IPP IELTS

READING – TEST 149

READING TEST 149

READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading passage on
pages 2 and 3.
The Burgess Shale fossils
Fauna vanished with a whimper, not a bang
Some discoveries are so unusual it takes decades and sometimes even centuries to
understand their full significance. One such discovery is the fossil bed known as the Burgess
Shale, which contains a record of bizarre creatures that lived 505 million years ago. It was
discovered in the Canadian Rockies over a century ago, and was popularized in 1989 in a book,
Wonderful Life, by Stephen Jay Gould, an American paleontologist.
The Burgess Shale fossils were created at a time when the future Canadian land mass was
situated near the Earth’s equator. The creatures were preserved when an entire marine ecosystem
was buried in mud that eventually hardened and became exposed hundreds of millions of years
later in an outcrop of the Rocky Mountains. American paleontologist Charles Walcott, following
reports of fabulous fossil finds by construction workers on a Canadian railway who were digging
in the mountains in the late 19th century, is said to have tripped over a block of shale in 1909
that revealed the area’s remarkable supply of specimens. It has long been believed that the
curious fauna that lived there vanished in a series of extinctions because the fossil record ends
abruptly. But that no longer appears to be the case.
The Burgess Shale began to form soon after a period known as the Cambrian explosion,
when most major groups of complex animals arose over a surprisingly short period. Before 560
million years ago, most living things were either individual cells or simple colonies of cells.
Then, and for reasons that remain a mystery, life massively diversified and became ever more
complex as the rate of evolution increased. An unusual feature of the Burgess Shale is that it is
one of the earliest fossil beds to contain impressions of soft body parts alongside the remains of
bones and shells, which is highly unusual.
Although the fossil bed was discovered on a mountain, these animals originally existed
below an ocean, the bed of which was later pushed up to create the Rockies. Nobody knows
exactly why they were so well preserved. One possibility is that the creatures were buried
quickly and in conditions that were hostile to the bacteria that cause decomposition of soft body
parts.
Those who first worked on the Burgess Shale, unearthing 65,000 specimens over a 14-year
period up to 1924, assumed that the fossils came from extinct members of groups of animals in
existence today. This turned out to be misleading because many of the creatures are so unusual
that they are still difficult to classify.
One such example is Opabinia, a creature that grew to about 8cm (3 inches), had five eyes,
a body that was a series of lobes, a tail in the shape of a fan, and that ate using eye proboscis.

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The proboscis had a set of grasping claws on the end, with which it grabbed food and stuffed it
into its mouth. Nectocaris, meanwhile, could be mistaken for a leech, but with fins and tentacles.
Weirdest of all was Hallucigenia, described by paleontologist Simon Conway Morris, when he
re-examined Walcott’s specimens in 1979. With its multiplicity of spines and tentacles, little
about Hallucigenia made sense, but scientists hypothesized that the spines were legs that helped
it move and the tentacles were for feeding. Like an abstract painting, its orientation is a mystery
at first, making it difficult to work out which way up it went, which hole food went into, and
which hole food came out of.
Paleontologists had long thought that many of the Burgess Shale animals were examples of
experiments in evolution. In other words, entirely new forms of life that did not survive or lead
to other groups or species. Hallucigenia, ironically, turned out to be the exception that proved the
rule. It is now thought to be an ancestor of the modern group of arthropods, which includes
everything from flies and butterflies to centipedes and crabs.
Now another misconception has been quashed. Writing in Nature recently, Peter Van Roy
of Yale University in the United States and his colleagues suggest that the sudden absence of
such crazy soft-bodied fossils does not indicate a mass extinction, but merely an end to the
unusual local circumstances that caused the creatures to be preserved. In an area of the Atlas
Mountains of Morocco, Van Roy's team of researchers has found another diverse (and
sometimes bizarre) assemblage of soft-bodied organisms from a period after the Burgess Shale
was formed. One discovery includes something that may be a stalked barnacle. This suggests that
the evolution of such complex life went on uninterrupted. For its part, the Burgess Shale
continues to produce an astonishing array of indefinable creatures faster than paleontologists can
examine them. The world still has plenty to learn about this wonderful life.

Questions 1 – 5
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 1-5 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

1 The Burgess Shale became widely known to the public because of Gould's book.
2 Charles Walcott had to get permission from Canadian authorities to gain access to the fossil
site.
3 The Burgess Shale includes impressions of soft and hard body parts.
4 The Burgess Shale creatures were land animals.
5 Researchers now believe that Hallucigenia is unrelated to any modern creature.

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Questions 6 – 9
Complete the notes below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each
answer.
Write your answers in boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet.
Burgess Shale
Formation
 Burgess Shale was formed following a time called the 6 ………………
Discovery and Investigation in the twentieth century
 Discovered in 1909
 Charles Walcott learnt of the fossil finds from people building a 7………………
 The first work on burgess shale was undertaken at the start of the century
 A researcher looked at Burgess Shale findings again in 8 ……………….
Recent theories
Peter Van Roy
 Believes that discoveries in Morocco show that the 9……………… of complex life forms
continued

Questions 10 – 13
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.

Burgess Shale Creatures

Name Feature
 Five eyes
Opabinia  Tail resembling a 10 …………….
 Claws used to hold 11 …………….
 Looked like a 12 …………….
Nectocaris  Fins
 Tentacles
 Spines used to 13 …………….
Hallucigenia
 Tentacles

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READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2
on pages 7 and 8.
The collective evolution of tangle-web spiders
A study of spider colonies supports the idea that natural selection can act on
communities as well as on individuals
A As a rule, spiders are antisocial. They hunt alone, defend their webs from other spiders, and
sometimes even eat their mates. But a few species of spiders have learned to cooperate for the
good of the group. For example, tangle-web spiders form groups of 1,000 or more to spin
webs that stretch for hundreds of yards, entrapping flies, small birds, and invertebrates such as
snakes. Smaller groups of a few dozen work together like a pride of lions; some of the spiders
hunt for prey, while others look after the colony’s young.
B The spiders present a puzzle to evolutionary biologists. According to ordinary Darwinian
natural selection, only the fittest individuals pass on their genes. However, if that’s the case,
why do tangle-web spiders act in ways that might conflict with an individual's drive to
compete? A spider that defends the nest might put itself at personal risk, possibly reducing its
chances of producing offspring. And a spider that looks after the young might have to wait to
eat until the hunters have eaten and are satisfied. These are not behaviors that would be
expected to enhance an individual’s fitness.
C Biologists have long argued over the question of how natural selection can promote the
evolution of traits that are good for the group, but not necessarily for the individual. A model
known as ‘kin selection’ illustrates how organisms such as bees can behave in an unselfish
way – for example, many females forgo the possibility of reproduction in order to raise the
young produced by the queen. But despite its unselfish appearance, kin selection is actually
selfish because these female bees will still pass down their genes indirectly, through the
queen, meaning that they are safeguarded for future generations. The question is whether
natural selection can promote truly unselfish traits that are good for the group, but not
necessarily of benefit to individuals or their immediate kin.
D A study of tangle-web spiders by Jonathan Pruitt, a behavioral ecologist at the University of
Pittsburgh, suggests that evolution does indeed work at the level of the group. Female tangle-
web spiders fall into one of two categories: ‘aggressive’ spiders, who spend their time
capturing prey and defending the group, and ‘docile’, peaceful spiders who raise the colony’s
young. The balance of aggressive and docile spiders in each colony appears to be adapted to
its habitat, according to the resources available. How does nature maintain this balance? One
possibility is that it’s the result of evolution at the individual level. However, if the group, not
the individual, is the most important evolutionary unit, then the group as a whole will evolve
characteristics that are suited to the environment, such as a particular ratio of aggressive to
docile spiders. Colonies with the ratio best suited to the environment will be most likely to
survive.

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E To figure out which of these possibilities was correct, Pruitt took spider colonies out of their
original environments in the wild and amended them in the lab, changing the ratio of
aggressive to docile spiders from what it had originally been. He then took the colonies to
new locations in the wild and tell them there for a year. On revisiting the colonies, he found
that even in colonies whose composition appeared to be suitable for the new environment, the
colonies had reverted to the original ratio of aggressive to docile spiders.
F Pruitt claims the experiment provides ample evidence for group selection. Other scientists
support this. ‘No other explanation fits the observed data as well as group selection,’ said
Peter Nonacs, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, who was not involved
in the research. The findings are especially significant because Pruitt watched the spider
colonies revert to their original composition over generations. Michael Wade, an evolutionary
biologist at Indiana University, adds, ‘If the characteristics of groups stay the same from one
generation to the next, it's evidence there is a genetic basis for the trait.’
G Pruitt does not propose a mechanism by which the colonies returned to their original state.
And without such a mechanism, some researchers argue that the results could be due to
ordinary individual selection. ‘I think they over-interpret [the results] as evidence of group-
level adaptation,’ said Andy Gardner, a biologist at the University of St Andrews. ‘Natural
selection may factor in the needs of the group, to some extent ... but group fitness is not the
whole story.’
H A combination of group selection and individual selection could be the key to resolving this
tension. Historically, researchers have thought of the two as being at odds, but ‘sometimes
group selection and individual selection are not necessarily conflicting,’ Nonacs said. In the
case of tangle-web spiders, ‘even though group and individual selection may be going in the
same direction, group level is stronger,’ he added.
I Though the tangle-web spiders present strong evidence for group-level selection in the wild,
researchers are unsure if it’s a common occurrence in nature generally. Nonacs remarks that it
is still uncertain whether natural selection at a group level could extend to birds and
mammals. Others feel that it is more widespread. ‘I don’t think this is rare at all,’ said Jennifer
Fewell, a behavioral ecologist at Arizona State University. Researchers are looking more and
more at characteristics among members of a group, and they often find a mix of aggressive
and less aggressive members, she says. Tangle-web spiders may be rare, but their behavior
could be a model for many other species.

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Questions 14 – 19
Reading Passage 2 has nine paragraphs, A-I
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-I, in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.

14. An example of a spider endangering itself for the sake of the group
15. The different stages in a study of how colonies react to changes in their structure
16. A description of behavioral patterns of spiders in general
17. A reference to a possible weakness in Pruitt’s research
18. Examples of the types of food eaten by tangle-web spiders
19. Agreement among scientists that group selection exists

Questions 20 – 22
Complete the summary below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 20-22 on your answer sheet.

Kin selection
In considering group-level selection of tangle-web spiders, the writer describes a model
called ‘kin selection’. This explains why some species, for example 20 …………. behave in a
way that does not seem to be in their individual best interests. For example, certain members of
the species may give up the chance of reproduction so that they are able to look after the
offspring of the 21………… However, there is a selfish motivation for this behavior. The close
relationship between the members of the group means that the 22 ………… of these individuals
are safeguarded.

Questions 23 – 26
Look at the following statements (Questions 23-26) and the list of researchers below.
Match each statement with the correct researcher, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter, A, B, C or D, in boxes 23-26 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
23. Group selection provides an incomplete explanation for why spider
colonies used in the experiment returned to their initial composition List of Researchers
24. While group and individual selection both affect tangle-web spiders, A Peter Nonacs
group selection is more powerful. B Michael Wade
25. Combinations of different personality types in a group could mean that C Andy Gardner
group selection is present in other animals besides spiders. D Jennifer Fewell
26. The extent to which larger animals are affected by group selection is unknown.

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READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3
on pages 11 and 12
Government by Experiment?
Governments are borrowing ideas about innovation from the private sector
Incubators, accelerators, garages, laboratories: the best big companies have had them for
years. Whatever they may be called, some workers are chosen at random, freed from their usual
routine jobs and encouraged to invent the future. Now such innovation units are becoming the
next big thing in the public sector too: in Boston, the Office of New Mechanics; in Denmark,
MindLab; and in Singapore, PS21.
These government laboratories provide a bridge between the public and private sectors.
Sometimes governments simply copy what private firms are doing. MindLab is based on the
Future Centre, the innovation unit of Skandia, a large insurance firm. Sometimes they get money
from private sources: the New Orleans innovation team in the USA is partly funded by Michael
Bloomberg the former mayor of New York City. Whatever the connection, these units plug the
public sector into a new world. They are full of people talking about ‘disruption’ and ‘iteration’,
vocabulary most definitely associated with the corporate world.
The innovation units also provide a connection with academia. Britain’s Behavioral
Insights Team, originally based in the Cabinet Office, was the world’s first government outfit
dedicated to applying the insights of behavioral economics to public policy (it was known as the
‘nudge unit’, after the book Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein). David Halpern, the
group’s head, says that its mission was to point out the ‘small details’ of policy that can have big
consequences. It persuaded, for instance, NM Revenue and Customs, Britain’s tax collection
agency, to tweak the wording of a routine letter to say that most people in the recipient’s area
had already paid their taxes. As a result, payment rates increased by five percentage points.
A new report by Nesta, a British charity devoted to promoting innovation, and Bloomberg
Philanthropies, a charity founded by Michael Bloomberg, shows how popular these government
innovation labs have become. They can be found in a striking variety of places, from developing
countries such as Malaysia to more established economies like Finland. and in the offices of
mayors as well as the halls of central government.
Whatever their location, the study suggests they go about things in similar ways, with a lot
of emphasis on harnessing technology. The most popular idea is co-creation – getting one’s
customers, staff or citizens to help invent and improve products and services – which has proved
particularly effective. Boston’s Office of New Urban Mechanics has produced a series of apps
which provide citizens with a convenient way of reporting graffiti and pot holes. The staff
suggestion scheme introduced by PS21 in Singapore has produced striking results: one air force
engineer came up with the idea of scanning aircraft for leaks with ultraviolet light, just as
opticians scan the cornea for scratches.

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Co-creation frequently goes hand in hand with open innovation and the sharing or peer-to-
peer economy. This is where owners rent out something they are not using such as a car, house
or bicycle to a stranger. It allows people to access things that they might not otherwise be able to
afford. Nesta and iZone in New York City both offer prizes to encourage people from outside
government to come up with ideas. Both Sitra, in Finland, and the Centre for Public Service
Innovation, in South Africa, invest in companies, particularly in health care. The Innovation
Bureau in Seoul is extending the concept of collectively using expensive resources: ‘generation
sharing’ matches elderly people who have a spare room with students who need a place to stay
and are willing to help out with housework.
The most striking thing about these institutions, however, is their willingness to
experiment. Policymakers usually alternate between hostility to new ideas and determination to
implement a new policy without bothering to try it out first. Innovation centers tend to be more
daring and happy to test things. Sitra, for instance, is experimenting with health kiosks in
shopping centers which are staffed by nurses, provide routine care and stay open late and on
weekends. The Centre for Social Innovation in Colombia has developed computer games
designed to teach pre-teenagers to make sensible choices about everything from nutrition to gang
membership. Sitra also tracks the progress of each project it funds against its stated goals.
It is easy to dismiss these public-sector innovators as jargon-spouting irrelevancies. With
America’s federal government spending almost $4 trillion a year, it may not be obvious what
difference a few reformers in mayors’ offices in Boston or New York can make. Bureaucracies
are designed to kill innovation in the name of predictability, and political variations can reverse
sensible changes. For example, many of the reforms that New York’s mayor Mr. Bloomberg
implemented were undone by his successor. Politicians can also sometimes treat the mere
existence of innovation centers as justification for carrying on with established practices in many
areas of government. What is more, such centers spend a lot of time making minor
improvements in situations where major policy reviews are required. It is admirable that France’s
Experimental Fund for Youth provides young people with driving licenses at reduced cost. It
would be better if the government changed the rules that make getting a license in France such a
lengthy and expensive nightmare.
Still, something is surely better than nothing, and the various innovation centers have a
growing number of successes to their name from suggesting some sensible policies. Reforming
government is hard and often boring work, but the innovation labs are making it faster and a lot
more interesting. They have begun to change the institutional landscape.

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Questions 27 – 31
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet

27 What point does the writer make about innovation units in the first paragraph?
A They were first found in private enterprise.
B They only operate publicly at the level of national government
C They are staffed by workers requesting a change from routine tasks
D They have been given names consistent with experimental approaches.

28 According to the writer, government innovation laboratories

A represent a new way of using money collected from taxpayers
B introduce the public sector to different ways of thinking.
C invariably come up with new models of operation.
D are funded by retired politicians and administrators

29 What was the result of advice given by Britain’s Behavioral Insights Team?
A Government was encouraged to learn about behavioral economics
B The book Nudge became recommended reading for bureaucrats
C The rate at which people paid their taxes improved
D Changes were made to taxation policy

30 What is the basic concept behind co-creation?

A Team members are shown how to cooperate
B All ideas submitted to the lab are fully considered
C Ideas come from people connected in some way with the organization.
D Technological solutions are provided for institutional problems

31 The program undertaken by the Innovation Bureau in Seoul is an example of

A co-creation.
B the sharing economy.
C health care innovation
D rewarding innovation with prizes

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Questions 32 – 36
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-F, below.
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 32-36 on your answer sheet.

32. The ‘nudge unit’ was the first government organization to

33. Nesta and Bloomberg Philanthropies' report indicates that innovation centers tend to
34. Co-creation has been used in Boston to
35. Sitra pioneered an initiative to
36. Using sensible suggestions which have been successfully adopted, innovation units

A demonstrate that government transformation need not move at a slow pace

B trial the delivery of medical services in a new way
C use a particular type of economic theory to improve government policy
D involve the younger generation in political discussion
E enable people to notify officials when something requires attention
F encourage innovation through the use of technology

Questions 37 – 40
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet, write
YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

37. The results achieved by small-scale reformers in Boston or New York may be difficult to
see.
38. Worthy achievements will always last a long time in spite of changing political priorities.
39. Politicians can justify spending on innovation labs if they result in profit.
40. The way in which government reform occurs remains unchanged.

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READING PASSAGE 1 – UNDERSTANDING KEY VOCABULARY

Match the words in words (1-9) with their correct definitions in (a-j).
Words Definitions
1. bizarre (adj.) a) Very difficult and unpleasant to live in
2. trip over (phrasal v.) b) Continuous
c) To suggest a way of explaining something when you do not
3. vanish (v.)
definitely know about it
4. remains (n.) d) Disappear
5. hostile (adj.) e) Strange/ unusual/ weird
6. decomposition (n.) f) Very surprising; difficult to believe
g) The process of being destroyed gradually by natural
7. hypothesize (v.)
chemical processes
8. uninterrupted (adj.) h) To catch your foot on something and fall or almost fall
i) The parts of something that are left after the other parts have
9. astonishing (adj.)
been destroyed

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READING PASSAGE 2 – UNDERSTANDING KEY VOCABULARY

Read the sentences (a-g), then match the words in bold with their correct definitions (1-7).
a. The deeper meaning of the poem remains a puzzle (n.). No one could fully understand what
the poet actually meant through his words.
b. The police have finally collected ample (adj.) evidences of the fraud. There is no way he
could get away with it.
c. It is believed that patience is one of the most important personality traits (n.) of teachers.
d. Both parties agreed to amend (v.) several terms of the contracts just a few weeks after the
previous agreement.
e. Marriage between close kin (n.) is prohibited due to both scientific and morale reasons.
f. I am currently having a healthy die and feeling much better now. For sure I will never revert
to (phr. v.) my old unhealthy eating habit.
g. Some animals in the wild develop really impressive defense mechanisms (n.) that keep them
safe from predators.
…
1. ………………….: a particular quality
2. ………………….: a way of doing something that is planned or part of a system
3. ………………….: other family members or relatives
4. ………………….: something that is difficult to understand or explain
5. ………………….: to return to a former state
6. ………………….: to make something more suitable for a particular situation
7. ………………….: enough or more than enough

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READING PASSAGE 3 – UNDERSTANDING KEY VOCABULARY

Read the definitions of the given words/ phrases (a-h), then fill in the blanks (1-8).
a. Plug in/ into (phr. v.): to make a link with something
b. Tweak (v.): to make slight changes to a machine, system, etc. to improve it
c. Alternate between A and B (v.): to keep changing from one thing to another and back again
d. Hostility (n.): an occasion when someone is unfriendly or shows that they do not like s.t
e. Jargon (n): words or expressions that are used by a particular profession or group of people,
and are difficult for others to understand
f. Bureaucracy (n.): the system of official rules and ways of doing things that a government or
an organization has
g. Successor (n.): someone or something that comes after another person
h. Justification (n.): a good reason or explanation for something
…
1. They decided to _________ the wording of the letter to create a stronger effect on the readers.
2. Her mood _________ between happiness and despair, which is so unpredictable.
3. The university is seeking a _________ to its vice chancellor, who retires this spring.
4. In some countries, it is a nightmare to deal with the _________. It is always complicated and
exhausting.
5. There is no _________ for treating people so badly.
6. Try to avoid using too much technical _________ in your presentation as most of the
audience are just entrepreneurs.
7. There is no doubt your competency in English will _________ many promising job
opportunities.
8. We just moved in last week and our neighbors showed obvious _________ to us, so we feel
really uncomfortable now.

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