You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–14, which are based on

Reading Passage 1 below.

The students’ problem

(A) The college and university accommodation crisis in Ireland has become ‘so
chronic’ that students are being forced to sleep rough, share a bed with strangers –
or give up on studying altogether.

(B) The deputy president of the Union of Students in Ireland, Kevin Donoghue,
said the problem has become particularly acute in Dublin. He told the Irish Mirror:
“Students are so desperate, they’re not just paying through the nose to share rooms
– they’re paying to share a bed with complete strangers. It reached crisis point last
year and it’s only getting worse. “We’ve heard of students sleeping rough; on
sofas, floors and in their cars and I have to stress there’s no student in the country
that hasn’t been touched by this crisis. “Commutes – which would once have been
considered ridiculous – are now normal, whether that’s by bus, train or car and
those who drive often end up sleeping in their car if they’ve an early start the next
morning.”

(C) Worry is increasing over the problems facing Ireland’s 200,000 students as the
number increases over the next 15 years. With 165,000 full-time students in
Ireland – and that figure expected to increase to around 200,000 within the next 15
years –fears remain that there aren’t enough properties to accommodate current
numbers.

(D) Mr. Donoghue added: “The lack of places to live is actually forcing school-
leavers out of college altogether. Either they don’t go in the first place or end up
having to drop out because they can’t get a room and commuting is just too
expensive, stressful and difficult.”
(E) Claims have emerged from the country that some students have been forced to
sleep in cars, or out on the streets, because of the enormous increases to rent in the
capital. Those who have been lucky enough to find a place to live have had to do
so ‘blind’ by paying for accommodation, months in advance, they haven’t even
seen just so they will have a roof over their head over the coming year.

(F) According to the Irish Independent, it’s the ‘Google effect’ which is to blame.
As Google and other blue-chip companies open offices in and around Dublin’s
docklands area, which are ‘on the doorstep of the city’, international professionals
have been flocking to the area which will boast 2,600 more apartments, on 50 acres
of undeveloped land, over the next three to 10 years.

(G) Rent in the area soared by 15 per cent last year and a two-bedroom apartment
overlooking the Grand Canal costs €2,100 (£1,500) per month to rent. Another
two-bedroom apartment at Hanover Dock costs €2,350 (almost £1,700) with a
three-bedroom penthouse – measuring some 136 square metres – sits at €4,500
(£3,200) per month in rent.

(H) Ireland’s Higher Education Authority admitted this was the first time they had
seen circumstances ‘so extreme’ and the Fianna Fáil party leader, Michael Martin,
urged on the Government to intervene. He said: “It is very worrying that all of the
progress in opening up access to higher education in the last decade – particularly
for the working poor – is being derailed because of an entirely foreseeable
accommodation crisis.

Questions 1-8

Reading Passage 1 has eight paragraphs, A–H.

Choose the most suitable paragraph headings from the list of headings and write
the correct letter, A–H, in boxes 1–8 on your answer sheet.

1. Cons of the commuting ___G______

2. Thing that students have to go through _________B

3. Commutes have become common in Ireland nowadays _________A

4. Danger of the overflow _________F

5. Cause of the problems _________D

6. Pricing data _________C

7. Regression _________H

8. Eyeless choice _________E

Questions 9–14
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage
1?

In boxes 9–14 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
9. The accommodation problem in Ireland is especially bad in Dublin. T

10. Commutes are considered ridiculous.F

11. The number of students in Ireland is not likely to increase in the future.T

12. Due to the opening of the new offices around Dublin, the number of local
restaurants will go up significantly over the next 3 to 10 years.T

13. The rent price went up by 15% last year.T

14. Michael Martin stated that crisis could have been omitted if the government
reacted properly F

READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 15–30, which are based on
Reading Passage 2 below.

The science of sleep

We spend a third of our lives doing it. Napoleon, Florence Nightingale and
Margaret Thatcher got by on four hours a night. Thomas Edison claimed it was
waste of time.

So why do we sleep? This is a question that has baffled scientists for centuries and
the answer is, no one is really sure. Some believe that sleep gives the body a
chance to recuperate from the day’s activities but in reality, the amount of energy
saved by sleeping for even eight hours is miniscule – about 50 kCal, the same
amount of energy in a piece of toast.
With continued lack of sufficient sleep, the part of the brain that controls language,
memory, planning and sense of time is severely affected, practically shutting
down. In fact, 17 hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in
performance equivalent to a blood alcohol level of 0.05% (two glasses of wine).
This is the legal drink driving limit in the UK.

Research also shows that sleep-deprived individuals often have difficulty in

responding to rapidly changing situations and making rational judgements. In real
life situations, the consequences are grave and lack of sleep is said to have been be
a contributory factor to a number of international disasters such as Exxon Valdez,
Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and the Challenger shuttle explosion.

Sleep deprivation not only has a major impact on cognitive functioning but also on
emotional and physical health. Disorders such as sleep apnoea which result in
excessive daytime sleepiness have been linked to stress and high blood pressure.
Research has also suggested that sleep loss may increase the risk of obesity
because chemicals and hormones that play a key role in controlling appetite and
weight gain are released during sleep.

What happens when we sleep?

What happens every time we get a bit of shut eye? Sleep occurs in a recurring
cycle of 90 to 110 minutes and is divided into two categories: non-REM (which is
further split into four stages) and REM sleep.

Non-REM sleep

Stage one: Light Sleep

During the first stage of sleep, we’re half awake and half asleep. Our muscle
activity slows down and slight twitching may occur. This is a period of light sleep,
meaning we can be awakened easily at this stage.

Stage two: True Sleep

Within ten minutes of light sleep, we enter stage two, which lasts around 20
minutes. The breathing pattern and heart rate start to slow down. This period
accounts for the largest part of human sleep.

Stages three and four: Deep Sleep

During stage three, the brain begins to produce delta waves, a type of wave that is
large (high amplitude) and slow (low frequency). Breathing and heart rate are at
their lowest levels.

Stage four is characterised by rhythmic breathing and limited muscle activity. If we

are awakened during deep sleep we do not adjust immediately and often feel
groggy and disoriented for several minutes after waking up. Some children
experience bed-wetting, night terrors, or sleepwalking during this stage.

REM sleep

The first rapid eye movement (REM) period usually begins about 70 to 90 minutes
after we fall asleep. We have around three to five REM episodes a night.

Although we are not conscious, the brain is very active – often more so than when
we are awake. This is the period when most dreams occur. Our eyes dart around
(hence the name), our breathing rate and blood pressure rise. However, our bodies
are effectively paralysed, said to be nature’s way of preventing us from acting out
our dreams.

After REM sleep, the whole cycle begins again.

How much sleep is required?

There is no set amount of time that everyone needs to sleep, since it varies from
person to person. Results from the sleep profiler indicate that people like to sleep
anywhere between 5 and 11 hours, with the average being 7.75 hours.

Jim Horne from Loughborough University’s Sleep Research Centre has a simple
answer though: “The amount of sleep we require is what we need not to be sleepy
in the daytime.”

Even animals require varied amounts of sleep:

Species Average total sleep time per day

Python 18 hrs

Tiger 15.8 hrs

Cat 12.1 hrs

Chimpanzee 9.7 hrs

Sheep 3.8 hrs

African elephant 3.3 hrs

Giraffe 1.9 hr
The current world record for the longest period without sleep is 11 days, set by
Randy Gardner in 1965. Four days into the research, he began hallucinating. This
was followed by a delusion where he thought he was a famous footballer.
Surprisingly, Randy was actually functioning quite well at the end of his research
and he could still beat the scientist at pinball.

Questions 15–22

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage
1?

In boxes 15–22 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
15. Thomas Edison slept 4 hours a night.

16. Scientists don’t have a certain answer for why we have to sleep.

17. Lack of sleep might cause various problems.

18. Sleep-deprivation may be the cause of anorexia.

19. There are four stages of the REM sleep.

20. According to Jim Horne, we need to sleep as much as it takes to not be sleepy
during the day.
21. Giraffes require less sleep than dogs.

22. After four sleepless days, Randy had a delusion about him being a football
celebrity.

Questions 23–27

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

Write the correct letter in boxes 23–27 on your answer sheet.

23. During the Light Sleep stage:

A. Muscle activity increases

B. Jiggling might occur
C. It is not easy to be woken up
D. After waking up, one may experience slight disorientation

24. Heart rate is at the lowest level during:

A. Light Sleep stage

B. Rem Sleep
C. True Sleep stage
D. Third Sleep stage

25. The brain activity is really high:

A. During REM sleep

B. During the stage of True Sleep
C. When we are awake
D. During the Deep sleep stage

26. Humans require at least:

A. 7.75 hours of sleep

B. 5 hours of sleep
C. 8 hours
D. There is no set amount of time

27. Pythons need:

A. Less sleep than tigers
B. Twice as much sleep as cats
C. Almost ten times more sleep than giraffes
D. More sleep than any other animal in the world

Questions 28–30

Complete the sentences below.

Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 28–30 on your answer sheet.

28. If we continually lack sleep, the specific part of our brain that controls
language, is _________ .

29. True Sleep lasts approximately _________ .

30. Although during REM sleep our breathing rate and blood pressure rise, our
bodies _________ .

READING PASSAGE 3 (Đề thi IELTS READING)

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 31–40, which are based on
Reading Passage 3 below.

A new study finds that half of human cultures don’t practice romantic lip-on-
lip kissing. Animals don’t tend to bother either. So how did it evolve?

When you think about it, kissing is strange and a bit icky. You share saliva with
someone, sometimes for a prolonged period of time. One kiss could pass on 80
million bacteria, not all of them good.

Yet everyone surely remembers their first kiss, in all its embarrassing or delightful
detail, and kissing continues to play a big role in new romances.

At least, it does in some societies. People in western societies may assume that
romantic kissing is a universal human behaviour, but a new analysis suggests that
less than half of all cultures actually do it. Kissing is also extremely rare in the
animal kingdom.
So what’s really behind this odd behaviour? If it is useful, why don’t all animals do
it – and all humans too? It turns out that the very fact that most animals don’t kiss
helps explain why some do.

According to a new study of kissing preferences, which looked at 168 cultures

from around the world, only 46% of cultures kiss in the romantic sense.

Previous estimates had put the figure at 90%. The new study excluded parents
kissing their children, and focused solely on romantic lip-on-lip action between
couples.

Many hunter-gatherer groups showed no evidence of kissing or desire to do so.

Some even considered it revolting. The Mehinaku tribe in Brazil reportedly said it
was “gross”. Given that hunter-gatherer groups are the closest modern humans get
to living our ancestral lifestyle, our ancestors may not have been kissing either.

The study overturns the belief that romantic kissing is a near-universal human
behaviour, says lead author William Jankowiak of the University of Nevada in Las
Vegas. Instead it seems to be a product of western societies, passed on from one
generation to the next, he says. There is some historical evidence to back that up.

Kissing as we do it today seems to be a fairly recent invention, says Rafael

Wlodarski of the University of Oxford in the UK. He has trawled through records
to find evidence of how kissing has changed. The oldest evidence of a kissing-type
behaviour comes from Hindu Vedic Sanskrit texts from over 3,500 years ago.
Kissing was described as inhaling each other’s soul.

In contrast, Egyptian hieroglyphics picture people close to each other rather than
pressing their lips together.

So what is going on? Is kissing something we do naturally, but that some cultures
have suppressed? Or is it something modern humans have invented?

We can find some insight by looking at animals.

Our closest relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, do kiss. Primatologist Frans de

Waal of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, has seen many instances of chimps
kissing and hugging after conflict.
For chimpanzees, kissing is a form of reconciliation. It is more common among
males than females. In other words, it is not a romantic behaviour.

Their cousins the bonobos kiss more often, and they often use tongues while doing
so. That’s perhaps not surprising, because bonobos are highly sexual beings.

When two humans meet, we might shake hands. Bonobos have sex: the so-called
bonobo handshake. They also use sex for many other kinds of bonding. So their
kisses are not particularly romantic, either.

These two apes are exceptions. As far as we know, other animals do not kiss at all.
They may nuzzle or touch their faces together, but even those that have lips don’t
share saliva or purse and smack their lips together. They don’t need to.

Take wild boars. Males produce a pungent smell that females find extremely
attractive. The key chemical is a pheromone called androstenone that triggers the
females’ desire to mate.

From a female’s point of view this is a good thing, because males with the most
androstonene are also the most fertile. Her sense of smell is so acute, she doesn’t
need to get close enough to kiss the male.

The same is true of many other mammals. For example, female hamsters emit a
pheromone that gets males very excited. Mice follow similar chemical traces to
help them find partners that are genetically different, minimising the risk of
accidental incest.

Animals often release these pheromones in their urine. “Their urine is much more
pungent,” says Wlodarski. “If there’s urine present in the environment they can
assess compatibility through that.”

It’s not just mammals that have a great sense of smell. A male black widow spider
can smell pheromones produced by a female that tell him if she has recently eaten.
To minimise the risk of being eaten, he will only mate with her if she is not
hungry.

The point is, animals do not need to get close to each other to smell out a good
potential mate.
On the other hand, humans have an atrocious sense of smell, so we benefit from
getting close. Smell isn’t the only cue we use to assess each other’s fitness, but
studies have shown that it plays an important role in mate choice.

A study published in 1995 showed that women, just like mice, prefer the smell of
men who are genetically different from them. This makes sense, as mating with
someone with different genes is likely to produce healthy offspring. Kissing is a
great way to get close enough to sniff out your partner’s genes.

In 2013, Wlodarski examined kissing preferences in detail. He asked several

hundred people what was most important when kissing someone. How they
smelled featured highly, and the importance of smell increased when women were
most fertile.

It turns out that men also make a version of the pheromone that female boars find
attractive. It is present in male sweat, and when women are exposed to it their
arousal levels increase slightly.

Pheromones are a big part of how mammals chose a mate, says Wlodarski, and we
share some of them. “We’ve inherited all of our biology from mammals, we’ve just
added extra things through evolutionary time.”

On that view, kissing is just a culturally acceptable way to get close enough to
another person to detect their pheromones.

In some cultures, this sniffing behaviour turned into physical lip contact. It’s hard
to pinpoint when this happened, but both serve the same purpose, says Wlodarski.

So if you want to find a perfect match, you could forego kissing and start smelling
people instead. You’ll find just as good a partner, and you won’t get half as many
germs. Be prepared for some funny looks, though.

Questions 31–35

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage
3?

In boxes 31–35 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
31. Both Easter and Wester societies presume that kissing is essential for any part
of the world.

32. Our ancestors were not likely to kiss.

33. Chimpanzees and bonbons kiss not for the romance.

34. There are other animal, rather than apes, that kiss.

35. Scent might be important in choosing your partner.

Questions 36–39

Complete the sentences below.

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

Write your answers in boxes 35–39 on your answer sheet.

36. According to the Mehinaku tribe, kissing is _________ .

37. Human tradition is to _________ when they meet.

38. A male black widow will mate with the female if only she is _________ .

39. Humans benefit from getting close due to the fact that we have an _________
of smell.

Question 40

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

40. Passage 3 can be described as:

A. Strictly scientific text

B. Historical article
C. Article from a magazine
D. Dystopian sketch

Đáp án đề thi IELTS Reading mẫu

Each question correctly answered scores 1 mark. Correct spelling is needed in all
answers.

Section 1

1. D
2. A
3. B
4. C
5. F
6. G
7. H
8. E
9. True
10. False
11. False
12. Not Given
13. True
14. Not Given

Section 2

15. Not Given

16. True
17. True
18. False
19. False
20. True
21. Not Given
22. True
23. B
24. D
25. A
26. D
27. C
28. practically shutting down
29. 20 minutes
30. are (effectively) paralysed

Section 3

31. False
32. True
33. True
34. False
35. True
36. gross
37. shake hands
38.not hungry
39. (an) atrocious sense
40. C

SUCCESSFUL FAMILY FUNCTIONING

A. Roles play an extremely important part in healthy family functioning. Most

researchers agree that the establishment of clear roles higher a family’s chance of
successfully dealing with day-to-day life, unforeseen crises, and the normal changes that
occur in families over time. Family roles are the recurrent patterns of behavior by which
individuals fulfill family functions and needs. Parents are expected to teach, discipline,
and provide for their children. And children are expected to cooperate and respect their
parents rather than being disrespectful. A person's role is always expanding or changing,
depending upon his or her age and family stage.

B. Individuals within a family have both instrumental and affective roles to fulfill. Each
serves an important function in maintaining healthy family functioning. Instrumental
roles are concerned with the provision of physical resources (e.g., money, food, clothing,
and shelter). Affective roles exist to provide emotional support and encouragement to
family members. Both sets of roles must be present for healthy family functioning. In
addition, families must also consider issues of roles allocation and accountability.

C. There are many roles within a family; however, researchers have identified the
following roles as being essential for a healthy family. Providing resources, such as
money, food, clothing, and shelter, for all family members is one of the most basic, yet
important, roles within a family. This is primarily an instrumental role. Nurturing and
supporting other family members is primarily an affective role and includes providing
comfort, warmth, and reassurance for family members. Examples of this role are a parent
comforting a child after he/she has a bad day at school, or family members supporting
one another after the death of a loved one.

(Adapted from “Families first – Keys to successful family functioning: Family roles” –
Virginia Cooperative Extention)

Questions 1-3 Choose the correct letter, A, B, C, or D.

1. In families, having clear roles can

A. Be the most difficult task.

B. Help family solve daily problems.

C. Create day-to-day problems.

D. Make children become more respectful.

2. Instrumental roles are related to

A. Nurturing the kids

B. Providing encouragement to family members

C. Providing financial resource

D. Fixing household appliances

3. Offering comfort, warmth, and reassurance

A. Is unnecessary.

B. Has to be a daily activity.

C. Is an instrumental role.

D. Is an affective role.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CHILDREN’S PLAY

Brick by brick, six-year-old Alice is building a magical kingdom.
Imagining fairy-tale turrets and fire-breathing dragons, wicked witches
and gallant heroes, she’s creating an enchanting world. Although she
isn’t aware of it, this fantasy is helping her take her first steps towards
her capacity for creativity and so it will have important repercussions
in her adult life.
Minutes later, Alice has abandoned the kingdom in favour of playing
schools with her younger brother. When she bosses him around as his
‘teacher’, she’s practising how to regulate her emotions through
pretence. Later on, when they tire of this and settle down with a board
game, she’s learning about the need to follow rules and take turns with
a partner.
‘Play in all its rich variety is one of the highest achievements of the
human species,’ says Dr David Whitebread from the Faculty of
Education at the University of Cambridge, UK. ‘It underpins how we
develop as intellectual, problem-solving adults and is crucial to our
success as a highly adaptable species.’

Recognising the importance of play is not new: over two millennia ago,
the Greek philosopher Plato extolled its virtues as a means of
developing skills for adult life, and ideas about play-based learning
have been developing since the 19th century.

But we live in changing times, and Whitebread is mindful of a

worldwide decline in play, pointing out that over half the people in the
world now live in cities. ‘The opportunities for free play, which I
experienced almost every day of my childhood, are becoming
increasingly scarce,’ he says. Outdoor play is curtailed by perceptions
of risk to do with traffic, as well as parents’ increased wish to protect
their children from being the victims of crime, and by the emphasis on
‘earlier is better’ which is leading to greater competition in academic
learning and schools.

International bodies like the United Nations and the European Union
have begun to develop policies concerned with children’s right to play,
and to consider implications for leisure facilities and educational
programmes. But what they often lack is the evidence to base policies
on.

‘The type of play we are interested in is child-initiated, spontaneous

and unpredictable - but, as soon as you ask a five-year-old “to play”,
then you as the researcher have intervened,’ explains Dr Sara Baker.
‘And we want to know what the long-term impact of play is. It’s a real
challenge.’

Dr Jenny Gibson agrees, pointing out that although some of the steps
in the puzzle of how and why play is important have been looked at,
there is very little data on the impact it has on the child’s later life.

Now, thanks to the university’s new Centre for Research on Play in

Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL), Whitebread, Baker,
Gibson and a team of researchers hope to provide evidence on the role
played by play in how a child develops.

‘A strong possibility is that play supports the early development of

children’s self-control,’ explains Baker. ‘This is our ability to develop
awareness of our own thinking processes - it influences how
effectively we go about undertaking challenging activities.’

In a study carried out by Baker with toddlers and young pre-schoolers,

she found that children with greater self-control solved problems more
quickly when exploring an unfamiliar set-up requiring scientific
reasoning. ‘This sort of evidence makes us think that giving children
the chance to play will make them more successful problem-solvers in
the long run.’

If playful experiences do facilitate this aspect of development, say the

researchers, it could be extremely significant for educational
practices, because the ability to self-regulate has been shown to be a
key predictor of academic performance.

Gibson adds: ‘Playful behaviour is also an important indicator of

healthy social and emotional development. In my previous research, I
investigated how observing children at play can give us important
clues about their well-being and can even be useful in the diagnosis of
neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.’

Whitebread’s recent research has involved developing a play-based

approach to supporting children’s writing. ‘Many primary school
children find writing difficult, but we showed in a previous study that a
playful stimulus was far more effective than an instructional one.’
Children wrote longer and better-structured stories when they first
played with dolls representing characters in the story. In the latest
study, children first created their story with Lego , with similar results.
‘Many teachers commented that they had always previously had
children saying they didn’t know what to write about. With the Lego
building, however, not a single child said this through the whole year
of the project.’

Whitebread, who directs PEDAL, trained as a primary school teacher in

the early 1970s, when, as he describes, ‘the teaching of young children
was largely a quiet backwater, untroubled by any serious intellectual
debate or controversy.’ Now, the landscape is very different, with hotly
debated topics such as school starting age.
‘Somehow the importance of play has been lost in recent decades. It’s
regarded as something trivial, or even as something negative that
contrasts with “work”. Let’s not lose sight of its benefits, and the
fundamental contributions it makes to human achievements in the
arts, sciences and technology. Let’s make sure children have a rich
diet of play experiences.’

Questions 1-8 Complete the notes below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.

Children’s play

Uses of children’s play

building a ‘magical kingdom’ may help develop 1.......

board games involve 2 ....... and turn-taking

Recent changes affecting children’s play

populations of 3....... have grown

opportunities for free play are limited due to

- fear of 4 .......

- fear of 5 .......
- increased 6 .......in schools

International policies on children’s play

it is difficult to find 7 .......to support new policies

research needs to study the impact of play on the rest of the

child’s8 .......

Do the following statements agree with the information given in

Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

9 Children with good self-control are known to be likely to do well at

school later on.

10 The way a child plays may provide information about possible

medical problems.

11 Playing with dolls was found to benefit girls’ writing more than
boys’ writing.

12 Children had problems thinking up ideas when they first created the
story with Lego.

13 People nowadays regard children’s play as less significant than

they did in the past.