IELTS Mock Test 2018 -

September
Reading Practice Test 2

READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on
Reading Passage One.

WEATHERING IN THE DESERT

A

In the deserts, as elsewhere, rocks at the earth's surface are changed by

weathering, which may be defined as the disintegration of rocks where they lie.
Weathering processes are either chemical, when alteration of some of the
constituent particles is involved; or mechanical, when there is merely the
physical breaking apart and fragmentation of rocks. Which process will
dominate depends primarily on the mineralogy and texture of the rock and the
local climate, but several individual processes usually work together to
the common end of rock disintegration.

The great daily changes in temperature of deserts have long been supposed
to be responsible for the disintegration of rocks, either by the differential
heating of the various rock-forming minerals or by differential heating between
the outer and inner parts of rock masses. However, both field observations
and laboratory experiments have led to a reassessment of the importance of
’ exposure to the sun's rays in desert weathering. Almost half a century
ago Barton remarked that the buried parts of some of the ancient monuments
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in Egypt were more weathered than were those parts fully exposed to the sun's
rays, and attributed this to the effects of water absorption below the ground
surface. Laboratory experiments have shown that rocks subjected to many
cycles of large temperature oscillations (larger than those experienced in
nature) display no evidence of fissuring or fragmentation, as a result. However,
when marked fluctuations of temperature occur in moist conditions small rock
fragments quickly form.

The expansive action of crystallising salts is often alleged to exert

sufficient force to disintegrate rocks. Few would dispute that this mechanism is
capable of disrupting fissile or well-cleaved rocks or rocks already weakened
by other weathering agencies; wood is splintered, terracotta tiles
disintegrated and clays disturbed by the mechanism, but its importance when
acting upon fresh and cohesive crystalline rocks remains uncertain.

Weathering achieves more than the disintegration of rocks, though this is its
most important geomorphic effect. It causes specific landforms to develop.
Many boulders possess a superficial hard layer of iron oxide and/or
silica, substances which have migrated in solution from the inside of the
block towards the surface. Not only is the exterior thus case-hardened but
the depleted interior disintegrates easily. When weathering penetrates the
shell the inside is rapidly attacked and only the hard outer layer remains to
give hollowed or 'tortoiseshell' rocks.

Another superficial layer, the precise nature of which is little understood, is the
well-known desert varnish or patina, a shiny coat on the surface of rocks and
pebbles and characteristic of arid environments. Some varnishes are
colourless, others light brown, yet others so dark a brown as to be
virtually black. It's origin is unknown but is significant, for it has been
suggested that the varnish grows darker with the passage of time; obviously
before such a criterion could be used with confidence as a chronological tool
its origin must be known with precision. Its formation is so slow that in Egypt,
for example, it has been estimated that a light brown coating requires
between 2,000 and 5,000 years to develop, a fully formed blackish veneer
between 20,000 and 50,000 years.

The development of relatively impermeable soil horizons that are subsequently

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exposed at the surface because of erosion of once overlying, easily eroded
materials, and which thus become surface crusts, is widespread in arid regions,
although it is also known outside the deserts, and indeed many of the
examples in arid lands probably originated in former periods of humid climate.
The crusts prevent the waters of occasional torrential downpours
from penetrating deeply into the soil, and thus they contribute to the rapid run-
off associated with desert storms. Also, after erosion has cut through the
crust and exposed underlying soil layers, the hard layer forms a resistant
capping (duricrust) on plateaux and mesas, such as are common in many parts
of arid and semi-arid Australia.

Some duricrust layers have been used as time markers for landforms
and geological formations. The necessary conditions for this are that the
crust forms fairly rapidly, and that it is sufficiently distinct in appearance
to preclude the possibility of confusion with other crusts formed at other
times. The Barrilaco calcrete of Mexico for instance is believed to date from
about 7,000 B.C. The main silcrete of the northern districts of South Australia
is believed to date from the Lower Miocene, the laterite of northern Australia to
be of the Lower or Middle Miocene age.

Questions 1-7
Reading Passage 1 has seven sections, A-G.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the appropriate letter, A-G, in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.

1 the idea that crystalline salts may not disintegrate solid

rock as easily as other substances

2 the fact that daily temperature changes cause rocks to

weather may not be as important as supposed

3 the regions where weathering creates a thick layer of

earth that water cannot penetrate easily

4 the fact that weathering not only breaks down rocks, but
also shapes the landscape

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5 the idea of using impenetrable layers of earth to
measure chronology

6 the two different kinds of weathering in rocks

7 the possibility of using the colour of the shiny surface on

rocks to measure chronology

Questions 8-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading
Passage 1?

In boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet, write

if the statement agrees with the

TRUE
information

if the statement contradicts the

FALSE
information

NOT GIVEN If there is no information on this

8 Desert rocks can become weathered when there is a

chemical reaction within the rock.

9 The parts of Egyptian monuments exposed to sunlight

were found to be affected by the weather more than those below the
ground.

10
Granite which has been subjected to huge
temperature swings tends not to exhibit any signs of disintegration as a
result.

11
It is estimated that dark patina originated between
2,000 and 5,000 years ago.

12
Because of surface crusts, water from torrential rains
cannot be fully absorbed into the ground and as a result causes run offs in
arid regions.

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13
Duricrust layering is no longer used as an indicator of
time because of the confusion with similar crusts.

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Reading Passage 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on
Reading Passage Two.

FASHION AND SOCIETY: A HISTORICAL

PERSPECTIVE
In all societies the body is 'dressed', and everywhere dress and adornment play
symbolic and aesthetic roles. The colour of clothing often has special meaning:
a white wedding dress symbolising purity; or black clothing indicating
remembrance for a dead relative. Uniforms symbolise association with a
particular profession. For many centuries purple, the colour representing
royalty, was to be worn by no one else. And of course, dress has always been
used to emphasise the wearer's beauty, although beauty has taken many
different forms in different societies. In the 16th century in Europe, for
example, Flemish painters celebrated women with bony shoulders, protruding
stomachs and long faces, while women shaved or plucked their hairlines to
obtain the fashionable egg-domed forehead. These traits are considered ugly
by today's fashion.

The earliest forms of 'clothing' seem to have been adornments such as body
painting, ornaments, scarifications (scarring), tattooing, masks and often
constricting neck and waist bands. Many of these deformed, reformed or
otherwise modified the body. The bodies of men and of children, not just those
of women, were altered: there seems to be a widespread human desire to
transcend the body's limitations, to make it what it is, by nature, not.

Dress in general seems then to fulfil a number of social functions. This is true
of modern as of ancient dress. What is added to dress as we ourselves know it
in the west is fashion, of which the key feature is rapid and continual changing
of styles. The growth of the European city in the 14th century saw the birth of
fashion. Previously, loose robes had been worn by both sexes, and styles were
simple and unchanging. Dress distinguished rich from poor, rulers from
ruled, only in that working people wore more wool and no silk,
rougher materials and less ornamentation than their masters.

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However, by the 14th century, with the expansion in trade, the growth of city
life, and the increasing sophistication of the royal and aristocratic courts,
rapidly changing styles appeared in western Europe. These were associated
with developments in tailored and fitted clothing; once clothing became fitted,
it was possible to change the styling of garments almost endlessly. By the 15th
and 16th centuries it began to seem shameful to wear outdated clothing. So
those who could afford to do so began discarding unfashionable clothing simply
because it was not in style. Cloth, which was enormously expensive, was
literally, and symbolised, wealth in medieval society.

In modern western societies there is no form of clothing which has not felt the
impact of fashion: fashion sets the terms of all dress behaviour. Even uniforms
have been designed by some of the top fashion houses; even the dress code in
the workplace has shifted from formal, business attire to the more relaxed,
smart casual look; even the less affluent enjoy haute couture - they wear
cheaper versions of the top designs and top labels.

Even the unfashionable wear clothes that represent a reaction against what is
in fashion. To be unfashionable is not to ignore fashion; it is rather to protest
against the social values of the fashionable. Last century the hippies of the
1960s created a unique appearance out of an assortment of secondhand
clothes, craft work and army surplus, as a protest against the wastefulness of
the consumer society. They rejected the way mass production
ignored individuality, and also the wastefulness of luxury.

Looked at in historical perspective, the styles of fashion display a mad

relativism. At one time the rich wear cloth of gold embroidered with pearls, at
another beige cashmere and grey suiting. In one epoch men parade in
elaborately curled hair, high heels and rouge, at another to do so is to court
outcast status and physical abuse. It is in some sense inherently ironic that a
new fashion starts from rejection of the old and often an eager embracing of
what was previously considered ugly. A case in point is the outlandish,
fashion statement made by the non-conforming, rebellious youth of today who
have tattoos, metal studs and body piercings. They defied mainstream fashion
only to see their defiance become the fashion of the day in the broader
community. Moreover, having once defined style in centuries past, these
adornments have now come full circle.

Despite its apparent irrationality, fashion cements social solidarity and imposes
group norms. It forces us to recognise that the human body is not only a
biological entity, but an organism in culture. To dress the way that others do is
to signal that we share many of their morals and values. Conversely, deviations

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in dress are usually considered shocking and disturbing. In western countries a
man wearing a pink suit to a job interview would not be considered for
a position at a bank. He would not be taken seriously. Likewise, even in these
'liberated' times, a man in a skirt in many western cultures causes
considerable anxiety, hostility or laughter.

However, while fashion in every age is normative, there is still room for
clothing to express individual taste. In any period, within the range of stylish
clothing, there is some choice of colour, fabric and style. This was even more
true last century, because in the 20th century, fashion, without losing its
obsession with the new and the different, was mass produced. Originally,
fashion was largely for the rich, but since the industrial period the mass
production of fashionably styled clothes has made possible the use of fashion
as a means of self-enhancement and self-expression for the majority.

Questions 24-26
Answer the questions below.

Choose NO MORE THAN ONE WORDS from the passage for each
answer. Write your answers in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet.

A kind of adornment worn by defiant young people these days besides

body piercings and metal studs

24

What was a symbol of wealth in medieval times?

25

Name ONE group of people who protested against the social values of the
fashionable.

26

Questions 14-19
Complete the table below.

NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the

passage for each answer.
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Write your answers in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.

Period Clothing Behaviour Types of Clothing

earliest times wearing 14 body painting, tattooing, masks

pre- 15 simple, unchanging styles 16

14th century 17 18

15th-16th centuries 19 use of doth

Questions 20-23
Complete each sentence with the appropriate ending, A-J, below.

Write the appropriate letter, A-J, in boxes 20-23 on your answer sheet.

20
The styling of apparel

21
Wearing outdated clothing

22
The impact of fashion

23
Mass production of fashionable clothing

allowed the less affluent to buy

A
styled clothes.

was fell by top designers seeing

B fake, less expensive designer
clothing on the market.

was made possible with the

C development of tailored and fitted
clothing.

gave the individual a means of

D
self-expression.

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 caused anxiety and hostility in
E western cultures.

was made possible with the

F increase in sophistication of the
royal courts.

was seen as something shameful

G
in earlier times.

had little effect on nonconforming

H
youth.

distinguished the rich from the

I
poor in earlier times.

was felt in the workforce with the

J
change to informal wear.

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Reading Passage 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on
Reading Passage Three.

MASS PRODUCTION
Car manufacturer Henry Ford s 1908 Model T automobile was his twentieth
design over a five-year period that began with the production of the original
Model A in 1903. With his Model T, Ford finally achieved two objectives. He had
a car that was designed for manufacture, and one that was easily operated and
maintained by the owner. These two achievements laid the groundwork for the
revolutionary change in direction for the entire motor vehicle industry.

The key to mass production wasn’t the moving, or continuous, assembly line.
Rather, it was the complete and consistent interchangeability of parts and the
simplicity of attaching them to each other. These were the manufacturing
innovations that made the assembly line possible. To achieve
interchangeability, Ford insisted that the same gauging system be used for
every part all the way through the entire manufacturing process. Previously,
each part had been made to a slightly different gauge, so skilled fitters had to
file each part individually to fit onto the other parts of the car. Ford's insistence
on working to gauge throughout was driven by his realisation of the payoff he
would get in the form of savings on assembly costs. Ford also benefited from
recent advances in machine tools able to work on pre-hardened metals. The
warping or distortion that occurred as machined parts were being
hardened had been the bane of previous attempts to standardise parts.
Once the warping problem was solved, Ford was able to develop
innovative designs that reduced the number of parts needed and made these
parts easy to attach. For example, Ford's four-cylinder engine block
consisted of a single, complex casting. Competitors cast each cylinder
separately and bolted the four together. Taken together,
interchangeability, simplicity, and ease of attachment gave Ford tremendous
advantages over his competition.

Ford's first efforts to assemble his cars, beginning in 1903, involved setting up
assembly stands on which a whole car was built, often by one fitter. In 1908,

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on the eve of the introduction of the Model T, a Ford assembler's average task
cycle, that is the amount of time he worked before repeating the same
operations, totalled 514 minutes, or 8.56 hours. Each worker would assemble a
large part of a car before moving on to the next. For example, a worker might
put all the mechanical parts, such as wheels, springs, motor, transmission and
generator, on the chassis (body), a set of activities that took a whole day to
complete. The assembler/fitters performed the same set of activities over
and over at their stationary assembly stands. They had to get the
necessary parts, file them down so they would fit (Ford hadn't yet achieved
perfect interchangeability of parts), then bolt them in place.

The first step Ford took to make this process more efficient was to deliver the
parts to each workstation. Now the assemblers could

remain at the same spot all day. Later in 1908, when Ford finally achieved
perfect part interchangeability, he decided that the assembler would perform
only a single task and move from vehicle to vehicle around the assembly hall.
By August of 1913, just before the moving assembly line was introduced, the
task cycle for the average Ford assembler had been reduced from 514 to 2.3
minutes. Naturally, this reduction spurred a remarkable increase in
productivity, partly because complete familiarity with a single task meant the
worker could perform it faster, but also because all filing and adjusting of parts
had by now been eliminated. Workers simply popped on parts that fitted every
time.

Ford soon recognised the problem with moving the worker from assembly
stand to assembly stand: walking, even if only for a yard or two, took time, and
jam-ups frequently resulted as faster workers overtook the slower workers in
front of them. Ford's stroke of genius in the spring of 1913, at his new Highland
Park plant in Detroit, was the introduction of the moving assembly line, which
brought the car past the stationary worker. This innovation cut cycle time
from 2.3 minutes to 1.19 minutes; the difference lay in the time saved in
the worker's standing still rather than walking and in the faster work
pace which the moving line could enforce. The moving assembly sped
up production so dramatically that the savings Ford could realise from reducing
the inventory of parts waiting to be assembled far exceeded this trivial outlay.

Even more striking, Ford's discovery simultaneously reduced the amount of

human effort needed to assemble an automobile. What’s more, the more
vehicles Ford produced, the more the cost per vehicle fell. Even when it was
introduced in 1908, Ford's Model T, with its fully interchangeable parts, cost
less than its rivals. By the time Ford reached peak production volume of 2
million identical vehicles a year in the early 1920s, he had cut the real cost to
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the consumer by an additional two-thirds.

To appeal to his target market of average consumers, Ford had also designed
unprecedented ease of operation and maintainability into his car. He assumed
that his buyer would be a farmer with a modest tool kit and the kinds of
mechanical skills needed for fixing farm machinery. So the Model T's owner's
manual explained in 64 pages how the owner could use simple tools to solve
any of the 140 problems likely to occur with the car.

Ford's competitors were as amazed by this designed-in repairability as by the

moving assembly line. This combination of competitive advantages catapulted
Ford to the head of the world's motor industry and virtually eliminated craft-
production companies unable to match its manufacturing economies.

Questions 38-40
Choose the appropriate letter, A, B, C or D,

Write the appropriate letter in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.

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38 Which graph best describes the change in task time resulting from
workers performing a single task only?

A Graph A

B Graph B

C Graph C

D Graph D

39 Which graph best describes the cost of building a moving assembly

line in comparison to the money saved?

A Graph A

B Graph B

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 C Graph C

D Graph D

40 Which graph best describes the relationship between the number of

vehicles produced and the cost of the vehicles?

A Graph A

B Graph B

C Graph C

D Graph D

Questions 27-32
Complete the flow chart below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each
answer. Write your answers in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.

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IMPROVING PRODUCTIVITY

• Manufacturing innovations gave Ford a huge advantage over the 27

ASSEMBLING THE CAR

• Assembly stands set up

• 28 Performed repeatedly.

MAKING THE PROCESS MORE EFFICIENT

• Parts delivered to 29

• Fitter remained stationary all day.

ACHIEVING PERFECT 30

• Fittercarried out a single task only.

• Assembler moved around the hall from car to car.

• Reduction in the 31 increased productivity.

INTRODUCING THE MOVING ASSEMBLY LINE

• Vehicle moved from one workstation to the next

• Increase in 32 implemented because of the stationary assembler.

Questions 33-37
According to the passage, classify the following characteristics of mass
production as relating to

A an advantage

B a disadvantage

neither an advantage nor a

C
disadvantage

Write the correct letter, A, B or C, in boxes 33-37 on your answer sheet.

33
shaping each part to fit individually with all other parts

34
having a single, complex casting for the four-cylinder
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engine block

35
designing 20 Ford automobiles within a five-year
period

36
hardening of machined parts for standardisation

37
using identical gauges for each part throughout the
production

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 Solution:

1 C 2 B

3 F 4 D

5 G 6 A

7 E 8 TRUE

9 FALSE 10 NOT GIVEN

11 FALSE 12 TRUE

13 NOT GIVEN 24 tattoos

25 cloth 26 hippies

14 adornments 15 14th century

16 loose robes 17 rapidly changing styles

18 tailored and fitted/tailored, fitted 19 discarding unfashionable clothing

clothing
20 C

21 G 22 J

23 D 38 C

39 A 40 C

27 competition 28 (Set of) activities

29 (each) workstation 30 PART INTERCHANGEABILITY

31 task cycle 32 work pace

33 B 34 A

35 C 36 B
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 37 A

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