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IELTS
International English Language Test System

Reading Lesson 4 Multiple Choice

2017
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About this lesson

01
Multiple Choice
02
Guided Practice
03
After-class Practice

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 PART ONE
Multiple Choice
Class time: ≤ 15 minutes

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Techniques for Multiple Choice
4 minutes

Answering Multiple Choice questions:

➢ Multiple choice questions test specific detail where you are asked to analyse one part
of a text, e.g. a fact.
➢ A multiple choice question can test your understanding of the whole text, e.g. a
question at the end about the purpose of the passage or with possible titles or
summaries.
➢ Usually there are four alternatives (A–D) for a question, but in some cases there may
be five alternatives (A–E) and you have to choose one or more answers. (You may be
asked to choose two items mentioned by the writer from a list of five alternatives.)
➢ Multiple choice questions are like True/False/Not Given questions. One of the
alternatives creates a statement, which is True. The other three or four are either
contradictions or Not Given.

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Techniques for Multiple Choice
5 minutes

Stage 1:

• Skim all the questions for the passage to get the general picture.
• As you practise, and in the exam itself, cover the alternatives (A–D) with a pencil or a piece
of paper and read the stem only.
• Focus on content words like nouns, names, verbs, etc. and also words that qualify the part
of the sentence. Distinguish between the general topic of the passage and specific
scanning words.
• Words that help qualify the stem help you to match it with an alternative and vice versa.
So look for words like more, usually, modals like should, etc. and words that add qualities.
• Predict the answer where you can and try to complete the stem yourself. If the stem
contains a cause, then you probably want an effect at the end of the sentence.
• Reveal the first alternative and think about it quickly. Again focus on content and qualifying
words.
• Read the stem again and reveal each of the alternatives in turn. It is easy to forget about
the stem by the time you get to alternative D!
• Underline words that will help you scan.

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Techniques for Multiple Choice
4 minutes

Stage 2:

• Group the alternatives. Look for information that the alternatives have in common or that is
different.
- The alternatives may all be variations of the same basic detail with one piece of information
that is different.
- There may be two alternatives that are similar and two that are very different.
- There may be two alternatives that contradict each other.
• Remember that if alternatives are the same, neither can be answer.
• Keep in mind the general picture of the passage, read the alternatives and predict the
answer. Scan the passage to locate the answer and check your prediction.
• To prevent panic, think about the question and the text separately.
• When you are checking your prediction with the text, read the relevant part of the text and
look away from the page when you are thinking.

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Techniques for Multiple Choice
2 minutes

Stage 3:

• When you predict the answer by matching the stem with an alternative, think about which
information logically fits together. Keep in mind the logic of the other questions and the
passage.
• Read the answers to the multiple choice questions you have done. Check to see whether
they form a logical picture.
• Do not answer the questions in isolation from each other.

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 PART TWO
Guided Practice
Class time: ≤ 10 minutes

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Guided practice
Read the passage below and complete Questions 10–12. Suggested time: 7 minutes 7 minutes
(For tutor: this is for practice, no need to read aloud.)

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. (turn to next page)

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Guided practice

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. (The questions are on the next page.)

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Guided practice
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

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Guided practice
3 minutes
Answer keys:

10 C (Paragraph 1: …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.)
11 B (Paragraph 2: … Fertiliser use doubled in Denmark in the period 1960–1985…)
12 D (Paragraph 3: … were made to reduce farm subsidies. The most dramatic example was
that of New Zealand, which scrapped most farm support in 1984. …the end of fertiliser
subsideis had been followed by … Farms began to diversify.)

(Tutor should explain why these words are chosen for the gap.)

Check-up
How well have you done this section? In a real IELTS test,
don't forget to transfer your answers to the answer sheet!

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 PART THREE
After-class Practice

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After-class practice
No class time allocated for this part unless upon special request

Read the article and try to answer questions 1-7.

Nature or Nurture?

A few years ago, in one of the most fascinating and disturbing experiments in behavioural psychology, Stanley Milgram of Yale University
tested 40 subjects from all walks of life for their willingness to obey instructions given by a 'leader' in a situation in which the subjects
might feel a personal distaste for the actions they were called upon to perform. Specifically, Milgram told each volunteer 'teacher-subject'
that the experiment was in the noble cause of education, and was designed to test whether or not punishing pupils for their mistakes
would have a positive effect on the pupils' ability to learn.

Milgram's experimental set-up involved placing the teacher-subject before a panel of thirty switches with labels ranging from '15 volts of
electricity (slight shock)' to '450 volts (danger - severe shock)' in steps of 15 volts each. The teacher-subject was told that whenever the
pupil gave the wrong answer to a question, a shock was to be administered, beginning at the lowest level and increasing in severity with
each successive wrong answer. The supposed 'pupil' was in reality an actor hired by Milgram to simulate receiving the shocks by emitting
a spectrum of groans, screams and writhings together with an assortment of statements and expletives denouncing both the experiment
and the experimenter. Milgram told the teacher-subject to ignore the reactions of the pupil, and to administer whatever level of shock
was called for, as per the rule governing the experimental situation of the moment.

As the experiment unfolded, the pupil would deliberately give the wrong answers to questions posed by the teacher, thereby bringing on
various electrical punishments, even up to the danger level of 300 volts and beyond. Many of the teacher-subjects balked at
administering the higher levels of punishment, and turned to Milgram with questioning looks and/or complaints about continuing the
experiment. In these situations, Milgram calmly explained that the teacher-subject was to ignore the pupil's cries for mercy and carry on
with the experiment. If the subject was still reluctant to proceed, Milgram said that it was important for the sake of the experiment that
the procedure be followed through to the end. His final argument was, 'You have no other choice. You must go on.' What Milgram was
trying to discover was the number of teacher-subjects who would be willing to administer the highest levels of shock, even in the face of
strong personal and moral revulsion against the rules and conditions of the experiment.
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After-class practice
No class time allocated for this part unless upon special request

Prior to carrying out the experiment, Milgram explained his idea to a group of 39 psychiatrists and asked them to predict the average
percentage of people in an ordinary population who would be willing to administer the highest shock level of 450 volts. The
overwhelming consensus was that virtually all the teacher-subjects would refuse to obey the experimenter. The psychiatrists felt that
'most subjects would not go beyond 150 volts' and they further anticipated that only four per cent would go up to 300 volts.
Furthermore, they thought that only a lunatic fringe of about one in 1,000 would give the highest shock of 450 volts.

What were the actual results? Well, over 60 per cent of the teacher-subjects continued to obey Milgram up to the 450-volt limit! In
repetitions of the experiment in other countries, the percentage of obedient teacher-subjects was even higher, reaching 85 per cent in
one country. How can we possibly account for this vast discrepancy between what calm, rational, knowledgeable people predict in the
comfort of their study and what pressured, flustered, but cooperative teachers actually do in the laboratory of real life?

One's first inclination might be to argue that there must be some sort of built-in animal aggression instinct that was activated by the
experiment, and that Milgram's teacher-subjects were just following a genetic need to discharge this pent-up primal urge onto the pupil
by administering the electrical shock. A modern hard-core sociobiologist might even go so far as to claim that this aggressive instinct
evolved as an advantageous trait, having been of survival value to our ancestors in their struggle against the hardships of life on the
plains and in the caves, ultimately finding its way into our genetic make-up as a remnant of our ancient animal ways.

An alternative to this notion of genetic programming is to see the teacher-subjects' actions as a result of the social environment under
which the experiment was carried out. As Milgram himself pointed out, 'Most subjects in the experiment see their behaviour in a larger
context that is benevolent and useful to society - the pursuit of scientific truth. The psychological laboratory has a strong claim to
legitimacy and evokes trust and confidence in those who perform there. An action such as shocking a victim, which in isolation appears
evil, acquires a completely different meaning when placed in this setting.’

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After-class practice
No class time allocated for this part unless upon special request

Thus, in this explanation the subject merges his unique personality and personal and moral code with that of larger institutional
structures, surrendering individual properties like loyalty, self-sacrifice and discipline to the service of malevolent systems of authority.

Here we have two radically different explanations for why so many teacher-subjects were willing to forgo their sense of personal
responsibility for the sake of an institutional authority figure. The problem for biologists, psychologists and anthropologists is to sort out
which of these two polar explanations is more plausible. This, in essence, is the problem of modern sociobiology - to discover the
degree to which hard-wired genetic programming dictates, or at least strongly biases, the interaction of animals and humans with their
environment, that is, their behaviour. Put another way, sociobiology is concerned with elucidating the biological basis of all behaviour.
Questions 20–22
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write your answers in boxes 20–22 on your answer sheet.
20. The teacher-subjects were told that they were testing whether
A. a 450-volt shock was dangerous.
B. punishment helps learning.
C. the pupils were honest.
D. they were suited to teaching.
21. The teacher-subjects were instructed to
A. stop when a pupil asked them to.
B. denounce pupils who made mistakes.
C. reduce the shock level after a correct answer.
D. give punishment according to a rule.
22. Before the experiment took place the psychiatrists
A. believed that a shock of 150 volts was too dangerous.
B. failed to agree on how the teacher-subjects would respond to instructions.
C. underestimated the teacher-subjects' willingness to comply with experimental procedure.
D. thought that many of the teacher-subjects would administer a shock of 450 volts.
Answer key: 20. B 21. D 22. C
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The end

Self-analysis checklist

 I can use the techniques I learnt

in this lesson.

 I have practiced the techniques

I learnt in the guided practice.
You're going to learn about more question patterns and
techniques in IELTS Reading in the next lesson.

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