
the exam

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Why do I read slowly?

Most people read slowly for one or more of the following reasons:

• reading every word individually

• stopping every time, they read a word they don’t know
• reading and saying the words quietly at the same time
• wanting to completely understand every word and sentence
• reading sentences two or three times
• thinking about the ideas too deeply or in too much detail.

Advantage of Speed Reading

Just like any other skill, speed reading can be learned and perfected with practice.
When you learn how to read faster you will enjoy the following advantages:

• You will be able to understand the general meaning of the whole text
and each paragraph much more easily and quickly. This will help you
find the correct answers more effectively.
• You will enter the exam with more confidence than you did before.
Confident candidates don’t feel as nervous as those who don’t believe
in themselves and tend to perform better.
• You will have more time to think about your answers and make sure
they are the correct ones. You will also have time to check your
answers at the end.
• You will be able to quickly read a wide variety of articles before you
do the test. This will not only improve your reading skills, but your
overall level of English.

Should I always read quickly?

Being able to read quickly is very important on the IELTS test but exam
technique is equally important. Sometimes it helps us to read very quickly, but
sometimes it actually stops us getting the correct answer. We therefore need to
know when to read slowly and when to read more quickly.

In general, we read at a faster pace when we are getting the general meaning
of the text (skimming) or looking for specific words or phrases (scanning).
Using these skills is very important, but if we just use these all the time, we will
miss important details and get the answers wrong.

Often when we are establishing the correct answer, we need to take our time
and read every word carefully.

Don’t just read for the sake of it. Make sure you have a purpose every time you
read in the exam. For example, if you are just trying to find the general meaning
of a paragraph, just quickly read the first and last sentences of that paragraph.

PAGE 5
If you are looking for a particular word or phrase, just scan the text quickly
instead of reading the whole thing carefully. When you get to finding out the
correct answer, your purpose becomes reading the text more slowly and in
greater detail.

Speed Reading

Did you know that your brain does not process words individually? Instead it
processes them in groups of 3-5 words together. These are sometimes called
‘chunks’. Unfortunately, many of us are taught at school to read each word
individually. Also, when reading in another language we often read and think
about the meaning of every word.

The answer to this is to practice reading words in groups.

Let’s look at one of the previous paragraph as an example:

Did you know that /your brain does not process/ words individually? Instead it
processes them /in groups of 3-5 words together. /These are sometimes called
‘chunks’./ Unfortunately, many of us are /taught at school to read /each word
individually/. Also, when reading in/ another language we often/ read and think
about /the meaning of words individually.

Try reading the paragraph above, not as individual words but as groups of words.
I’ve added slashes in between groups to help you.

This might seem unnatural at first, but with practice you will be able to do it very
naturally and increase your reading speed dramatically.

Try spending 10-30 minutes a day reading with this method. Don’t worry if you
don’t understand every word, just keep going. Don’t let your eyes rest on one
word and don’t worry about words you don’t understand.

Make a note of how many words you can read in 5 minutes and after a week or
two you will see a significant improvement.

The other big advantage of this is that you will really improve your grammar and
vocabulary because you will notice how words and phrases group together. You
will begin to see patterns and collocations and this will help you improve, not just
reading, but your overall level of English.

PAGE 6
Tips for “Suggest Headings”

• You don’t have to read the whole text for every question. Only read what you
need and then move on.
• Don’t worry if there is a word you don’t understand. If you do see one you can
either guess what it means from the other words and sentences around it or
ignore it. There will always be a number of words that even native speakers won’t
understand.
• You have 90 seconds for each question but some questions are easier than others
and some take more time. Don’t stick to the 90 seconds per question rule; spend
less time on the easier ones and more on the most difficult.
• I did just say spend more time on the more difficult questions, but not too much
time. Some questions are there to separate the band 8 and 9 students and if you
can’t find the answer to these questions after a minute or two, then move on.
• In general, the easier questions are at the start of the paper and the more difficult
are toward the end.
• If you say words silently or say them very quietly when reading, stop this. It
increases the time it takes for you to process a word.
• If you keep going back and reading sentences more than once, try reading with a
sheet of paper and move the paper over the words you have just read. After time,
you will stop going back and forth and read in a more efficient way.
• Read the questions before you read the text. This will help focus your mind on
what you are looking for.
• Use the title and look at any pictures to help you predict what the text will be
about.

PAGE 7
 Yoruba Towns

A. The Yoruba people of Nigeria classify their towns in two ways. Permanent towns with
their own governments are called “ilu”, whereas temporary settlements, set up to
support work in the country are “aba”. Although ilu tend to be larger than aba, the
distinction is not one of size, some aba are large, while declining ilu can be small, but of
purpose. There is no “typical” Yoruba town, but some features are common to most
towns.

B. In the 19th century most towns were heavily fortified and the foundations of these
walls are sometimes visible. Collecting tolls to enter and exit through the walls was a
major source of revenue for the old town rulers, as were market fees. The markets
were generally located centrally and in small towns, while in large towns there were
permanent stands made of corrugated iron or concrete. The market was usually next to
the local ruler’s palace.

C. The palaces were often very large. In the 1930’s, the area of Oyo’s palace covered
17 acres, and consisted of a series of courtyards surrounded by private and public
rooms. After colonization, many of the palaces were completely or partially demolished.
Often the rulers built two storey houses for themselves using some of the palace
grounds for government buildings.

D. The town is divided into different sections. In some towns these are regular,
extending out from the center of the town like spokes on a wheel, while in others,
where space is limited, they are more random. The different areas are further divided
into compounds called “ile”. These vary in size considerably from single dwellings to up
to thirty houses. They tend to be larger in the North. Large areas are devoted to

PAGE 8
government administrative buildings. Newer developments such as industrial or
commercial areas or apartment housing for civil servants tends to be build on the edge
of the town.

E. Houses are rectangular and either have a courtyard in the center or the rooms come
off a central corridor. Most social life occurs in the courtyard. They are usually built of
hardened mud and have roofs of corrugated iron or, in the countryside, thatch.
Buildings of this material are easy to alter, either by knocking down rooms or adding
new ones. And can be improved by coating the walls with cement. Richer people often
build their houses of concrete blocks and, if they can afford to, build two storey houses.
Within compounds there can be quite a mixture of building types. Younger well-
educated people may have well furnished houses while their older relatives live in mud
walled buildings and sleep on mats on the floor.

F. The builder or the most senior man gets a room either near the entrance or, in a two
storied house, next to the balcony. He usually has more than one room. Junior men get
a room each and there are separate rooms for teenage boys and girls to sleep in.
Younger children sleep with their mothers. Any empty room are used as storage, let out
or, if they face the street, used as shops.

G. Amenities vary. In some towns most of the population uses communal water taps
and only the rich have piped water, in others piped water is more normal. Some areas
have toilets, but bucket toilets are common with waste being collected by a “night soil
man”. Access to water and electricity are key political issues.

569 words

List of paragraph headings

i. Town facilities
ii. Oyo’s palace
iii. Urban divisions
iv. Architectural features
v. Types of settlements
vi. Historical foundations
vii. Domestic arrangements
viii. City defenses
ix. Various changes
x. Government buildings

PAGE 9
 Soccer Violence

A. Fiorentina's exclusion from the UEFA Cup after a match official was injured by a
firecracker thrown during their second-round match with Grasshopper Zurich in
Salerno brought hooliganism back in the media.

B. The Florence club are appealing against the decision, arguing that the object was
thrown by rival Salernitana fans and the ban would set a dangerous precedent. But
UEFA will have borne in mind that Fiorentina were playing so far away from home
only because they had been banned from their own ground for crowd trouble in Europe
last season.

C. Whether Fiorentina have been hard done by or not, fan violence is a problem in the
Italian game. Fighting before Sunday's 1-1 draw between Bologna and Roma left eight
people in hospital, two with stab wounds. After the game a Roma supporters' bus was
stoned and set on fire.

D. But Italy is not the only country suffering from what used to be called "the English
disease". At the weekend police in Bucharest fired tear-gas and made 20 arrests after
a pitch invasion at the Steaua-Dinamo derby, reflecting a marked growth in
hooliganism in Romania. The Greek first division match between PAOK Thessaloniki
and Olympiakos Piraeus last week was abandoned after one of the linesmen was left
concussed by home fans furious at a disallowed goal, a decision which brought 10,000
people on to the streets of Salonika in protest. In neighbouring Albania, Skenderbeu
Korce were fined and docked three points last month after a brawl involving players,
fans and the referee.

E. Hooliganism is taking its toll on the South American game too. An Argentinian judge
suspended all second division matches this month in an effort to combat rising
violence. The same judge halted the first division for two weeks in May for the same
reason.

PAGE 10
F. Football violence has claimed 37 lives in Argentina in the Nineties and leading clubs
routinely have to dole out free tickets and cash to their gangsterish fans, known as
barras bravas, whose activities include extortion. This is leading to a frightening
atmosphere. A recent survey in Brazil found that 61 per cent of fans said they stayed
away from matches because they were too scared to attend.

G. FIFA is considering the postponement of the Confederations Cup, scheduled for

January, which may persuade the world champions France to take part, a FIFA
spokesman said yesterday.

Suggest a suitable heading to the paragraphs

a. A climate of fear
b. Fan violence returns
c. FIFA's response
d. Cancelling the cup
e. Legal action is taken
f. Not just the fans
g. Italy has a serious problem
h. Not to blame
i. Violence back in the news
j. A widespread problem

PAGE 11
 Air Rage

(A) The first recorded case of an airline passenger turning seriously violent during a
flight, a phenomenon now widely known as “air rage”, happened in 1947 on a flight
from Havana to Miami. A drunken man assaulted another passenger and bit a flight
attendant. However, the man escaped punishment because it was not then clear under
whose legal control a crime committed on plane was, the country where the plane was
registered or the country where the crime was committed. In 1963, at the Tokyo
convention, it was decided that the laws of the country where the plane is registered
take precedence.

(B) The frequency of air rage has expanded out of proportion to the growth of air
travel. Until recently few statistics were gathered about air rage, but those that have
been indicate that passengers are increasingly likely to cause trouble or engage in
violent acts. For example, in 1998 there were 266 air rage incidents out of
approximately four million passengers, a 400% increase from 1995. In the same period
American Airlines showed a 200% rise. Air travel is predicted to rise by 5%
internationally by 2010 leading to increased airport congestion. This, coupled with the
flying public’s increased aggression, means that air rage may become a major issue in
coming years.

(C) Aside from discomfort and disruption, air rage poses some very real dangers to
flying. The most extreme of these is when out of control passengers enter the cockpit.
This has actually happened on a number of occasions, the worst of which have resulted
in the death and injury of pilots or the intruder taking control of the plane, almost
resulting in crashes. In addition, berserk passengers sometimes attempt to open the
emergency doors while in flight, putting the whole aircraft in danger. These are
extreme examples and cases of air rage more commonly result in physical assaults on
fellow passengers and crew such as throwing objects, punching, stabbing or scalding
with hot coffee.

PAGE 12
(D) The causes of air rage are not known for certain, but it is generally thought that
factors include: passenger behavior and personality, the physical environment and
changes in society. A recent study has identified the issues that start the incidents to be
as follows.

Alcohol 25%
Seating 16%
Smoking 10%
Carry on luggage 9%
Flight attendants 8%
Food 5%

(E) One of the major causes seems to be the passenger’s behavior or their personality.
Fear of flying and the feeling of powerlessness associated with flying can lead to
irritable or aggressive passengers. Also, alcohol consumed on a plane pressurized to
8000ft affects the drinker more quickly and the effects are stronger. Many people do
not take account of this and drinking may increase any negative reaction to the flying
environment they have, which, combined with the lowering of their inhibitions, may
cause air rage. Smoking withdrawal, which some liken in severity to opiate withdrawal,
is another major cause of air rage incidents. Passengers caught smoking in the toilets
occasionally assault flight attendants and have been known to start fires. When conflicts
occur in these conditions, they can escalate into major incidents if the passenger has a
violent personality or a fear of flying and because of the enclosed nature of a plane
offers no option of retreat as would be natural in a “fight or flight” reaction.

(F) Some people feel that the physical environment of a plane can lead to air rage.
Seats on most airlines have become smaller in recent years as airlines try to increase
profits. This leads to uncomfortable and irritated passengers. Also, space for carry-on
luggage is often very small. Because up to 8% of checked in luggage is lost,
misdirected or stolen, passengers have been trying to fit larger carry-on items into
these small storage areas and this can lead to disputes that can escalate into air rage.
Airlines could also be to blame by raising passengers’ expectations too high with their
marketing and advertising. Many air rage incidents start when disappointed passengers
demand to be reseated. Finally, there is some evidence to show that low oxygen levels
can raise aggression level and make people feel more desperate. Airlines have lowered
oxygen levels to save money. Now the level of oxygen in the air that the pilots breathe
is ten times higher than in cabin class.

(G) Another reason that has been suggested is that society is getting ruder and less
patient. The increased congestion at airports, longer queues and increased delays have
only added to this. In addition, some air rage incidents have been linked to the
demanding nature of high achieving business people, who do not like people telling
them what to do and resent the power that the cabin staff has over them. For them, a
flight attendant is a waiter or waitress who should do what the passenger wants.

PAGE 13
(H) The strongest calls for action to control air rage have come from pilots and aircrew.
The International Transport Workers’ Federation argues that there are too many
loopholes that let people escape punishment and that the penalties are too light. They
want to notify all passengers of the penalties for air rage before taking off, rather than
after the passenger begins to cause serious problems, when it may be too late. The
Civil Aviation Organization has been organizing international cooperation and penalties
have increased in recent years. The most severe punishment so far has been a 51-
month jail sentence, a fine to pay for the jet fuel used and 200 hours’ community
service for a man who attempted to enter the cockpit and to open the emergency door
of a domestic US flight.

(I) Various other measures are being used to control air rage. Air crew are getting
training on how to calm passengers and how to predict where incidents might result in
air rage and take action to prevent this. Other measures include, strengthening doors
to stop people entering the cockpit, training crew in the use of plastic restraints to tie
down unruly passengers and having pilots divert their planes if passengers cause
problems. Banning passengers who are guilty of air rage from flying has also been tried
to a lesser extent.

PAGE 14
 List of headings

The traveler’s character.

Disproportionate growth.
Pilots and aircrew.
Additional action.
Smaller seats.
Uncomfortable aeroplanes
Origins.
A major threat.
Demands for change.
Business people.
The roots of the problem.
The pace of life.
Links to the surroundings.
Personal experience.

Example:

Paragraph A Answer: vii

1. Paragraph B
2. Paragraph C
3. Paragraph D
4. Paragraph E
5. Paragraph F
6. Paragraph G
7. Paragraph H
8. Paragraph I

PAGE 15
 Environmental management

Section A

The role of governments in environmental management is difficult but inescapable.

Sometimes, the state tries to manage the resources it owns, and does so badly. Often,
however, governments act in an even more harmful way. They actually subsidies the
exploitation and consumption of natural resources. A whole range of policies, from
farm-price support to protection for coal-mining, do environmental damage and (often)
make no economic sense. Scrapping them offers a two-fold bonus: a cleaner
environment and a more efficient economy. Growth and environmentalism can actually
go hand in hand, if politicians have the courage to confront the vested interest that
subsidies create.

Section B

No activity affects more of the earth's surface than farming. It shapes a third of the
planet's land area, not counting Antarctica, and the proportion is rising. World food
output per head has risen by 4 per cent between the 1970s and 1980s mainly as a
result of increases in yields from land already in cultivation, but also because more land
has been brought under the plough. Higher yields have been achieved by increased
irrigation, better crop breeding, and a doubling in the use of pesticides and chemical
fertilisers in the 1970s and 1980s.

Section C

All these activities may have damaging environmental impacts. For example, land
clearing for agriculture is the largest single cause of deforestation; chemical fertilisers
and pesticides may contaminate water supplies; more intensive farming and the
abandonment of fallow periods tend to exacerbate soil erosion; and the spread of
monoculture and use of high-yielding varieties of crops have been accompanied by the
disappearance of old varieties of food plants which might have provided some insurance
against pests or diseases in future.

PAGE 16
Soil erosion threatens the productivity of land in both rich and poor countries. The
United States, where the most careful measurements have been done, discovered in
1982 that about one-fifth of its farmland was losing topsoil at a rate likely to diminish
the soil's productivity.

The country subsequently embarked upon a program to convert 11 per cent of its
cropped land to meadow or forest. Topsoil in India and China is vanishing much faster
than in America.

Section D

Government policies have frequently compounded the environmental damage that

farming can cause. In the rich countries, subsidies for growing crops and price
supports for farm output drive up the price of land. The annual value of these subsidies
is immense: about $250 billion, or more than all World Bank lending in the 1980s. To
increase the output of crops per acre, a farmer's easiest option is to use more of the
most readily available inputs: fertilisers and pesticides. Fertiliser use doubled in
Denmark in the period 1960 -1985 and increased in The Netherlands by 150 per cent.
The quantity of pesticides applied has risen too: by 69 per cent in 1975- 1984 in
Denmark, for example, with a rise of 115 per cent in the frequency of application in the
three years from 1981.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s some efforts were made to reduce farm subsidies.
The most dramatic example was that of New Zealand, which scrapped most farm
support in 1984. A study of the environmental effects, conducted in 1993, found that
the end of fertiliser subsidies had been followed by a fall in fertilizer use (a fall
compounded by the decline in world commodity prices, which cut farm incomes). The
removal of subsidies also stopped land-clearing and over-stocking, which in the past
had been the principal causes of erosion. Farms began to diversify. The one kind of
subsidy whose removal appeared to have been bad for the environment was the
subsidy to manage soil erosion.

In less enlightened countries, and in the European Union, the trend has been to reduce
rather than eliminate subsidies, and to introduce new payments to encourage farmers
to treat their land in environmentally friendlier ways, or to leave it fallow. It may sound
strange but such payments need to be higher than the existing incentives for farmers
to grow food crops. Farmers, however, dislike being paid to do nothing. In several
countries they have become interested in the possibility of using fuel produced from
crop residues either as a replacement for petrol (as ethanol) or as fuel for power
stations (as biomass). Such fuels produce far less carbon dioxide than coal or oil, and
absorb carbon dioxide as they grow. They are therefore less likely to contribute to the
greenhouse effect. But they are rarely competitive with fossil fuels unless subsidized -
and growing them does no less environmental harm than other crops.

Section E

In poor countries, governments aggravate other sorts of damage. Subsidies for

pesticides and artificial fertilizers encourage farmers to use greater quantities than are
needed to get the highest economic crop yield. A study by the International Rice
Research Institute of pesticide use by farmers in South East Asia found that, with pest-
resistant varieties of rice, even moderate applications of pesticide frequently cost

PAGE 17
farmers more than they saved. Such waste puts farmers on a chemical treadmill: bugs
and weeds become resistant to poisons, so next year's poisons must be more lethal.
One cost is to human health. Every year some 10,000 people die from pesticide
poisoning, almost all of them in the developing countries, and another 400,000 become
seriously ill. As for artificial fertilisers, their use world-wide increased by 40 per cent per
unit of farmed land between the mid-1970s and late 1980s, mostly in the developing
countries. Overuse of fertilisers may cause farmers to stop rotating crops or leaving
their land fallow. That, in turn, may make soil erosion worse.

Section F

A result of the Uruguay Round of world trade negotiations is likely to be a reduction

of 36 per cent in the average levels of farm subsidies paid by the rich countries in
1986-1990. Some of the world's food production will move from Western Europe to
regions where subsidies are lower or non- existent, such as the former communist
countries and parts of the developing world. Some environmentalists worry about this
outcome. It will undoubtedly mean more pressure to convert natural habitat into
farmland. But it will also have many desirable environmental effects. The intensity of
farming in the rich world should decline, and the use of chemical inputs will diminish.
Crops are more likely to be grown in the environments to which they are naturally
suited. And more farmers in poor countries will have the money and the incentive to
manage their land in ways that are sustainable in the long run. That is important. To
feed an increasingly hungry world, farmers need every incentive to use their soil and
water effectively and efficiently.

TASK:
Match the Headlines

PAGE 18
Questions 1 – 5

Sample Passage 6 has six sections, A-F.

Choose the correct heading for sections A-D and F from the list of headings below.

Write the correct number i-ix in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i. The probable effects of the new international trade agreement

ii. The environmental impact of modern farming
iii. Farming and soil erosion
iv. The effects of government policy in rich countries
v. Governments and management of the environment
vi. The effects of government policy in poor countries
vii. Farming and food output
viii. The effects of government policy on food output
ix. The new prospects for world trade

A. Section A

B. Section B

C. Section C

D. Section D

E. Section F

Example Section E vi

PAGE 19
 Development of Rockets

The invention of rockets is linked inextricably with the invention of 'black powder'.
Most historians of technology credit the Chinese with its discovery. They base
their belief on studies of Chinese writings or on the notebooks of early Europeans
who settled in or made long visits to China to study its history and civilisation. It
is probable that, some time in the tenth century, black powder was first
compounded from its basic ingredients of saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur. But
this does not mean that it was immediately used to propel rockets. By the
thirteenth century, powder-propelled fire arrows had become rather common.
The Chinese relied on this type of technological development to produce
incendiary projectiles of many sorts, explosive grenades and possibly cannons to
repel their enemies. One such weapon was the 'basket of fire' or, as directly
translated from Chinese, the 'arrows like flying leopards'. The 0.7 metre-long
arrows, each with a long tube of gunpowder attached near the point of each
arrow, could be fired from a long, octagonal-shaped basket at the same time and
had a range of 400 paces. Another weapon was the 'arrow as a flying sabre',
which could be fired from crossbows. The rocket, placed in a similar position to
other rocket-propelled arrows, was designed to increase the range. A small iron
weight was attached to the 1.5m bamboo shaft, just below the feathers, to
increase the arrow's stability by moving the centre of gravity to a position below
the rocket. At a similar time, the Arabs had developed the 'egg which moves and
burns'. This 'egg' was apparently full of gunpowder and stabilised by a 1.5m tail.
It was fired using two rockets attached to either side of this tail.

It was not until the eighteenth century that Europe became seriously interested
in the possibilities of using the rocket itself as a weapon of war and not just to
propel other weapons. Prior to this, rockets were used only in pyrotechnic
displays. The incentive for the more aggressive use of rockets came not from
within the European continent but from far-away India, whose leaders had built
up a corps of rocketeers and used rockets successfully against the British in the
late eighteenth century.

PAGE 20
The Indian rockets used against the British were described by a British Captain
serving in India as ‘an iron envelope about 200 millimetres long and 40
millimetres in diameter with sharp points at the top and a 3m-long bamboo
guiding stick’. In the early nineteenth century the British began to experiment
with incendiary barrage rockets. The British rocket differed from the Indian
version in that it was completely encased in a stout, iron cylinder, terminating in
a conical head, measuring one metre in diameter and having a stick almost five
metres long and constructed in such a way that it could be firmly attached to the
body of the rocket. The Americans developed a rocket, complete with its own
launcher, to use against the Mexicans in the mid-nineteenth century. A long
cylindrical tube was propped up by two sticks and fastened to the top of the
launcher, thereby allowing the rockets to be inserted and lit from the other end.
However, the results were sometimes not that impressive as the behaviour of
the rockets in flight was less than predictable.

Questions 7 – 10

Look at the following items (Questions 7-10) and the list of groups below. Match

each item with the group which first invented or used them.

Write the correct letter A- E in boxes 7-10 on your answer sheet. NB You may
use any letter more than once.

7 black powder

8 rocket-propelled arrows for fighting

9 rockets as war weapons

10 the rocket launcher

First invented or used by

A. the Chinese
B. the Indians
C. the British
D. the Arabs
E. the Americans

PAGE 21
 Teaching and Learning

Section A

The opposed view, broadly described as “progressive” or “child-centered”, starts from

the learner rather than from any pre-determined body of knowledge. On this view, the
function of the teacher, from parent in the earliest years right through the years of
school attendance, is to be aware of each child’s capacity and stage of development.
The primary importance of children’s learning, which in turn is taken to depend on that
stage of development, requires each of those stages to be seen as important in its own
right rather than as a preparation for some later stage. An eight-year-old child, for
example, is seen as an eight-year-old to be developed to his or her full potential as an
eight-year-old, rather than as a future nine or fifteen-year-old. The curriculum itself
tends to be seen, in the words of the Report of the Consultative Committee on the
Primary School (HMSO, 1931) as open-ended and enquiry-based: “the curriculum is to
be thought of in terms of activity and experience rather than of knowledge to be
acquired and facts to be stored.”

Section B

So far as values are concerned, the progressive approach tends to see attempts to
teach or improve these directly as less effective than creating schools which exemplify
values of greatest relevance to the young. Hence the importance placed on the way
individuals, adults and learners alike, are encouraged to behave towards each other. A
disciplined environment, rather than being externally imposed, is a direct consequence
of that process. Social values, cooperation rather than competition and equal value
given to the efforts of the least as well as the ablest, are emphasized. Finally, as a point
of principle, it is assumed all can succeed at some level in some aspects of learning. As
one 19th century educator insisted: “All can walk part of the way with genius.” Sharply
differentiated forms of education, with children attending schools or classes confined to
those with particular levels of aptitude, however assessed, are thought to conflict with

PAGE 22
 this principle. By inducing a sense of failure in children allocated to what are seen, by
others and themselves, as schools or classes with lower standards than others, general
levels of achievement are thought to be depressed and an unmotivated and under-
achieving group of children unnecessarily created.

Section C

The opposed concepts implicit in “traditional” and “progressive” attitudes to teaching

and learning reflect approaches regarded by those holding one or other of them as self-
evident: that it must be right to start from what needs to be taught or, conversely, that
it must be right to start from the learner whose success in learning it is the purpose of
teaching to ensure.

Section D

The virtual impossibility of reconciling these two diverse approaches, at least in their
extreme forms, has led to each being caricatured, often in metaphorical terms.
Traditional education’s perception of children, in an extreme form, was described by
Charles Dickens in Hard Times as seeing them as: “little vessels arranged in order,
ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the
brim.” In short, like a kettle that has to be filled from a tap, the traditional learner is
taken to be a passive recipient of whatever is being taught.

Further, because the traditional approach to education requires a degree of

memorization, the ability to recall with precision what has been taught in the terms in
which it has to be reproduced by the learner, this feature is disparagingly described as
“learning by rote”. The implication is that the learner’s mind has not been required to
be engaged in the process. Finally, the assumption that, to the traditionalist, knowledge
is something that already exists, causes this approach to be seen as backward-looking
at a time when new knowledge is being created and re-shaped at a bewildering rate.

• Finding Synonyms
• Matching Paragraphs to Heading

Questions 1-4

In paragraphs A-D from the IELTS reading text, find synonyms for the following words
and phrases.

1 (paragraph A) argument
2 (paragraph B) prearranged
3 (paragraph C) pass on
4 (paragraph D) following methods

PAGE 23
Questions 5-8

Select a suitable title, i-vii for paragraphs A-D from the IELTS reading text.

i Education Centres for Children

ii Traditional and Progressives Approaches
iii A Supportive Learning Environment
iv Rote Learning Creates New Knowledge
v People Support the Method They Were Taught
vi Sensitivity to Ability and Natural Progress
vii The Negative Side to ‘Rote’ Learning

5 (paragraph A)
6 (paragraph B)
7 (paragraph C)
8 (paragraph D)

PAGE 24
 Yes, No, NG
True, False, NG
1. Passage:

The majority of people who graduated university found it difficult to get a

job.

Question:

After finishing their tertiary education, all people had difficulties to find
employment.

2. Passage:

The charity raises money to pay for education and the daily needs of poor
people.

Question:

The charity spends more of the money raised on schooling for poor people
than on their daily requirements. (It is not opposite, while the opposite will
be less for more)

3. Passage:

Just over 400 million acres of land is being used for agriculture in America.

Question:

At present, in America, about 400 million acres of land is allocated for

agriculture.

Example:

Passage: By the second half of the 17th century, coffee had found its way to
Europe.

Question: Coffee arrived in Europe after the 17th century.

PAGE 25
 Tips:

1) Spend time reading and analyzing the question statement

2) you are not trying the match key words. You must match meaning.
3) Paraphrases
4) look out for common traps. (Comparisons; all/some/majority)
5) Answers come in order
6) keep your eye on the next question

PAGE 26
 Chilies

Chiles originate in South America and have been eaten for at least 9,500 years.
Organised cultivation began around 5,400BC. Christopher Columbus was the
first European to encounter chilies, when he landed on the island of Hispaniola
in 1492. He thought it was a type of pepper and called it the “red pepper”, a
name still used today. After their introduction to Europe they were an immediate
sensation and were quickly incorporated into the diet. From there they spread
to Africa, India and East Asia.

The reason for the chili’s “hotness” lies in a chemical called Capsaisin. Capsaisin
causes temporary irritation to the trigeminal cells, which are the pain receptors
in the mouth, nose and throat. After the pain messages are transmitted to the
brain, endorphins, natural pain killers, are released and these not only kill the
pain but give the chili eater a short lived natural high. Other side effects include:
an increased heart rate, a running nose and increased salivation and sweating,
which can have a cooling effect in hot climates.

The reason for the presence of Capsaisin is thought to be to deter animals from
eating the fruit. Only mammals feel the burning effects; birds feel nothing. As
birds are a better method of distributing the seeds, which pass intact through
their guts, Capsaisin would seem to be a result of natural selection.

The smaller chilies tend to be the hottest. This may reflect the fact that they
tend to grow closer to the ground and are therefore more vulnerable to animals.
The heat of a chili is measured on the Scoville scale.

PAGE 27
The hottest types such as the Habenero and the Scotch Bonnet rate between
100,000 and 300,000, the world famous Tabasco sauceÒ rates at 15,000 to
30,000, about the same as the Thai prik khee nu, while the popular Jalapeno is
between 5,000 and 15,000. Powdered chili is 500 to 1,000 and the mild
capsicins and paprikas can range between 100 and 0.

True False Not Given

i. Chilies became popular as soon as they were brought into Europe

ii. Capsaisin damages the mouth

iii. Chilies can be part of a bird’s diet

iv. All large chilies grow high off the ground

v. People breed chilies for their heat

PAGE 28
IELTS true false not given reading questions:
Practice
Using these strategies, look at this reading and answer the questions that follow.

UN warns over impact of rapidly ageing

populations
The world needs to do more to prepare for the impact of a rapidly ageing
population, the UN has warned - particularly in developing countries. Within 10
years the number of people aged over 60 will pass one billion, a report by the UN
Population Fund said. The demographic shift will present huge challenges to
countries' welfare, pension and healthcare systems. The UN agency also said more
had to be done to tackle "abuse, neglect and violence against older persons".

The number of older people worldwide is growing faster than any other age group.
The report, ageing in the 21st Century: A Celebration and a Challenge, estimates
that one in nine people around the world are older than 60. The elderly population
is expected to swell by 200 million in the next decade to surpass one billion, and
reach two billion by 2050. This rising proportion of older people is a consequence
of success - improved nutrition, sanitation, healthcare, education and economic
well-being are contributing factors, the report says.

But the UN and a charity that also contributed to the report, HelpAge International,
say the ageing population is being widely mismanaged. "In many developing
countries with large populations of young people, the challenge is that
governments have not put policies and practices in place to support their current
older populations or made enough preparations for 2050," the agencies said in a
joint statement.

The report warns that the skills and experience of older people are being wasted,
with many under-employed and vulnerable to discrimination. HelpAge said more
countries needed to introduce pension schemes to ensure economic independence
and reduce poverty in old age. It stressed that it was not enough to simply pass
legislation - the new schemes needed to be funded properly.

The UN report used India as an example, saying it needed to take urgent steps in
this area. Almost two-thirds of India's population is under 30. But it also has 100
million elderly people - a figure that is expected to increase threefold by 2050.
Traditionally, people in India live in large, extended families and elderly people
have been well looked after. But the trend now is to have smaller, nuclear families
and many of the country's elderly are finding themselves cast out, says the BBC's
Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi.There are more and more cases of physical and mental
abuse, including neglect, suffered by the elderly at the hands of their families. It is

PAGE 29
slowly becoming a widespread social problem, particularly in urban areas, one
which India still has not got to grips with, our correspondent says.

By contrast, the UN report cited the case of Bolivia as an example of good practice
in the developing world. All Bolivians over the age of 60 get a pension that is the
equivalent of about $30 (£19) a month. Bolivia suffers from frequent flooding and
landslides, and older people there have been organised into "Brigadas Blancas" -
White Haired Brigades. They help with preparations for emergencies, and accessing
humanitarian aid.

Source: BBC News Website

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

Mark:

TRUE - if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE - if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN - if there is no information on this

1. The growth of the elderly population is going to make it extremely difficult to

provide adequate social service provision
True
False
Not Given

2. Approximately thirty per cent of the population are over 60 years’ old

True
False
Not Given

3. Developed countries are much better prepared than developing countries for
2050

True
False
Not Given

PAGE 30
4. More financing is necessary to ensure new pension schemes are successful

True
False
Not Given

5. Elderly people in India are not always being looked after as well as they were in
the past

True
False
Not Given

6. India is starting to deal with the neglect of its elderly population

True
False
Not Given

7. Bolivian Families tend to look after their elderly relatives better than many other
countries

True
False
Not Given

PAGE 31
 Yes / No / Not Given
Teaching and Learning
Section A

The relationship between teaching and learning, what and how teachers teach, and
how and what learners learn has long been a subject of controversy. The two,
sometimes extreme, positions adopted by those who engage in it can be loosely
described as, on the one hand, “traditional” and, on the other, “progressive”.

Section B

The traditional position starts from the assumption, taken to be so obvious as not
to be open to question, that the purpose of teaching is to ensure that those taught
acquire a prescribed body of knowledge and set of values. Both knowledge and
values are taken to reflect a society’s selection of what it most wants to transmit
to its future citizens and requires its future workforce to be able to do.

Section C

An important characteristic of this traditional view is that it seeks to convey what

is already known and, at some level, approved. The relationship between teacher
and learner is determined thereby. The learner is seen as the person who does not
yet have the required knowledge or values and the teacher as the person who has
both and whose function it is to convey them to the learner.

Section D

From the nature of this relationship, a number of things follow: the systematic
transmission of knowledge and values from teacher to learner needs to proceed
smoothly. That requires well-behaved learners and a disciplined environment, if
necessary externally imposed with sanctions for failures in compliance. Teaching
and learning also benefit from carefully designed syllabuses and prescribed
curriculum content. Furthermore, as what has to be learnt can be set out in full,
stage by stage, from the start of the educational process to its conclusion, it follows
that what is taught can be regularly tested and that each stage of teaching and
learning can best be seen as a preparation for the next. It also follows that, as
individual learners learn at different speeds and are capable of reaching different
levels of achievement, it seems sensible to arrange learners in groups of similar
abilities, either at different schools or in graduated classes within schools. Finally,
so far as human motivation is concerned, competition is seen to be the
predominant way to encourage learners or institutions to strive to improve their
performance in relation to that of others.

PAGE 32
Section E

The opposed view, broadly described as “progressive” or “child-centered”, starts

from the learner rather than from any pre-determined body of knowledge. On this
view, the function of the teacher, from parent in the earliest years right through
the years of school attendance, is to be aware of each child’s capacity and stage of
development. The primary importance of children’s learning, which in turn is taken
to depend on that stage of development, requires each of those stages to be seen
as important in its own right rather than as a preparation for some later stage. An
eight-year-old child, for example, is seen as an eight-year-old to be developed to
his or her full potential as an eight-year-old, rather than as a future nine or fifteen-
year-old. The curriculum itself tends to be seen, in the words of the Report of the
Consultative Committee on the Primary School (HMSO, 1931) as open-ended and
enquiry-based: “the curriculum is to be thought of in terms of activity and
experience rather than of knowledge to be acquired and facts to be stored.”

Section F

So far as values are concerned, the progressive approach tends to see attempts to
teach or improve these directly as less effective than creating schools which
exemplify values of greatest relevance to the young. Hence the importance placed
on the way individuals, adults and learners alike, are encouraged to behave
towards each other. A disciplined environment, rather than being externally
imposed, is a direct consequence of that process. Social values, cooperation rather
than competition and equal value given to the efforts of the least as well as the
most able, are emphasized. Finally, as a point of principle, it is assumed all can
succeed at some level in some aspects of learning. As one 19th century educator
insisted: “All can walk part of the way with genius.” Sharply differentiated forms of
education, with children attending schools or classes confined to those with
particular levels of aptitude, however assessed, are thought to conflict with this
principle. By inducing a sense of failure in children allocated to what are seen, by
others and themselves, as schools or classes with lower standards than others,
general levels of achievement are thought to be depressed and an unmotivated
and under-achieving group of children unnecessarily created.

Section G

The opposed concepts implicit in “traditional” and “progressive” attitudes to

teaching and learning reflect approaches regarded by those holding one or other
of them as self-evident: that it must be right to start from what needs to be taught
or, conversely, that it must be right to start from the learner whose success in
learning it is the purpose of teaching to ensure.

PAGE 33
Section H

The virtual impossibility of reconciling these two diverse approaches, at least in

their extreme forms, has led to each being caricatured, often in metaphorical
terms. Traditional education’s perception of children, in an extreme form, was
described by Charles Dickens in Hard Times as seeing them as: “little vessels
arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until
they were full to the brim.” In short, like a kettle that has to be filled from a tap,
the traditional learner is taken to be a passive recipient of whatever is being taught.
Further, because the traditional approach to education requires a degree of
memorization, the ability to recall with precision what has been taught in the terms
in which it has to be reproduced by the learner, this feature is disparagingly
described as “learning by rote”. The implication is that the learner’s mind has not
been required to be engaged in the process. Finally, the assumption that, to the
traditionalist, knowledge is something that already exists, causes this approach to
be seen as backward-looking at a time when new knowledge is being created and
re-shaped at a bewildering rate.

Section I

Criticisms of progressive education, particularly in its extreme forms, have

concentrated on the folly, as this is perceived, of allowing children to decide when
and how they are to learn anything. Lack of externally imposed discipline has led
to some schools where, as one inspector of schools described it, “it is like a wet
play-time all day”. The emphasis on growth and development, with analogies to
the way plants move naturally through their lives without constantly being told
what to become, has been particularly criticized. The simple notion of growth
carries with it no implication as to the direction that growth is taking. Growth,
progressives are thought to ignore, may as easily be in an unwholesome direction
as a healthy one. This leads to values being seen to be relative, with no one set of
values inherently to be preferred to any others. Yet what ought to be, values of
any kind, cannot be derived from what is; and it is a naturalistic fallacy to suppose
otherwise. Finally, because the teacher is not seen as at the centre of the
educational process, he or she is reduced to becoming a “facilitator” of children’s
learning; in extreme cases unprepared even to answer simple questions or directly
to teach anything at all, on the assumption that the only things a learner really
learns are those things which he or she has “discovered for himself”.

Section J

Between the two extreme positions, reconciliation has proved difficult. Historically,
the traditional approach has been dominant and continues to be held particularly
firmly by those who themselves were able, well-motivated learners and as such
required little more of their teachers than specific instruction. Progressive

PAGE 34
approaches have tended to be favored by teachers or theoreticians whose concern
has been with the education of all children, including the able and the well-
motivated but with particular attention to the needs of those with little interest in
or apparent aptitude for learning and little confidence in its relevance to their own
lives.

Section K

In practice, neither of the two extreme approaches to teaching and learning has
proved generally satisfactory. In its starkest form, traditional education has often
served able pupils well but has been less successful with others. On the other hand,
progressive education has tended to work well enough in the early years of
schooling, in the hands of able and committed teachers, but has had less success
when attempted in other circumstances.

Section L

The need to develop systems which incorporate the best of traditional and
progressive approaches to teaching and learning has long been evident.
Fortunately, what good schools and good teachers actually do has suggested ways
forward. Increasingly, the approach adopted places the teacher in authority, as
traditionally has been the position, but the absolute necessity of engaging learners
in their own learning, as progressive educators have argued, is seen as equally
important. Teaching, on this view, requires skilful questioning of pupils by the
teacher, rather than undue reliance on direct instruction. The purpose of that
questioning is to encourage the minds of the learners to understand, to arrange,
and to act on the material with which they are required to engage. In this sense,
learning is active; indeed, it is interactive, with the teacher responsible for ensuring
the direction that this learning takes but with the learner consistently being
challenged to shape it to his or her needs. Education of this kind has increasingly
become a feature of effective schools and school systems world-wide. In the
process, the long-standing conflict between traditional and progressive approaches
to teaching and learning, with the time-consuming controversies to which this gives
rise, has a real prospect of being resolved.

By Peter Newsam

PAGE 35
Questions 13-20

Do the following statements reflect the claims of the writer of the IELTS Reading
Text?

YES if the statement reflects the claims of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

13 Education must give ‘future citizens’ skills necessary for employment.

14 When individuals learn at different speeds it is a good idea to divide

classes into those of similar capabilities.

15 An eight-year-old will reach their full potential under the progressive

system.

16 Charles Dickens thought that the ‘traditional’ approach to education gave

children hard times.

17 Facilitators believe that we only learn things we have found out for
ourselves.

18 It is not easy to bring together the radical ideas on education.

19 Neither method is totally successful.

20 If elements of both approaches are combined, we might have a

successful method of teaching.

PAGE 36
Tips for “MCQs”
You will need to quickly identify the main idea in order to locate the correct
section of the text.
When you do this it will seem like two or three of the options could be the
correct answer and you therefore must read in much more detail to find the
specific information that gives you the correct answer.

Common Problems

Reading the text before the questions– If you do this you are reading ‘blind’
because you are not sure what you are looking for. You also waste time because
you will have to read the questions and then read the text again, so you have
just wasted your time on the first reading.

Not answering questions– This seems like an obvious one but it would shock
you how many people don’t answer the question at all.

Being tricked by the examiner– examiners love to try and trick you with
‘distractors’. Distractors are things that look like the correct answer but are
actually incorrect. When you locate the correct section in the reading text, there
will appear to be two or three plausible correct answers.
A very common trick is matching lots of keywords from the question options to
parts of the text. Just because there are lots of matching keywords doesn’t mean
it is the correct answer. Also look at the context of the whole sentence and any
qualifying words like most, all, always, sometimes.

Not reading the whole sentence– The first part of a sentence might look
correct but the second half of it might change the meaning. Words like but and
however can change the meaning of a whole sentence. Examiners know you are
trying to get the answers as quickly as possible and will try to trick you in this
way.

PAGE 37
Not reading the text carefully– Because there are so many ‘distractors’, some
of the ‘correct’ answers will appear to ‘jump out’ at you. If you don’t read the
text carefully, you will choose the incorrect answer. Take some time to really
understand the meaning of each sentence.

Top 10 Tips

1. Read the questions before you read the text.

2. You will often be able to eliminate 2 of the four answers and this leaves

you with two choices. Think about the difference in meaning between these

two choices and this will help you get the correct answers.

3. If you are unsure of what the difference is between two or three sentences,

it can help to rephrase them in your own words.

4. If you are running out of time or you really don’t know the answer, have a

guess. You will not lose marks for wrong answers and you have a 25%

chance of getting the correct answer just by guessing.

5. Don’t be tricked by the examiner’s ‘distractors’ especially keywords from

the questions that look the same as the text.

6. If you don’t know anything about the topic, don’t panic. It is a reading test,

not a test of your knowledge.

7. Try to predict the correct answer before you read the text. This will help

you find the correct answer.

8. Before deciding on your answer, always go back and carefully read the

questions before making your final decision.

9. The answers will be in the same order as the text.

10. You might be asked about both facts and opinions. Facts are things that

are always true or cannot be disproved but opinions are just what people

think.

PAGE 38
Strategy

This is my suggested strategy. There are many different strategies and you

should use the one you feel comfortable with. You can also adapt this strategy to

what suits you.

1. Read the questions carefully.

2. Skim the text to get the general meaning.

3. Underline any keywords in the question and think about any synonyms that

might appear in the text.

4. Read the choices and underline any keywords. Think about the difference

in meaning between the difference choices.

5. Predict the correct answer.

6. Read the text and using keywords and synonyms locate the part containing

the answers.

7. Read that part of the text very carefully, thinking about the difference in

meanings.

8. Think about not only which options are correct but how the other options

are wrong.

9. Go back and read the question again and mark your final choice.

PAGE 39
 Australian Agricultural Innovations
1850 – 1900:
During this period, there was a wide spread expansion of agriculture in Australia.
The selection system was begun; whereby small sections of land were parcelled
out by lot. Particularly in New South Wales, this led to conflicts between small
holders and the emerging squatter class, whose abuse of the system often
allowed them to take vast tracts of fertile land.

There were also many positive advances in farming technology as the farmer’s
adapted agricultural methods to the harsh Australian conditions. One of the most
important was “dry farming”. This was the discovery that repeated ploughing of
fallow, unproductive land could preserve nitrates and moisture, allowing the land
to eventually be cultivated. This, along with the extension of the railways allowed
the development of what are now great inland wheat lands.

The inland areas of Australia are less fertile than most other wheat producing
countries and yields per acre are lower. This slowed their development, but also
led to the development of several labour saving devices. In 1843 John Ridley, a
South Australian farmer, invented “the stripper”, a basic harvesting machine. By
the 1860s its use was widespread. H. V. McKay, then only nineteen, modified the
machine so that it was a complete harvester: cutting, collecting and sorting.
McKay developed this early innovation into a large harvester manufacturing
industry centred near Melbourne and exporting worldwide. Robert Bowyer Smith
invented the “stump jump plough”, which let a farmer plough land which still had
tree stumps on it. It did this by replacing the traditional plough shear with a set
of wheels that could go over stumps, if necessary.

The developments in farm machinery were supported by scientific research.

During the late 19th century, South Australian wheat yields were going down. An
agricultural scientist at the colony’s agricultural college, John Custance, found
that this was due to a lack of phosphates and advised the use of soluble
superphosphate fertilizer. The implementation of this scheme revitalised the
industry.

From early days it had been obvious that English and European sheep breeds
had to be adapted to Australian conditions, but only near the end of the century
was the same applied to crops. Prior to this, English and South African strains
had been use, with varying degrees of success. William Farrer, from Cambridge
University, was the first to develop new wheat varieties that were better able to
withstand dry Australian conditions. By 1914, Australia was no longer thought of
as a land suitable only for sheep, but as a wheat growing nation.

422 words

PAGE 40
IELTS Multiple Choice

1. What is dry farming?

Preserving nitrates and moisture.

Ploughing the land again and again.

Cultivating fallow land.

2. What did H. V. McKay do?

Export the stripper.

Improve the stripper.

Cut, collect and sort wheat.

3. What was the stump jump plough’s innovation?

It could cut through tree stumps.

To put the plough shear on wheels.

It allowed farmers to cultivate land that hadn’t been fully cleared.

4. What did John Custance recommend?

Improving wheat yields.

Revitalising the industry.

Fertilizing the soil.

5. Why was William Farrer’s wheat better?

It was drought resistant.

It wasn’t from England or South Africa.

It was drier for Australian conditions.

PAGE 41
IELTS Reading Multiple Choice
Objective: IELTS reading multiple choice and skimming and scanning practice.

PAGE 42
PAGE 43
IELTS Reading Multiple Choice Questions
1. Young children are making criminologists nervous because
(a) they are committing too much crime.
(b) they are impulsive and immature.
(c) they may grow up to be criminals.

2. The general crime rate in the US is

(a) increasing
(b) decreasing
(c) not changing

3. The age group which commits the highest rate of crime is

(a) 14 - 17.
(b) 18 - 24.
(c) 24 +.

PAGE 44
4. James Fox believes that the improvement in crime figures could

(a) make us complacent in the fight against crime.

(b) result in an increase in teenage violence.
(c) result in a decrease in teenage violence.

5. According to paragraph 3, the government

(a) is doing everything it can to solve the problem.

(b) is not interested in solving the problem.
(c) is not doing enough to solve the problem.

6. In comparison with James Fox, Michael Tonry is

(a) more pessimistic.

(b) less pessimistic.
(c) equally pessimistic.

7. Jonathan Kozol believes that

(a) there is no solution to the problem.

(b) employment and education are not the answer.
(c) employment and education can improve the situation.

8. Professor DiIulio thinks that spending on social programs

(a) should continue as it is

(b) should be decreased.
(c) is irrelevant to crime rates.

PAGE 45
 Government subsidies farmers

All these activities may have damaging environmental impacts. For example,
land clearing for agriculture is the largest single cause of deforestation;
chemical fertilisers and pesticides may contaminate water supplies; more
intensive farming and the abandonment of fallow periods tend to exacerbate
soil erosion; and the spread of monoculture and use of high- yielding varieties
of crops have been accompanied by the disappearance of old varieties of food
plants which might have provided some insurance against pests or diseases in
future.

Soil erosion threatens the productivity of land in both rich and poor countries.
The United States, where the most careful measurements have been done,
discovered in 1982 that about one-fifth of its farmland was losing topsoil at a
rate likely to diminish the soil's productivity. The country subsequently
embarked upon a program to convert 11 per cent of its cropped land to meadow
or forest. Topsoil in India and China is vanishing much faster than in America.

Government policies have frequently compounded the environmental damage

that farming can cause. In the rich countries, subsidies for growing crops and
price supports for farm output drive up the price of land.

The annual value of these subsidies is immense: about

$250 billion, or more than all World Bank lending in the 1980s. To increase the
output of crops per acre, a farmer's easiest option is to use more of the most
readily available inputs: fertilisers and pesticides. Fertiliser use doubled in
Denmark in the period 1960-1985 and increased in The Netherlands by 150 per
cent. The quantity of pesticides applied has risen too: by 69 per cent in 1975-
1984 in Denmark, for example, with a rise of 115 per cent in the frequency of
application in the three years from 1981.

PAGE 46
In the late 1980s and early 1990s some efforts were made to reduce farm
subsidies. The most dramatic example was that of New Zealand, which
scrapped most farm support in 1984. A study of the environmental effects,
conducted in 1993, found that the end of fertiliser subsidies had been followed
by a fall in fertiliser use (a fall compounded by the decline in world commodity
prices, which cut farm incomes).

The removal of subsidies also stopped land-clearing and over-stocking, which

in the past had been the principal causes of erosion. Farms began to diversify.
The one kind of subsidy whose removal appeared to have been bad for the
environment was the subsidy to manage soil erosion.

In less enlightened countries, and in the European Union, the trend has been
to reduce rather than eliminate subsidies, and to introduce new payments to
encourage farmers to treat their land in environmentally friendlier ways, or to
leave it fallow. It may sound strange but such payments need to be higher than
the existing incentives for farmers to grow food crops.

Farmers, however, dislike being paid to do nothing. In several countries they

have become interested in the possibility of using fuel produced from crop
residues either as a replacement for petrol (as ethanol) or as fuel for power
stations (as biomass). Such fuels produce far less carbon dioxide than coal or
oil, and absorb carbon dioxide as they grow.

They are therefore less likely to contribute to the greenhouse effect. But they
are rarely competitive with fossil fuels unless subsidised - and growing them
does no less environmental harm than other crops.

PAGE 47
Questions 10 – 12

Choose the appropriate letters A, B, C or D.

Write your answers in boxes 10-12 on your answer sheet.

10 Research completed in 1982 found that in the United States soil

erosion

A reduced the productivity of farmland by 20 per cent.

B was almost as severe as in India and China.
C was causing significant damage to 20 per cent of farmland.
D could be reduced by converting cultivated land to meadow or
forest.

11 By the mid-1980s, farmers in Denmark

A used 50 per cent less fertiliser than Dutch farmers.

B used twice as much fertiliser as they had in 1960.
C applied fertiliser much more frequently than in 1960.
D more than doubled the amount of pesticide they used in just 3
years.

12 Which one of the following increased in New Zealand after 1984?

A farm incomes
B use of fertiliser
C over-stocking
D farm diversification

PAGE 48
IELTS Reading- Sentence Completion
Tips and Strategy
In this kind of question, you will be given a number of sentences with gaps in
them and asked to complete the sentences with words from the reading text.

These questions are as much vocabulary tests as they are reading tests because
they require you to be aware of paraphrasing (using different words to repeat
a sentence so that it has the same meaning) and synonyms (words with the
same or very similar meanings). More on these below.

This post will:

• look at example questions

• discuss paraphrasing and synonyms
• discuss common problems
• give you tips and advice
• provide you with a strategy to use on exam day

Example Question

As you can see there are three incomplete sentences that we must complete.

Note that it says NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the text for each answer.
This means that we can write one or two words only. If we write any more
than this, we get the question wrong.

PAGE 49
Also note that it says ‘from the text’. This means that we can’t change the
words from the text.

The word limit and whether we should use words from the text or not can
change from question to question so read them carefully.

To access more example reading questions for both the academic and general
papers click here.

Paraphrasing and Synonyms

In order to do well on the IELTS test you have to understand what

paraphrasing and synonyms are because Cambridge use them so much in the
reading and listening tests and expect you to use them in the writing and
speaking tests.

Paraphrasing is simply rephrasing or saying the sentence again, so that it has

the same meaning, but with different words.

Example–

Most men drive cars to work.

The majority of males use automobiles to get to their jobs.

As you can see, both sentences mean exactly the same thing but I have used
different words.

I have used mostly synonyms to do this, i.e. words with the same or similar
meanings.

Examples–

most – majority
drive – use
cars – automobiles
work – job

Why is this important?

We have to understand how Cambridge actually make the IELTS reading tests
in order to be successful. The people who write the tests take a piece of writing
and they then use paraphrasing and synonyms to make many of the questions.
Therefore, if you don’t understand this, it is like walking in the dark with no
lights. Understand it and suddenly your world becomes brighter.

PAGE 50
The table below shows just some examples from an IELTS reading paper. As
you can see, paraphrasing and synonyms are used in many of the questions
and if you were looking for words that exactly match those in the text you
wouldn’t find them. Instead be aware that you are looking for meaning; not
words.

Common Problems

As you have probably already guessed from the passage above, the main
problem is students trying to match words in the question with exactly the
same words in the reading text. Instead you should be look for words that
means the same thing i.e. paraphrases and synonyms.

Another common problem is not reading the instructions properly and then
writing too many words or not writing the same words as in the reading text,
as discussed above.

Finally, students often start reading the text before the question. This is
confusing for most people and wastes time. Read the questions first.

PAGE 51
Tips

1. Check how many words it asks you to write. If it says ‘no more than two’,
you can write one or two words. If it says ‘no more than three’, you can
write one, two or three words. Remember that numbers written numerically,
such as72 count as one word and hyphenated words, such as state-of-the-
art, count as one word.
2. Sometimes the question will state ‘using words from the text’ or ‘from the
text’. In this case you should only use words from the text and not change
them or use different forms of the words. If it does not say this, then you
are allowed to change the words as long as the meaning is the same.
3. The answers appear in the same order as the questions. The answer to
number 1 will be above number 2, and the answer to number 3 will be below
the answer to number 2.
4. Remember that your answer should be grammatically correct. Check the
type of word that fits in the space. Is it a verb, noun, adjective or adverb?
This will help you answer the question correctly.
5. When scanning for your answer, make sure you are thinking about
paraphrasing and synonyms.
6. Find where the answer is located in the text before you try to answer the
question. Remember where before what.
7. Read the questions before reading the text.

Strategy

This is my suggested strategy. There are many different strategies and you should
use the one you feel comfortable with. You can also adapt this strategy to what
suits you.

1. Read the instructions carefully, noting how many words you can write and
if they want you to include the exact words from the question or not.
2. Read the incomplete sentences first. Think about what word form can be
used and try to predict the answer. Also think about keywords and how they
could be represented by synonyms or paraphrasing.
3. Locate where the information is located by scanning quickly. If you can’t
locate the answer quickly, move on.
4. Read the incomplete sentence again.
5. Study the reading text more carefully to establish the answer.
6. Check your spelling.
7. Repeat with the other sentences.

PAGE 52
 European Settlement of Australia

European settlement of Australia began in 1788 when a British penal colony

was established on the east coast. From this starting point Australia grew
rapidly and continually, expanding across the entire continent.

A number of reasons contributed to Britain's decision to colonise Australia.

The most important factor was Britain's need to relieve its overcrowded
prisons. Several violent incidents at overcrowded prisons convinced the
British government of the need to separate unruly elements from the rest of
the prison populace.

Additionally, Australia was of strategic importance to Britain, and it provided

a base for the Royal Navy in the eastern sea. Also, Australia could be used
as an entry point to the economic opportunities of the surrounding region.
All these points figured in the decision by Lord Sydney, secretary of state of
home affairs, to authorise the colonisation.

To this affect, on May 13, 1787, Captain Arthur Phillip, commanding eleven
ships full of convicts, left Britain for Australia. He successfully landed a full
fleet at Botany Bay on January 18, 1788. However, they left the bay eight
days later because of its openness and poor soil, and settled instead at Port
Jackson, a few kilometers north. The ships landed 1,373 people, including
732 convicts, and the settlement became Sydney. Australia Day is now
celebrated on 26 January each year, to commemorate this first fleet landing.

PAGE 53
Complete the following statements using NO MORE THAN THREE
WORDS.

(put your choice into the gaps - use small letters and don't put any spaces
after your last word)

1. Australia was originally founded as .

2. The major consideration in colonizing Australia was Britain’s

.

3. It was thought that Australia could be utilised as to the

neigbouring region.

4. Lord Sydney took every factor into account when he gave official
permission for of Australia.

5. Botany Bay was abandoned by the settlers due to the lack of cover and

PAGE 54
Thai Museum Catalogs Opium Dreams and Nightmares
First reactions to SThailand's giant new opium museum in the Golden Triangle
are confused: pleasant surprise at cool air after the intense tropical heat, but
then disorientation, shock, even fear. Visitors enter the 100-acre complex
through a long, dark, mist-filled tunnel, which winds into the base of a hill past
bas-reliefs of distorted human figures before emerging suddenly into bright
sunlight in front of a field of poppies. "This is the mystery,
the contradiction of opium," says Charles Mehl, head of research for the Mae
Fah Luang Foundation, which has just completed the $10 million museum.
"Opium is one of the very best drugs we have for treating chronic pain and
bringing relief from suffering. But it can also be one of the worst, destroying
lives if it is used for recreation or exploited for commercial gain."

Built into a hillside by the Mekong River on the northern tip of Thailand, the
museum lies at the heart of the Golden Triangle. Chiang Saen town is about
470 miles north of Bangkok, overlooking the junction of the borders of Thailand,
Laos and Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. The Golden Triangle is a largely
lawless region that last year produced more opium and heroin than Afghanistan
and more synthetic stimulant pills than all the rest of the laboratories in
Southeast Asia put together, drugs agencies say.

Western backpackers and busloads of other day-trippers pour daily into the
picturesque Chiang Saen district, in Chiang Rai province, to buy souvenirs on
the Mekong's banks. Some try illicit puffs on opium pipes in nearby villages.
The museum, which will open officially early next year, aims to exploit this
tourist business, luring the curious with the promise of entertainment and
impressive audio-visual displays in English and Thai. But as visitors progress
down the labyrinthine corridors that stretch across three floors, the warnings
against narcotic abuse gradually become more powerful. "People think at first
they know what they will see -- a quaint presentation about hill tribes growing
opium. But that's only a small part of the story," said Mehl.

Mae Fah Luang has fought a 15-year battle against drug-taking and
addiction in Chiang Rai province, establishing what the United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says is probably the best anti-drugs crop-
substitution program in Asia. Lessons from that program, which has succeeded
in the nearby Thai mountains of Doi Tung in part by offering farmers of opium
poppies a better income from alternative crops such as coffee and macadamia
nuts, are built into the museum. But it also offers a thorough lesson in the
history of opium, its derivatives such as heroin and laudanum, and explains how
the drugs trade has helped change the world for hundreds of years.

PAGE 55
 Tradgedy and Trauma
Thought to have been used first along the coast of the Mediterranean,
archaeologists say the earliest evidence of opium was found in Switzerland
dating from the Neolithic period. It was a popular sedative in ancient Egypt and
Greece before spreading to northern Europe and Asia and becoming a key
commodity that was exchanged for Chinese tea and other spices by the British
and Dutch. With 360-degree special effects, the museum traces the 19th
century opium wars between Britain and China before looking at prohibition in
the 20th century and official efforts, often spectacularly unsuccessful, to stop
the use of illegal drugs.

The museum asks visitors to themselves decide what could be the best
approach to narcotics -- prohibition, drug eradication schemes,
decriminalisation or legalisation -- but it pulls no punches on the tragedy and
trauma inflicted by drugs on abusers. A final, heart-wrenching gallery recounts
the powerful true stories of victims of drug abuse around the world through
intimate video testimonies by their families.

"The feelings which develop through a visit to the museum change toward the
very end when there is evidence of the death and suffering that drug abuse
produces," said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the Vienna-based
UNODC. "The end message is very strong, namely that use of drugs should be
fought. Society has to use all its instruments, which means law enforcement for
sure, but not only law enforcement. Prevention and treatment are equally
important."

1. The word "disorientation" in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to:

• being introduced
• total confusion; nothing being clear
• happiness
• understanding

PAGE 56
2. The word "distorted" in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to:

• famous
• extraordinary; very unusual
• Bent, twisted, strange shape
• Unclear

3. The word "poppies" in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to:

• cattle
• flower
• crop
• sheep

4. The word "contradiction" in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to:

• opposite of something
• illegality
• beauty
• wonder

5. The word "exploited" in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to:

• firings; loss of jobs

• promotion, raises
• used unfairly, developed in a bad way
• employed

PAGE 57
6. The word "synthetic" in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to:

• fast
• cheap
• natural
• artificial

7. The word "illicit" in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to:

• unlawful; not allowed

• free
• cheap, inexpensive
• exciting

8. The word "curious" in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to:

• interested; eager to know

• bored; disinterested
• middle class
• rich and famous

9. The word "narcotic" in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to:

• drug
• physical
• local
• international

PAGE 58
10. The word "addiction" in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to:

• sales; export
• encouragement
• cruelty; meanness
• hooked; unable to stop

11. The word "alternative" in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to:

• new
• different
• fast growing
• legal

12. The word "prohibition" in paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to:

• sales;
• banning, stopping, making illegal
• promoting; encouraging
• increases; raises

13. The word "eradication" in paragraph 6 is closest in meaning to:

• making mistakes
• removing completely; getting rid of
• explaining, giving information about
• nurture, propagate, grow

PAGE 59
• Short Sentence Completion
• Opinion Match

Australia and the Great War, 1914 – 1918

Australia’s role in the First World War, or the Great War as it was known until
1939, is central to the development of modern Australia’s vision of itself in the
world. In many ways it has served to create what is in some ways a second
founding of the nation in the Gallipoli campaign and on the battlefields of
France and Belgium. The influence of the war experience in the First, and
Second, World War is evident in the way in which ANZAC day is, perhaps even
more than Australia day, the country’s national day.

When the war broke out in 1914, it was a certainty that, because of
longstanding economic, family and defense ties, Australia, along with New
Zealand, would stand alongside Britain. The then Prime Minister Andrew Fisher
was quick to pledge the country’s support to “the last man, the last shilling”.
This was no idle promise and Australia paid a high price for their loyalty to their
colonizers. From a pre-war population of 5m, 417,000 enlisted in the armed
forces, of which 324,000 served abroad. By the end of the war, Australia had
lost 60,000 dead and 155,000 men had been wounded. The economic price
was also high. The national debt, which had stood at ₤6m in 1914, was ₤325m
by the end of the war.

It is possible that the first shot of the war was fired in Australia, when a shot
was fired across the bow of the German merchant ship Pfalz as it tried to
escape from Port Arthur only a few hour after the declaration of war. In late
1914 the light cruiser HMAS Sydney sank the German warship Emden off the
west coast of the country. Also early in the war, Australian troops captured the
German radio transmitters in Rabaul and Nauru and conquered all of German
New Guinea.

At first the Australian forces were intended only to defend Australia, but in
1915 the Australia New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) departed for Europe.
Their first stop was Egypt and it was because they were so close that they were
chosen to take part in the campaign to capture the Gallipoli peninsula, the key
to shipping into the Black Sea, from the Turks. The plan was for British, French
and Anzac forces to land on the peninsular at night at weak points in the
Turkish defense. However, strong winds blew the troops off course to better
defended spots and in the advantage was lost. What followed was months of
bitter fighting in which 20,000 British and 7,000 ANZAC soldiers were killed and
which ended in a successful withdrawal, but no gain for the Allies. It was at this
moment of history that Australia was propelled on to the world stage. From this

PAGE 60
moment onward Australia began to think of itself as a country in its own right;
as being separate to Britain and no longer a colony.

Most of the ANZAC force was sent to Europe, but the Australian Light Horse
remained to fight Turkish forces in Palestine and Syria. They defended the Suez
Canal and advanced through Palestine and Syria. They also took part in what
was one of the world’s last great cavalry charges at Beersheba.

The main ANZAC force arrived in Europe in 1916. The ANZAC experience was
similar to that of the other participants in the war; a high death toll and little
gain to be shown for it. Australian forces were present at all the major battles
of the war and sustained some terrible casualties. For example, in 24 hours
near Pozieres the 5th Division suffered 5,000 casualties. At the battle of
Bullecort, of the 3,000 men who advanced, 2339 were killed, wounded or
captured.

By 1917 most of the officers were not professional soldiers. The most
prominent example was General Sir John Monash, who was an engineer by
training. He commanded the allied forces at the battle of Hamel so well that the
general staff published the battle reports as a model. In August 1918, he
commanded 200,000 troops on what way called “Ludendorff’s black day”, a
turning point in the war. Monash was probably Australia’s greatest military
figure.

Unlike in other armies in the war, the Australian soldiers were all volunteers.
They were also more individualistic and showed less respect for the rulebook
than other soldiers. The relationship between ranks was more democratic and
officer had to win the respect of their troops. All in all, they paid a high price
for fighting in the war. Of the 324,000 soldiers who served overseas in the war
215,000 were killed or wounded. This was the highest proportion of any of the
countries in the war and was probably due to the Australians fighting qualities,
which meant that they were often used on the frontline of the fighting.

At home, the war had a significant effect on the economy. Negative effects
included the end of British investment, the closure of many shipping lanes and
the stockpiling of Australia’s main export, wool. However, the isolation that
resulted from the war meant that Australia had to make some things that had
previously been imported. This led to the development of new industries. In
addition, the BHP smelting company, which is now a major Australian
company, saw a great increase in demand for iron and steel. The needs of the
war were stimulus for the beginning of full industrialization in Australia.

At the signing of the treaty of Versailles, which marked the end of the war,
Australia signed as a separate country. This reflected the fact that, at the cost
of 60,000 dead, Australia had finally emerged from the shadow of Britain. The
Great War was, perhaps, the beginning of modern Australian history.

961wds

PAGE 61
IELTS Reading Passages: Questions 1 – 7

Complete the sentences below (1 – 7) with words taken from the

passage.
Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
Write your numbers in boxes 1 – 7 on your answer sheet.

1. According to the passage Australia’s view of itself is directly related to its

involvement in ………………………………………
2. Soon after the war had begun, Australia’s Prime Minister
offered……………………………………….
3. Australia had an early involvement in the war and it is even possible that
they were responsible for…………………………………..
4. When combating the Turkish defense, the British, French and Anzac forces
ended up attacking stronger points than they had originally
intended because of…………………………………
5. The outcome of the bitter fight with the Turks was significant for Australia
because it enabled them to take their place on…………………………………
6. John Monash commanded the battle of Hamel so well that reports of the
battle were published in order to be used ……………………………………
7. The Great War marked the beginning of modern Australia. They had
emerged as a separate country and would no longer have to live under
the……………………………………………

IELTS Reading Passages: Questions 8 – 12

Classify the following statements as representing

Yes opinions the writer would agree with

No statements the writer would disagree with
Not Given facts not reported in the passage

Write the appropriate letters in boxes 8 – 12 on your answer sheet.

8. Australia’s national debt increased greatly as a result of the Great War.

9. Australia made a great contribution to the successful outcome of the First
World War.
10. The British forces suffered a greater number of casualties than the Anzac
forces during the months of fighting with the Turkish.
11. Overall, the British had a higher proportion of soldiers killed or injured than
Australia.
12. Australian soldiers were disrespectful to their superiors.

PAGE 62
 • Multiple-Choice
• Short AnswSers

Indian Marriages
Marriage is one of the oldest human institutions and this is as true in Indian culture
as anywhere else. In India marriage, called “Kanyadana or “donating a virgin”, is
thought of as the greatest sacrifice that a father can make and for the groom as an
obligation to perpetuate his bloodline. Many people believe that a marriage is still
binding after death.

In early times girls were thought to be ready for marriage after puberty and later
even children could be married. Divorce and remarriage were not always possible.
By Medieval times Marriage was compulsory for girls, who very often married
between the ages of eight and nine. Among those able to afford it, polygamy was
common and rulers would often have one wife from their own region and other
minor wives from other areas. Now, divorce and remarriage is possible and non-
Muslim Indian men can only have one wife.

Although there are many regional variations, some features of the Indian wedding
ceremony are similar throughout the country. In general weddings are very
complicated events and involve long negotiations about dowry payments prior to
the event. After this has been decided a day is chosen by asking an astrologer to
find a lucky day. Preparations begin early because a marriage is not only one of the
highlights a person’s life, but a large and complex social gathering to organize.

The night before, the bride, her friends and female relatives gather together for a
party called a “mehendi”, where they paint each other’s hands and feet with Henna
and dance and listen to music. Her guests often give the bride advice about
married life and tease her about her future husband. Weddings are traditionally
held at the bride’s home or in a temple, but parks, hotels and marriage halls are
becoming increasingly popular. On the day a wedding altar or “mandapa” is built
and covered in flowers. All of the wedding ceremony will be held in the altar.

The clothing a couple wear on their wedding day varies between regions and ethnic
groups. Women most commonly wear a sari. The bride wears a lot of jewelry as
this symbolizes the prosperity she will bring to her new family. In the South
wearing flowers is common. The groom wears traditional costume or a suit.
Turbans are also popular headgear.

The ceremony begins with a mixture of tumeric, sandlewood paste and oils being
applied to the couples face and arms. In the past this was done to the whole body,
but now it is only symbolic, with only a little being rubbed on. Then they are
showered in flowers. After this they perform the rituals that will make them man
and wife. First they garland each other and then take seven symbolic steps
together representing seven gifts and seven promises.

PAGE 63
 Finally, they say the vows and then they are legally married. The bride’s father or
guardian takes her hands and puts them in her husband’s giving her to him. Now
she is no longer a member of her father’s family, but a member of her husband’s.
They then touch the feet of their elders for luck.

After the wedding ceremony, the couple go to the groom’s house. The bride should
be careful to enter the house right foot first for luck. In the evening and late into
the night the families and their guests celebrate with dancing, music and food.

IELTS Reading Passage - Questions:

Circle the correct answers A – C.

1. In India weddings are …

A. a duty for the man to continue his family.

B. thought to end at death.
C. a duty for the father.
D. seen as a benefit for the father.

2. Divorce and remarriage …

A. are only possible for non-Muslims.

B. were sometimes not possible in the past.
C. have always been possible.
D. have only become possible in modern times.

3. Indian weddings …

A. are straightforward and brief.

B. are thought to be lucky
C. are intricate and time consuming.
D. involve only the immediate family.

PAGE 64
 Complete the statements below. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS.

4. Before the wife-to-be is given recommendations about ____________________.

5. The wedding ceremony is conducted in a special ____________________.
6. The gold and jewels the bride wears represent ____________________.
7. These days the materials applied prior to the ceremony are only
____________________.
8. After the wedding, the bride has left ____________________ and belongs to her
husband’s.
9. The new bride should go into her new house _____________________.

_______________________________________________

PAGE 65
 The Container Trade
The shipping container is one of the mainstays of international trade. The
globalised modern economy depends on the rapid and efficient movement of
goods that containerisation allows. In many ways it was the advent of the
container that allowed this globalised economy to develop.

Invented during World War two as an efficient method of moving equipment to

the front lines, there are now at any one time up to 15 million containers being
used to transport goods on land and sea or waiting to be filled at factories and
ports. They are vital in the supply chain and have allowed the added efficiency of
"just in time" inventory management, where companies no longer keep large
warehouses of stock or parts, but rely on the ability to quickly order what they
want from their suppliers. It is estimated that since the 1980s the ratio of
inventory to GDP in American business' has fallen from 25% to 15%. Altogether
total business inventory in the US is estimated at $1.5 trillion, without "just in
time" management methods this might be as much as $2.5 trillion. This means
that companies rely more and more on the prompt delivery of parts from their
suppliers to fulfill orders. This is particularly true of industries such as computer
manufacture, which no longer make all the parts of the products that bear their
names, but instead out source, often to suppliers half way around the world.
American computer manufacturers are, for example, increasingly dependent on
Asian microchip manufacturers in countries such as Taiwan and Thailand. An
example of the kind of problems any disruption to the supply chain causes came
after the September 11 attacks in the US. When the Canadian border was shut
for just two days causing chaos in the Detroit car industry, which relies on a
regular flow of parts from Canada.

There are three main flows of sea borne cargo: trans-Pacific, trans-Atlantic and
Europe-Far East. The trans-Pacific route is by far the largest flow. At 11 million
TEU ( "twenty foot equivalent units" the standard measures of container volume,
even though most containers are now 40 foot, 13 metres, long) a year. It is almost
twice the volume of Europe-Far East trade and three times the size of trans-
Atlantic traffic. During the 1990s, during America's boom years, the trade grew
enormously and this led to more and larger ships being built. The container fleet
grew by 12% in 2001. Until then, a container ship commonly carried 600 TEU,
during the 1990s ships were being build that could carry up to 8000 TEU. However
after the 1990s there was a dramatic fall off in trade. Trans-Pacific trade, for
example, fell to 50% of its 1990s high.

This down turn is being handled by the shipping alliances which manage the global
trade. These large organizations are responsible for maintaining the fleets and
seeing that the flow of goods is uninterrupted. This is a job that governments feel
that the regular and reliable flow of trade is so important that in many cases the
shipping alliances are exempt from anti-trust and monopoly laws. Their response
has been to cut services, rest some of the older ships and share the burden
amongst themselves.

PAGE 66
At first, containers reduced theft as it was more difficult for casual thieves to get
into the containers. However, criminal gangs soon saw the potential for taking
whole containers. This became a profitable crime as the average value of a
container grew to $500,000 by the 1980s. Criminals also benefited from the
convenience of containers when using them to transport drugs, illegal immigrants
or other illegal goods. Measures to combat this, including stronger locks and
preference schemes for shippers who have anti-theft programmes, have had
some success, but crime is a constant menace to the container trade.

Increasingly, the huge number of containers and their self-contained and enclosed
nature has been raising worries about their possible use by terrorists. In fact,
possible terrorists have already been found hiding in containers. This is
particularly worrying considering that only 2% of containers are inspected.
Containers are also extremely difficult to track and monitor. This is because they
pass through so many countries and jurisdictions and because they can travel on
both land and sea. Each transaction involving a container can involve as many as
25 different parties and generate between 30 and 40 documents. For a ship
carrying 600 TEU this would result in approximately 4000 documents. The sheer
scale of the information involved makes tracking containers a daunting task.
Screening them to determine the contents is another solution that would take a
great deal of effort because of the large numbers of containers. Additionally, it
might cause delays in delivery that would disrupt international trade and industry
out of proportion to the good the searches do.

For the foreseeable future, there would seem to be no alternative to containers

and their use is bound to grow. They are one of the cornerstones of global trade,
but many yet cause problems their inventors never envisaged.

840 words

Choose the best TWO alternatives to complete the sentences.

Questions 1 and 2
Circle TWO letters A – E.

The invention of containers…

A. resulted from the efficient movement of goods.

B. led to more global trade.
C. was initially for military purposes.
D. came just in time for many managers.
E. relied on the ability to receive orders quickly.

PAGE 67
Questions 3 and 4

Circle TWO letters A – E.

Containers are important because they…

A. prevent the need for companies to hold large amounts of stock.

B. increase the amount of business inventory.
C. make trade between countries on different sides of the world easier.
D. regularly supply manufactures in Canada.
E. reduce the amount of out sourcing needed by companies.

Questions 5 and 6

Circle TWO letters A – E.

The Trans-Pacific trade route…

A. has more than double the amount of trade than that of the Europe-Far
East trade route.
B. had its container fleet increase by 12%.
C. sparked the boom years of the 1990s.
D. transports 11 million containers a year.
E. has witnessed a substantial decrease in container trade.

IELTS Reading Example: Questions 11 – 12

Complete the sentences below using words taken from the reading passage.

Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 11 – 12 on your answer sheet.

11. It is not economically viable to conduct searches on a large amount of

containers as it would…………………………………………………….

12. The inventors must never have imagined that containers would ………………

PAGE 68
Short Answer Questions
These questions are often called ‘comprehension’ questions and they are
very common in English classrooms all over the world. Most students have
answered these kinds of questions before and for this reason most students
tend to do quite well with them.

Despite this there are some common problems that cause students to make
mistakes and throw away marks.

Short Answer Example

PAGE 69
PAGE 70
Tips and Strategy for “short Answers”

Common Problems

1. Synonyms and paraphrasing are the biggest problem. Students

who are unaware of these tend to look for keywords in the text
that directly match those in the questions. This wastes lots of
time and good time management is essential in the reading test.
2. Word limit can also cause people to throw away easy marks. If
you write over the stated word limit you will get the answer
wrong.
3. You don’t have to read every word of the text. These questions
test your ability to skim and scan for specific information. You
also won’t have time to read every word.
4. Students often see a word they don’t understand in the question
or text and either panic or spend too much time thinking about
the meaning.
5. Some students try to write full sentences. Your answers don’t
have to be grammatically correct, so stay under the word limit.

Skills Tested

1. Ability to skim the passage quickly and understand the overall

meaning.
2. Ability to scan for specific information.
3. Understand the question being asked.
4. Identify keywords.
5. Think of possible synonyms and paraphrases of keywords.

PAGE 71
Tips

1. The answers appear in the same order as the text.

2. Look at and understand the questions first before you start
reading the text. What is the question actually asking?
3. You will probably be given a word limit, for example ‘NO MORE
THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER.’ Make sure you
don’t go over this limit.
4. As stated above, the answers do not need to be grammatically
correct, just short answers.
5. Don’t give your opinion, just the answer in the text.
6. Keywords in the question will normally be nouns or noun
phrases.
7. When you find your keywords always think synonyms and
paraphrases.

Strategy

1. Read the instructions carefully and note the word limit.

2. Read and understand the questions. Think about the information
you will need to find.
3. Underline any keywords in the questions.
4. Think about synonyms or paraphrases for these keywords.
5. Find part of the text question 1 relates to.
6. Read question again.
7. Read the section containing the answer carefully and identify
answer.
8. Continue with next question and repeat until finished.

PAGE 72
IELTS Reading Strategies Exercise

Hong Kong takes steps to improve English

a) The Hong Kong government today published proposals to introduce basic

English language competency assessments for primary, secondary and
university students as well as some professionals. The goal is to bolster
written English and Chinese as well as spoken English and Mandarin in the
former British colony.

b) The government said it wanted to push students to improve their English,

but officials acknowledged Hong Kong had little chance of competing with
rival trading centre Singapore.

c) English is an official language in both Hong Kong and Singapore, but many
more Singaporeans are fluent in it because it is taught as a first language in
schools.

d) "People always compare Singapore's English with our English," said

Michael Tien, a businessman who also serves as chairman of Hong Kong's
standing committee on language education and research.

e) "Don't forget English in Singapore is their first language," he told

reporters. "I don't think it's a fair comparison. With reading and writing
Chinese, they are way behind us."

f) Hong Kong's dominant language is the Cantonese dialect of Chinese. Mr

Tien said the territory is also pushing ahead to lift standards of Mandarin, the
main dialect in mainland China. Although Hong Kong was a British colony
until 1997 and many residents speak impeccable English, many more do not.
Some critics believe this to be an economic hindrance because English is the
international language of business.

g) Many students in Hong Kong are taught in Cantonese because few

teachers are proficient enough in English. Mr Tien said raising the standard
would be a "tall order."

h) "English is challenging," he said. "I don't think we can expect 100% of our
people to be fluent in English, so I'm shooting for university graduates to
start with."

PAGE 73
Look at question (1) and compare it with paragraph (a). Which words help you
identify the answer?

example:

(1) How does the Hong Kong government intend to measure the level of
spoken English?

The ‘Hong Kong government’ indicates that we are looking at the correct
paragraph but we need to find how they ‘intend to measure.’

The word ‘proposals’ is used as a noun in the text, but ‘to propose’ is a verb that
means ‘intend’, so we can say that the Hong Kong government intends to
introduce basic English Language competency assessments.

To ‘assess’ means to ‘measure the level’ of something, and in this case we know
that they want to measure peoples’ Basic English Language, so we can answer:

Answer To introduce competency assessments.

Paragraph Indicator “The Hong Kong Government.”

Words that help to identify “proposals” and “assessments.”

So you can use these IELTS reading strategies to help you find answers to
questions quickly.

_________________________________________________

PAGE 74
Practice
Now it is your turn to have a practice. It is important to note though that if you
choose a different paragraph indicator, this does not matter as long as it was
correct in helping you to find the right paragraph and answer.

Answer the questions below using NO MORE THAN 4 WORDS

(1) How is English learnt in Singaporean schools?

Answer __________________________

Paragraph Indicator _____________________________

Words that help to identify ______________________________

(2) It what areas are the Hong Kong people ahead of those in
Singapore?

Answer ___________________________

Paragraph Indicator ______________________________

Words that help to identify _______________________________

(3) What other areas of language does the chairman want to improve?

Answer ___________________________

Paragraph Indicator ______________________________

Words that help to identify ______________________________

PAGE 75
(4) What do a number of people think the poor quality of English is?

Answer ___________________________

Paragraph Indicator ______________________________

Words that help to identify ______________________________

(5) What does the chairman consider to be very difficult due to the lack
skilled instructors?

Answer ___________________________

Paragraph Indicator ______________________________

Words that help to identify ______________________________

PAGE 76
 Education Industry Reviving Up
1. A recent newspaper investigation into the growing number of foreign fee-paying
students raises some issues for timely reflection. To be blunt, we need to
prepare ourselves for a sudden and major increase in population. This new
population may not be permanent but it will continue to increase in numbers
and make itself at home in New Zealand for the main purpose of intellectual
advancement. It will, in effect, be a rotating population but one that produces
an increase in the total population at any one time.

2. If you think, as even some Asian students do, that Auckland is already too Asian
(one in eight Aucklanders is now Asian), be prepared for it becoming too
European or too South American. Our booming education industry still catches
some locals by surprise and, depending on your point of view about racial
diversity, it may or may not be of comfort to know that it has only just begun.

3. The only limitations to its growth will be the decisions and behaviour of
organizations serving these students from overseas who want to study here -
whether it is English language or IT skills. And I do not mean just the education
function itself: it includes health, transport, property and entertainment. The
list increases into all aspects of society as more students arrive from the major
continents.

4. My own company has grown 500 per cent in the past four years and our board
is anticipating an even higher rate over the next five years. I see no reason we
should consider industry growth expectations below this. Early next month we
will open a new international language school in Queen St designed to give
students internationally accredited English language skills so they can stay
longer and study IT courses. Some will go on to our universities.

5. This one new school alone will inject an extra $60 million-odd annually into
Auckland's economy. What does this industry growth mean? It could mean a
$10 billion (contribution to gross domestic product) industry by the end of this
decade, employing 100,000 New Zealanders directly and many more indirectly.

6. The conditions which have created this opportunity are many, but underlying
them all are the standards which shape education in this country. Some will
argue that whimsical circumstances, such as a favourable exchange rate or our
distance from the troubled areas of the world, have caused it all. But without
the right internationally recognised education standards we would have no such
booming industry.

PAGE 77
 7. Make no mistake, this is our trump card. As long as we are known for quality
education we can develop what we have started regardless of almost any other
change of circumstance. Undoubtedly, there are financial benefits for society.
But we would be blind not to acknowledge and address the many other
implications which the newspaper article began to identify.

8. The growth opportunity is so good that we must effectively evolve as an industry

and fast, too. We must eliminate the clumsy, experimental mistake-ridden
phase of youth. Fundamentally we must leap from childhood to maturity.

9. But how? Experiences in my company lead me to suggest three main areas to

address - total service, performance regulation and long-term planning. By total
service I mean accepting some responsibility for students inside and outside of
campus. Within two years, my company expects at least 1000 overseas
students to be studying at all our six campuses. We must take some
responsibility for this size of customer base, as any normal company would.

10. This means we must attract other suppliers as dedicated partners with us -
property, insurance, healthcare, transport, social support, the list goes on.
Education New Zealand has a valuable role here.

11. This type of care begins in the students' countries of origin, ensuring they have
correct information about our country and how different it will be in many small
and large ways. Our company, intent on achieving this, is introducing marketing
programmes in three continents. Performance regulation will be vital in our leap
to adulthood. We cannot leave it up to the Government; it will mean a private
Sector-Government partnership.

12. I am also not surprised to hear calls for the Government to introduce an industry
levy - frankly, just another tax - to "protect" standards. We should keep in mind
that foreign students are happy to come here because of our stable Government,
virtually non-existent corruption, and education standards. For the Government
to come to our support with an extra levy imposition reminds me of an old saying:
When a sufficient number of management layers are superimposed on top of
each other, it can be assured that disaster is not left to chance.

13. Long-term planning usually begins with a vision agreed by the industry and I
will support any immediate efforts in this area. We now have an industry that is
arguably our country's third largest export earner. We need to know where we
can take this industry, how it fits with society and its place in an increasingly
systemic world where people move more freely and technology drives a global
economy.

PAGE 78
Section 1
True (T) False (F) Not Given (NG)

1. The new residents will stay in New Zealand forever?

2. The main reason these people are in New Zealand is to progress
academically.
3. There are many Vietnamese people living in New Zealand.
4. The success of the education industry has been happening for many years.
5. People from Auckland are surprised at the number of Asian students there
are.
6. All students want to study English and IT.
7. The writer’s company has increased in size over the last few years.
8. The country’s financial situation will benefit from overseas students.
9. There will be less jobs for native speakers in the future.
10. According to the writer, New Zealand's exchange rate and location underpin
the opportunities available.

Section 2
Answer the following questions in no more than three words:

11 Where should the type of care the writer discusses initially come from?

_____________________________

12 What will be very important in the education sector's rise to maturity?

_____________________________

13 What does the government want to bring in?

_____________________________

14 Give one reason why students are content to study in New Zealand?

____________________________

15 What does the ongoing preparation usually start with?

____________________________

16 How big an export industry is English language teaching?

____________________________

PAGE 79
 Wind Power
The power of the wind has been used for centuries to directly drive various
machines to perform such tasks as grinding wheat or pumping water. Recently,
however, the wind has joined other natural forces such as water and steam as a
viable method of generating electricity.

Traditional means of electricity generation using coal or oil-fueled plants have two
major drawbacks; they pollute the environment and the fuels they use are
inefficient and non-renewable. In response to growing environmental awareness
there have been calls for a greener alternative. Nuclear power, while more efficient
and less polluting, is seen by many people as unacceptable, because of the danger
of accidents such as those that happened at Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. Wind
power, however, is clean, renewable and, with modern advances, surprisingly
efficient.

In the 1970s Britain was in the forefront of research into wind power. The interest
in wind diminished in the 1980s due to cheap North Sea oil, a strong pro-nuclear
lobby and pricing structures that made it uneconomical to set up wind farms.
Britain, the windiest country in Europe, had to wait until 1991 for its first wind
farm. Located at Delabole in Cornwall, the farm was originally the idea of locals
who opposed the construction of a nuclear power plant nearby and decided to set
up a private company to generate power for the area using the wind. They had to
fight opposition from local government and other local residents, who thought the
turbines would be noisy and might interfere with television signals, but eventually,
after showing local officials working wind farms in Denmark, they won and now
there are 10 huge white wind turbines on the Delabole hills.

It is in Germany and Denmark that the greatest advances in wind power have
come. Germany alone produces half of the wind generated electricity in Europe.
Every year Germany adds 400 Megawatts (Mw) of capacity. In 2000 alone capacity
expanded by 1669 Mw. Denmark now produces 30% of its electricity from wind
power and this is predicted to rise to 50% by 2010. Both countries have
encouraged this growth by “fixed feed tariffs” which guarantee a good price for
private wind power operators.

The UK is catching up and the government has set a target 10% of all electricity
to come from renewable sources by 2010, half of this to be from wind power. The
900 wind turbines in operation generate 400Mw of electricity and to meet the
target roughly 400Mw will need to be added each year. With the advances in
technology this is technically possible. Each turbine can now produce 400 Kilowatts
(KW) compared to only 70 KW at the start of the 1980s. It will, however, need

PAGE 80
help from the government. This is being done by offering financial support and
giving private power companies targets to meet.

Because many people feel wind farms spoil the view and, also, because the wind
is stronger at sea, many wind farms are now being built offshore. They are usually
built a few kilometres off the coast in shallow water. The construction and
maintenance costs are higher, but electricity output is higher. The first in Britain
was built in 2000 at Blyth, north of Newcastle, and was the largest in the world
until May 2001, when a 20 turbine farm was opened at Middelgruden off
Copenhagen. There are plans to construct up to 18 more in the UK by 2010.
Together they will produce 800 Mw of electricity annually.

The use of wind power is far less advanced in the USA. Only .5% of America’s
power comes from the wind, although it is estimated that this could be increased
to as high as 12% with no changes to the power grid. However, there is an
increased interest in wind power. There are plans to build a huge offshore wind
farm off the coast of Cape Cod on the North East seaboard. The farm will take up
over 25 square miles, have 170 turbines and produce 420Mw at a cost of $600m.
If constructed, it will be the world’s second biggest wind farm, after the 520Mw
farm planned in Ireland.

IELTS Sample Reading: Questions 1 – 2

Choose the best answer to the questions below.

Question 1. People do not like coal and oil powered power

production because …

1. it damages the environment.

2. it is wasteful.
3. eventually it will run out.
4. all of the above.

Question 2. Wind power …

1. has only been used recently.

2. promotes environmental awareness.
3. cleans the environment.
4. is not wasteful.

PAGE 81
 IELTS Sample Reading: Questions 3 – 7
Complete the following summary of the third paragraph from the IELTS sample
reading using ONE OR TWO WORDS from the reading texts.

British Wind Power.

While there was a great deal of interest in wind power in the 1970s, it (3)
_______________ in the 1980s. This was mainly due to intense support for (4)
_______________ power and little help in making wind power affordable. So,
even though Britain has some of the best winds in Europe, the first wind farm
was only built in 1991. The farm at Delabole came out of opposition by (5)
_______________ to a nuclear power plant. Initially, they were opposed by local
officials due to fears about noise and possible obstruction to (6)
________________. This opposition was eventually overcome only after they
were shown successful examples from (7) _______________.

IELTS Sample Reading: Questions 8 – 13

Match the country or countries below to the statements taken from the IELTS
sample reading.

BR______ Britain
G______ Germany
D______ Denmark
US______ The United States
IRE______ Ireland
N______ None of the countries

8. Plans to produce 5% of its power using wind power.

9. Produces 50% of its power from wind.
10. Produces very little of its power using wind.
11. Will have the world’s largest wind farm.
12. Have ambitious plans in developing its wind power capacity.
13. Was the leader in the early development of wind power?

PAGE 82
 Teaching and Learning

A
Criticisms of progressive education, particularly in its extreme forms, have
concentrated on the folly, as this is perceived, of allowing children to decide when
and how they are to learn anything. Lack of externally imposed discipline has led
to some schools where, as one inspector of schools described it, “it is like a wet
play-time all day”. The emphasis on growth and development, with analogies to
the way plants move naturally through their lives without constantly being told
what to become, has been particularly criticized. The simple notion of growth
carries with it no implication as to the direction that growth is taking. Growth,
progressives are thought to ignore, may as easily be in an unwholesome direction
as a healthy one. This leads to values being seen to be relative, with no one set
of values inherently to be preferred to any others. Yet what ought to be, values
of any kind, cannot be derived from what is; and it is a naturalistic fallacy to
suppose otherwise. Finally, because the teacher is not seen as at the centre of
the educational process, he or she is reduced to becoming a “facilitator” of
children’s learning; in extreme cases unprepared even to answer simple
questions or directly to teach anything at all, on the assumption that the only
things a learner really learns are those things which he or she has “discovered for
himself”.

B
Between the two extreme positions, reconciliation has proved difficult.
Historically, the traditional approach has been dominant and continues to be held
particularly firmly by those who themselves were able, well-motivated learners
and as such required little more of their teachers than specific instruction.
Progressive approaches have tended to be favoured by teachers or theoreticians
whose concern has been with the education of all children, including the able and
the well-motivated but with particular attention to the needs of those with little
interest in or apparent aptitude for learning and little confidence in its relevance
to their own lives.

C
In practice, neither of the two extreme approaches to teaching and learning has
proved generally satisfactory. In its starkest form, traditional education has often
served able pupils well but has been less successful with others. On the other
hand, progressive education has tended to work well enough in the early years of
schooling, in the hands of able and committed teachers, but has had less success
when attempted in other circumstances.

PAGE 83
 D
The need to develop systems which incorporate the best of traditional and
progressive approaches to teaching and learning has long been evident.
Fortunately, what good schools and good teachers actually do has suggested
ways forward. Increasingly, the approach adopted places the teacher in authority,
as traditionally has been the position, but the absolute necessity of engaging
learners in their own learning, as progressive educators have argued, is seen as
equally important. Teaching, on this view, requires skilful questioning of pupils by
the teacher, rather than undue reliance on direct instruction. The purpose of that
questioning is to encourage the minds of the learners to understand, to arrange,
and to act on the material with which they are required to engage. In this sense,
learning is active; indeed, it is interactive, with the teacher responsible for
ensuring the direction that this learning takes but with the learner consistently
being challenged to shape it to his or her needs. Education of this kind has
increasingly become a feature of effective schools and school systems world-
wide. In the process, the long-standing conflict between traditional and
progressive approaches to teaching and learning, with the time-consuming
controversies to which this gives rise, has a real prospect of being resolved.

By Peter Newsam

Questions 9-12

Complete the sentences using NO MORE THAN FOUR WORDS from the
IELTS Reading Text

9 (paragraph A) this results in no set of principles naturally

being ______________

10 (paragraph B) Forward thinking methods are preferred by educators

whose job
deals with the ___________________

11 (paragraph C) the progressive approach is fairly successful

during ___________________
of education.

12 (paragraph D) It is the educators’ duty to make certain that the

student is always
___________________ and acquiring knowledge that is relative

PAGE 84
READING PASSAGE-1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which
are based on Reading Passage 1 below

William Henry Perkin

The man who invented synthetic dyes

William Henry Perkin was born on March 12, 1838, in London, England. As a
boy, Perkin’s curiosity prompted early interests in the arts, sciences,
photography, and engineering. But it was a chance stumbling upon a run-down,
yet functional, laboratory in his late grandfathers home that solidified the young
man`s enthusiasm for chemistry.

As a student at the City of London School, Perkin became immersed in the study
of chemistry. His talent and devotion to the subject were perceived by his
teacher, Thomas Hall, who encouraged him to attend a series of lectures given
by the eminent scientist Michael Faraday at the Royal Institution. Those
speeches tired the young chemist`s enthusiasm further, and he later went on
to attend the Royal College of Chemistry, which he succeeded in entering in
1853, at the age of 15.

At the time of Perkin’s enrollment the Royal College of Chemistry was headed
by the noted German chemist August Wilhelm Hofmann. Perkin’s scientific gifts
soon caught Hofmann’s attention and, within two years, he became Hofmann’s
youngest assistant, not long after that, Perkin made the scientific breakthrough
that would bring him both fame and fortune.

At the time, quinine was the only viable medical treatment for malaria. The drug
ls derived from the bark of the cinchona tree, native to South America and by
1856 demand for the drug was surpassing the available supply. Thus, when
Hofmann made some passing comments about the desirability of a synthetic
substitute for quinine. it was unsurprising that his star pupil was moved to take
up the challenge.

During his vacation in 1856, Perkin spent his time in the laboratory on the top
floor of his family's house. He was attempting to manufacture quinine from
aniline, an inexpensive and readily available coal tar waste product. Despite his
best efforts, however, he did not end up with quinine. Instead, he produced a
mysterious dark sludge. Luckily, Perkins scientific training and nature prompted
him to investigate the substance further.

PAGE 85
Incorporating potassium dichromate and alcohol into the aniline at various
stages of the experimental process, he finally produced a deep purple solution.
And, proving the truth of the famous scientist Louis Pasteur`s words 'chance
favors only the prepared mind'. Perkin saw the potential of his unexpected find.

Historically, textile dyes were made from such natural sources as plants and
animal excretions. Some of these, such as the glandular mucus of snails, were
difficult to obtain and outrageously expensive. Indeed, the purple colour
extracted from a snail was once so costly that in society at the time only the
rich could afford it. Further, natural dyes tended to be muddy in hue and fade
quickly. It was against this backdrop that Perkin‘s discovery- was made.

Perkin quickly grasped that his purple solution could be used to colour fabric,
thus making it the world’s first synthetic dye. Realising the importance of this
breakthrough, he lost no time in patenting it- But perhaps the most fascinating
of all Perkin`s reactions to his find was his nearly instant recognition that the
new dye had commercial possibilities.

Perkin originally named his dye Tyrian Purple, but it later became commonly
known as mauve (from the French for the plant used to make the colour violet).
He asked advice of Scottish dye works owner Robert Pullar, who assured him
that manufacturing the dye would be well worth it if the colour remained fast
(i.e. would not fade] and the cost was relatively low. So, over the fierce
objections of his mentor Hofmann, he left college to give birth to the modern
chemical industry.

With the help of his father and brother, Perkin set up a factory not far from
London. Utilizing the cheap and plentiful coal tar that was an almost unlimited
byproduct of London's gas street lighting, the dye works began producing the
world’s first synthetically dyed material in 1857. The company received a
commercial boost from the Empress Eugenio of France, when she decided the
new color flattered her. Very soon, mauve was the necessary shade for all the
fashionable ladies in that country. Not to be outdone, England`s Queen Victoria
also appeared in public wearing a mauve gown, thus making it all the rage in
England as well. The dye was bold and fast, and the public clamoured for more.
Perkin went back to the drawing board.

Although Perkins fame was achieved and fortune assured by his first discovery,
the chemist continued his research. Among other dyes he developed and
introduced were aniline red (1859) and aniline black (1863) and in the late
1860s, Perkin's green. It is important to note that Perkin's synthetic dye
discoveries had outcomes far beyond the merely decorative. The dyes also
became vital to medical research in many ways. For instance, they were used

PAGE 86
 to stain previously invisible microbes and bacteria, allowing researchers to
identify such bacilli as tuberculosis, cholera, and anthrax. Artificial dyes
continue to play a crucial role today. And, in what would have been particularly
pleasing to Perkin, their current use is in the search for a vaccine against
malaria.

Question 1-7
Do the following statements agree with the information given in
Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 1-7 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 more than once.

1. Michael Faraday was the first person to recognize Perkin's ability as a student
of chemistry.
2. Michael Faraday suggested Perkin should enroll in the Royal College of
Chemistry.
3. Perkin employed August Wilhelm Hofmann as his assistant.
4. Perkin was still young when he made the discovery that made him rich and
famous.
5. The trees from which quinine is derived grow only in South America.
6. Perkin hoped to manufacture a drug from a coal tar waste product.
7. Perkin was inspired by the discoveries of the famous scientist Louis Pasteur.

PAGE 87
Question 8-13
Answer the Questions Below

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each
answer
Write your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.

8. Before Perkin’s discovery, with what group in society was the colour purple
associated? ____________________________.
9. What potential did Perkin immediately understand that his new dye
had? ________________________________.
10. What was the name finally used to refer to the first color Perkin
invented? ________________________________.
11. What was the name of the person Perkin consulted before setting up his
own dye works? ________________________________.
12. In what country did Perkins newly invented colour first become
fashionable? _________________________________.
13. According to the passage, which disease is now being targeted by
researchers using synthetic dyes? ____________________________.

PAGE 88
IELTS Reading- Labeling a Diagram Tips
and Strategy
On the IELTS reading test you might get a question that asks you to label a

diagram. This post will:

• show you examples

• look at common problems

• give you tips

• provide you with a strategy for answering these questions.

Examples

There are three kinds of diagrams you might get: a technical drawing of a

machine or invention, something from the natural world or a design or plan.

PAGE 89
Below is an example of a technical drawing:

Common Problems

The main problem with these questions is students focus too much on the

diagram and try to understand everything about it. Unfamiliar diagrams can

cause panic and lose you time. This is not a test of your technical knowledge but

a test of your reading skills. You should try to understand generally what is

happening in the diagram, but the relationship between the text and the diagram

is more important.

Another big problem is failing to locate the paragraphs that contain the answers

quickly and losing time reading the whole text.

Students also lose marks in this section by writing the wrong number of words or

spelling words incorrectly.

PAGE 90
Tips:

1. Check how many words you are supposed to write; it will tell you in the

question. In the example above you can only write ‘one or two words’, any

more than this and you will lose marks. Remember that numbers count as

one word and hyphenated words like ‘state-of-the-art’ count as one word.

2. Identify the type of word (noun, verb, adjective) you need. This will help you

find the correct answer.

3. The answers do not always come in the same order that the paragraphs are

in.

4. Do the easiest questions first? You are more likely to get these correct. If you

cannot find the answer to a difficult question, move on and come back later.

5. Try to predict the answer before you read the text. This will help you find the

correct answer.

Strategy

1. Check how many words you can write.

2. Study the diagram and try to understand generally what is happening. Don’t

spend too much time doing this.

3. Highlight keywords or labels.

4. Identify the types of words required and try to predict the answer.

5. Scan the text and identify where the information is located.

6. Read in more detail to find the answer.

7. Check spelling.

PAGE 91
 The Motor Car

Section A

There are now over 700 million motor vehicles in the world - and the number is
rising by more than 40 million each year. The average distance driven by car
users is growing too - from 8km a day per person in western Europe in 1965 to
25 km a day in 1995. This dependence on motor vehicles has given rise to major
problems, including environmental pollution, depletion of oil resources, traffic
congestion and safety.

Section B

While emissions from new cars are far less harmful than they used to be, city
streets and motorways are becoming more crowded than ever, often with older
trucks, buses and taxis which emit excessive levels of smoke and fumes. This
concentration of vehicles makes air quality in urban areas unpleasant and
sometimes dangerous to breathe. Even Moscow has joined the list of capitals
afflicted by congestion and traffic fumes. In Mexico City, vehicle pollution is a
major health hazard.

Section C

Until a hundred years ago, most journeys were in the 20km range, the distance
conveniently accessible by horse. Heavy freight could only be carried by water or
rail. Invention of the motor vehicle brought personal mobility to the masses and
made rapid freight delivery possible over a much wider area. In the United
Kingdom, about 90 per cent of inland freight is carried by road. The world cannot
revert to the horse-drawn wagon. Can it avoid being locked into congested and
polluting ways of transporting people and goods?

PAGE 92
Section D

In Europe most cities are still designed for the old modes of transport.
Adaptation to the motor car has involved adding ring roads, one-way systems
and parking lots. In the United States, more land is assigned to car use than to
housing. Urban sprawl means that life without a car is next to impossible. Mass
use of motor vehicles has also killed or injured millions of people. Other social
effects have been blamed on the car such as alienation and aggressive human
behaviour.

Section E

A 1993 study by the European Federation for Transport and Environment found
that car transport is seven times as costly as rail travel in terms of the external
social costs it entails - congestion, accidents, pollution, loss of cropland and
natural habitats, depletion of oil resources, and so on. Yet cars easily surpass
trains or buses as a flexible and convenient mode of personal transport. It is
unrealistic to expect people to give up private cars in favour of mass transit.

Section F

Technical solutions can reduce the pollution problem and increase the fuelled
efficiency of engines. But fuel consumption and exhaust emissions depend on
which cars are preferred by customers and how they are driven. Many people
buy larger cars than they need for daily purposes or waste fuel by driving
aggressively. Besides, global car use is increasing at a faster rate than the
improvement in emissions and fuel efficiency which technology is now making
possible.

Section G

Some argue that the only long-term solution is to design cities and
neighborhoods so that car journeys are not necessary - all essential services
being located within walking distance or easily accessible by public transport. Not
only would this save energy and cut carbon dioxide emissions, it would also
enhance the quality of community life, putting the emphasis on people instead
of cars. Good local government is already bringing this about in some places. But
few democratic communities are blessed with the vision – and the capital –to
make such profound changes in modern lifestyles.

PAGE 93
Section H

A more likely scenario seems to be a combination of mass transit systems for

travel into and around cities, with small ‘low emission’ cars for urban use and
larger hybrid or lean burn cars for use elsewhere. Electronically tolled highways
might be used to ensure that drivers pay charges geared to actual road use.
Better integration of transport systems is also highly desirable - and made more
feasible by modern computers. But these are solutions for countries which can
afford them. In most developing countries, old cars and old technologies continue
to predominate.

Questions 14 – 19

Sample Passage 7 has eight paragraphs labelled A-H.

Which paragraphs contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-H in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.

14. a comparison of past and present transportation methods

15. how driving habits contribute to road problems
16. the relative merits of cars and public transport
17. the writer’s prediction on future solutions
18. the increasing use of motor vehicles
19. the impact of the car on city development

PAGE 94
 Dung Beetles

1
Introducing dung beetles into a pasture is a simple process: approximately
2
1,500 beetles are released, a handful at a time, into fresh cow pats in the cow
pasture. The beetles immediately disappear beneath the pats digging and
tunnelling and, if they successfully adapt to their new environment, soon become
a permanent, self-sustaining part of the local ecology. In time they multiply and
within three or four years the benefits to the pasture are obvious.

Dung beetles work from the inside of the pat so they are sheltered from predators
such as birds and foxes. Most species burrow into the soil and bury dung in
tunnels directly underneath the pats, which are hollowed out from within. Some
large species originating from France excavate tunnels to a depth of
approximately 30 cm below the dung pat. These beetles make sausage-shaped
brood chambers along the tunnels. The shallowest tunnels belong to a much
smaller Spanish species that buries dung in chambers that hang like fruit from
the branches of a pear tree. South African beetles dig narrow tunnels of
approximately 20 cm below the surface of the pat. Some surface-dwelling
beetles, including a South African species, cut perfectly-shaped balls from the
pat, which are rolled away and attached to the bases of plants.

For maximum dung burial in spring, summer and autumn, farmers require a
variety of species with overlapping periods of activity. In the cooler environments
of the state of Victoria, the large French species (2.5 cms long), is matched with
smaller (half this size), temperate-climate Spanish species. The former are slow
to recover from the winter cold and produce only one or two generations of
offspring from late spring until autumn.

PAGE 95
The latter, which multiply rapidly in early spring, produce two to five generations
annually. The South African ball-rolling species, being a sub-tropical beetle,
prefers the climate of northern and coastal New South Wales where it commonly
works with the South African tunneling species. In warmer climates, many
species are active for longer periods of the year.

Glossary:

1. dung: the droppings or excreta

2. cow pats: droppings of cows

Questions 6 – 8

Label the tunnels on the diagram below using words from the box.
Write your answers in boxes 6-8 on your answer sheet.

PAGE 96
 READING PASSAGE -2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are
based on Reading Passage 1 below

Tidal Power

Undersea turbines which produce electricity from the tides are set to become an
important source of renewable energy for Britain. It is still too early to predict the
extent of the impact they may have. but all the signs are that they will play a
significant role in the future.

A: Operating on the same principle as wind turbines, the power in sea turbines
comes from tidal currents which turn blades similar to ships' propellers, but,
unlike wind, the tides are predictable and the power input is constant. The
technology raises the prospect of Britain becoming self-sufficient in renewable
energy and drastically reducing its carbon dioxide emissions. If tide, wind and
wave power are all developed, Britain would be able to close gas, coal and
nuclear power plants and export renewable power to other parts of Europe.
Unlike wind power which Britain originally developed and then abandoned for
20 years allowing the Dutch to make it a major industry. undersea turbines
could become a big export earner to island nations such as Japan and New
Zealand.

B: Tidal sites have already been identified that will produce one sixth or more
of the UK’s power - and at prices competitive with modern gas turbines and
undercutting those of the already ailing nuclear industry. One site alone, the
Pentland Firth, between Orkney and mainland Scotland, could produce 10%
of the country's electricity with banks of turbines under the sea, and another
at Alderney in the Channel islands three times the 1.200 megawatts of
Britain's largest and newest nuclear plant, Sizewell B, in Suffolk. Other sites
identified include the Bristol Channel and the west coast of Scotland,
particularly the channel between Campbeltown and Northern Ireland.

C: Work on designs for the new turbine blades and sites are well advanced at
the University of Southampton‘s sustainable energy research group. The first
station is expected to be installed off Lynmouth in Devon shortly to test the
technology in a venture jointly funded by the department of Trade and
Industry and the European Union. AbuBakr Bahaj, in charge of the

PAGE 97
Southampton research said: The prospects for energy from tidal currents are
far better than from wind because the flows of water are predictable and
constant. The technology for dealing with the hostile saline environment under
the sea has been developed in the North Sea oil industry and much is already
known about turbine blade design, because of wind power and ship propellers.
There are a few technical difficulties, but I believe in the next five to ten years
we will be installing commercial marine turbine farms.' Southampton has been
awarded £2’l5.U. `D over three years to develop the turbines and is working
with Marine Current Turbines. a subsidiary of IT power; on the Lynmouth
project. EU research has now identified 1GB potential sites for tidal powen
BG% round the coasts of Britain. The best sites are between islands or around
heavily indented coasts where there are strong tidal currents.

D: A marine turbine blade needs to be only one third of the size of a wind
generator to produce three times as much power. The blades will be about 20
meters in diameter so around 30 meters of water is required. Unlike wind
power there are unlikely to be environmental objections. Fish and other
creatures are thought unlikely to be at risk from the relatively slow turning
blades. Each turbine will be mounted on a tower which will connect to the
national power supply grid via underwater cables. The towers will stick out of
the water and be lit. to warn shipping, and also be designed to be lifted out of
the water for maintenance and to clean seaweed from the blades.

E: Dr. Bahaj has done most work on the Alderrney site, where there are
powerful currents. The single undersea turbine farm would produce far more
power than needed for the Channel Islands and most would be fed into the
French Grid and be re-imported into Britain via the cable under the Channel.

F: One technical difficulty is cavitations, where low pressure behind a turning

blade causes air bubbles. These can cause vibration and damage the blades
of the turbines. Dr. Bahaj said: 'We have to lest a number of blade types to
avoid this happening or at least make sure it does not damage the turbines or
reduce performance. Another slight concern is submerged debris floating into
the blades. So far we do not know how much of a problem it might be. We will
have to make the turbines robust because the sea is a hostile environment.
but all the signs that we can do it are good.

PAGE 98
Questions 14-17
Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A-F.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter; A-F in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.

14. The location of the first test site

15. A way of bringing the power produced on one site back into Britain.
16. A reference to a previous attempt by Britain to find an alternative source
of energy.
17. Mention of the possibility of applying technology from another industry

Questions 18-22

CHOOSE FIVE Letters A-J

Write the correct letters in boxes 18-22 on your answer street.
Which FIVE of the following claims about tidal power are made by the
writer?

A. It is a more reliable source of energy than wind power.

B. It would replace all other forms of energy in Britain.
C. Its introduction has come as a result of public pressure.
D. It would cut down on air pollution.
E. It could contribute to the closure of many existing power stations ln Britain.
F. It could be a means of increasing national income.
G. It could face a lot of resistance from other fuel industries.
H. It could be sold more cheaply than any other type of fuel.
I. It could compensate for the shortage of inland sites for energy production.
J. It is best produced in the vicinity of coastlines with particular features.

PAGE 99
Questions 23-26

Label the diagram below

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each
answer
Write your answers in boxes 23-26 on your answer sheet,

An Undersea Turbine

Whole tower can be raised for 23 .............and the extraction of

seaweed from the blades

Air bubbles result from the 25 ............ Sea life not in danger due to the
fact that blades are comparatively 24…….... behind blades.
This is known as 26 ………………….

PAGE 100
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are
based on Reading Passage 1 below

READING PASSAGE -3
Young Children`s Sense of Identity

A: A sense of self develops in young children by degrees. The process can

usefully be thought of in terms of the gradual emergence of two somewhat
separate features: the self as a subject, and the self as an object. William James
introduced the distinction in 1892, and contemporaries of his, such as Charles
Cooley, added to the developing debate. Ever since then psychologists have
continued building on the theory.

B: According to James, a child's first step on the road to self-understanding can

be seen as the recognition that he or she exists. This is an aspect of the self that
he labeled 'self-as-subject', and he gave it various elements. These included an
awareness of one’s own agency (i.e. one’s power to act), and an awareness of
one’s distinctiveness from other people. These features gradually emerge as
infants explore their world and interact with caregivers. Cooley (1902) suggested
that of the self-as-subject was primarily concerned with being able to exercise
power.

He proposed that the earliest examples of this are an infant’s attempts to control
physical objects, such as toys or his or her own limbs. This is followed by attempts
to affect the behavior of other people. For example, infants learn that when they
cry or smile someone responds to them.

C: Another powerful source of information for infants about the effects they can
have on the world around them is provided when others mimic them. Many
parents spend a lot of time, particularly in the early months, copying their infant's
vocalizations and expressions in addition, young children enjoy looking in
mirrors, where the movements they can see are dependent upon their own
movements.

This is not to say that infants recognize the reflection as their own image (a later
development). However, Lewis and Brooks-Gunn (1979) suggest that infants'
developing understanding that the movements they see in the mirror are
contingent on their own, leads to a growing awareness that they are distinct from
other people. This is because they and only they can change the reflection in the
mirror.

PAGE 101
D: This understanding that children gain of themselves as active agents
continues to develop in their attempts to co-operate with others in play. Drum
(1988) points out that it is in such day-to-day relationships and interactions that
the child's understanding of his· or herself emerges. Empirical investigations of
the self-as- subject in young children are, however, rather scarce because of
difficulties of communication: even if young infants can reflect on their
experience, they certainly cannot express this aspect of the self directly.

E: Once Children have acquired a certain level of self-awareness; they begin to

place themselves in a whole series of categories, which together play such an
important part in defining them uniquely as 'themselves'. This second step in the
development of a full sense of self is what lames called the 'self-as-object'.

This has been seen by many to be the aspect of the self which is most influenced
by social elements, since it is made up of social roles (such as student, brother;
colleague) and characteristics which derive their meaning from comparison or
interaction with other people (such as trust worthiness, shyness, sporting ability).

F: Cooley and other researchers suggested a close connection between a

person’s own understanding of their identity and other people's understanding of
it. Cooley believed that people build up their sense of identity from the reactions
of others to them, and from the view they believe others have of them.

He called the self- as-object the ’looking-glass self', since people come to see
themselves as they are reflected in others. Mead (1934) went even further, and
saw the self and the social world as inextricably bound together ’The self is
essentially a social structure, and it arises in social experience it is impossible
to conceive of a self-arising outside of social experience.'

G: Lewis and Brooks-Gunn argued that an important developmental milestone is

reached when children become able to recognize themselves visually without the
support of seeing contingent movement. This recognition occurs around their
second birthday. In one experiment, Lewis and Brooks-Gunn (1979) dabbed
some red powder on the noses of children who were playing in front of a mirror,
and then observed how often they touched their noses.

The psychologists reasoned that if the children knew what they usually looked
like, they would be surprised by the unusual red mark and would start touching
it. On the other hand, they found that children of 15 to 18 months are generally

PAGE 102
not able to recognize themselves unless other cues such as movement are
present.

H: Finally, perhaps the most graphic expressions of self-awareness in general

can be seen in the displays of rage which are most common from 18 months to
3 years of age. In a longitudinal study of groups of three or four children,
Bronson (1975) found that the intensity of the frustration and anger in their
disagreements increased sharply between the ages of 1 and 2 years.

Often, the children's disagreements involved a struggle over a toy that none of
them had played with before or after the tug-of-war: the children seemed to be
disputing ownership rather than wanting to play with it. Although it may be less
marked in other societies, the link between the sense of ’self' and of
'ownership’ is a notable feature of childhood in Western societies.

Questions 20-23

Look at the following findings (Questions 20-23) and the list of

researchers below.
Match each finding with the correct researcher or researchers, A-E.
Write the correct letter A-E, in boxes 20-23 on your answer sheet.

20. A sense of identity can never be formed without relationships with other

people.

21. A child’s awareness of self is related to a sense of mastery over things and

people.

22. At a certain age, children’s sense of identity leads to aggressive behavior.

23. Observing their own reflection contributes to children ‘s self-awareness.

PAGE 103
 List of Researchers

A. James
B. Cooley
C. Lewis and Brooks-Gunn
D. Mead
E. Bronson

How children acquire a sense of identity

First, children come to realize that they can have an effect on the world around
them, for example by handling objects. or causing the image to move when
they lace a 24......,.......... This aspect of self-awareness is difficult to research
directly, because of 25.,……... problems.

Secondly. children start to become aware of how they are viewed by others.
One important stage in this process is the visual recognition of themselves
which usually occurs when they reach the age oi two. In Western societies at
least, the development of self-awareness is often linked to a sense of
26 ...,.................. , and can lead to disputes.

PAGE 104