INTERMEDIATE

COURSE
READING
LESSON 1
Focus: Các cách liên kết thông tin trong
bài đọc & Kỹ thuật Skimming

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Tổng quan
Trong bài học ngày, người học sẽ tìm hiểu về tổng quan bài thi IELTS. Đồng thời, người học
sẽ nắm được các cách liên kết thông tin trong bài đọc, kỹ thuật Skimming, để từ đó áp dụng
vào dạng bài Matching headings (Nối tiêu đề).

Tổng quan bài thi IELTS Reading

Thí sinh sẽ phải trả lời 40 câu hỏi tương ứng với thông tin ở 3 bài đọc trong vòng 60 phút.
Các dạng câu hỏi:
• Multiple choice
• True/ False/ Not Given and Yes/ No/ Not Given
• Matching tasks
• Completion tasks
• Short-answer questions

KỸ THUẬT SKIMMING
Kỹ thuật skimming bao gồm nhóm từ và đọc nhanh. Thuần thục kỹ thuật skimming sẽ giúp
người đọc vừa tăng tốc độ đọc và vừa tăng lượng thông tin tiếp thu.
1. Nhóm cụm từ khi đọc
- Kỹ năng skimming không chỉ dùng cho việc xác định ý chính của cả đoạn văn, hoặc cả bài
văn, mà còn giúp người đọc hiểu ý chính của từng đơn vị câu một cách nhanh chóng. Để làm
được việc đó, người đọc sẽ di chuyển mắt theo cụm khoảng 3-4 từ, thay vì dừng mắt để đọc
từng từ.
Ví dụ: Bấm thời gian để đo thời gian đọc và hiểu của câu dưới đây

Scientists studying climate change have found that the effect of global warming is not
only a higher planetary temperature, but also a universal change in seasons, specifically
earlier springs and later autumns. (32 từ)

Sau khi xác định được các thành phần chính của câu, hãy đưa mắt đọc nhanh theo từng
thành phần đó để nắm ý chính thay vì đọc từng chữ trong câu.

2. Kỹ thuật skimming đoạn văn:

Mỗi đoạn văn thường có một ý chính được thể hiện qua câu chủ đề (topic sentence) của
đoạn.
Mỗi đoạn văn cần có:
• Câu chủ đề (topic sentence): nêu lên nội dung chính của đoạn.
• Câu chủ đề phụ (sub-topic sentence): đưa ý nhỏ hơn nội dung chính.
• Câu phát triển (supporting sentence): bổ sung ý nghĩa cho câu chủ đề hay câu
chủ đề phụ.

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Ví dụ: Gạch chân câu chủ đề của các đoạn văn sau:
Đoạn 1

Remote working can be beneficial for both employees and companies. From an
individual’s perspective, working from home means that people will no longer have to
spend hours commuting to work and back every day, which means they will have more
time to spend with their family and still be able to fulfill their duties at work. From a
business level, allowing staff members to work remotely can help companies cut down
on the expense for office rental as there is no need to rent a big office for employees to
work together. This money, therefore, can be better spent on other useful purposes such
as developing new products.

Kết hợp với các kĩ thuật xác định từ khóa, và đọc theo nhóm từ để nhanh chóng tìm ra câu
chủ đề mang ý nghĩa chính của đoạn.

Đoạn 2

Both parents and schools can contribute to preventing obesity in children. However,
the government should be accountable for unhealthy diets amongst children due to the
correlation between the marketing of food and drinks and this problem. To illustrate,
children’s food choices are usually affected by advertising, and they tend to buy more
junk food when they are constantly exposed to images of unhealthy foods on TV. If the
government implements a policy banning companies from advertising unhealthy food
during children’s TV programs, children’s exposure to junk food will be reduced, leading
to a positive change in their eating habits.

Lưu ý:
Câu đầu tiên của đoạn đôi khi được dùng để chuyển ý trong bài đọc, dẫn tới câu chủ đề của
đoạn bằng các dấu hiệu như: However, But, In contrast, … Phần còn lại của đoạn văn giải
thích và phát triển thêm ý cho câu chủ đề nằm ở vị trí thứ 2.

Đoạn 3

Nowadays, social media is regarded as one of the most powerful facilitators in

communication. There are various websites such as Facebook or Twitter that offer
much faster and convenient services for people to stay in touch with their friends and
family regardless of the geographical distance between them. These sites create an
online network that connects everyone within their users’ social circle and enables them
to send instant messages or to make video calls in a matter of seconds. In other words,
social media platforms are, in fact, bringing people closer than ever before.

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Lưu ý:
Đôi khi câu chủ đề nằm ở cuối đoạn văn như một câu kết luận với những dấu hiệu nhận biết
như: Overall, In general, In short, …

Đoạn 4:

The key solution to increase attendance rates at museums would be to promote the
appeal and worth of museums by means such as featuring historical figures on various
media outlets more frequently. An additional method would be to incorporate more
influences and events into exhibitions. Organizers can be selective and arrange their
displays to prevent the experience of visiting a historical site becoming mundane.

=> Cả ba câu trong đoạn văn đều đưa ra những phương pháp để thu hút thêm người địa
phương đến bảo tàng. Vì vậy, dù câu này không có câu chủ đề, nhưng người đọc cũng dễ
dàng tìm được ý chung nhờ các từ khóa lặp lại nhau trong đoạn văn.

Bài tập 1:

A. The panda, with its distinctive black and white coat, is adored by the world and considered
a national treasure in China. This bear also has a special significance for WWF because it
has been our logo since our founding in 1961.
B. Pandas live mainly in temperate forests high in the mountains of southwest China, where
they subsist almost entirely on bamboo. They must eat around 26 to 84 pounds of it every
day, depending on what part of the bamboo they are eating. They use their enlarged wrist
bones that function as opposable thumbs.
C. A newborn panda is about the size of a stick of butter—about 1/900th the size of its
mother—but females can grow up to about 200 pounds, while males can grow up to about
300 pounds as adults. These bears are excellent tree climbers despite their bulk.
D. The biological diversity of the panda’s habitat is unparalleled in the temperate world
and rivals that of tropical ecosystems, making the giant panda an excellent example of an
umbrella species conferring protection on many other species where pandas live. In other
words, when we protect pandas, we invariably protect other animals that live around them,
such as multicolored pheasants, the golden monkey, takin, and crested ibis. Pandas also
bring sustainable economic benefits to many local communities through ecotourism.
E. China’s Yangtze Basin region holds the panda’s primary habitat. Infrastructure development
(such as dams, roads, and railways) is increasingly fragmenting and isolating panda
populations, preventing pandas from finding new bamboo forests and potential mates.
Forest loss also reduces pandas’ access to the bamboo they need to survive. The Chinese
government has established more than 50 panda reserves, but only around 67% of the total
wild panda population lives in reserves, with 54% of the total habitat area being protected.

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Skim từng đoạn văn của bài đọc trên và trả lời các câu hỏi sau:
1. What is the suitable heading for paragraph A?
A. The importance of pandas to WWF
B. The importance of pandas to the world
C. The appearance of pandas
2. What is the suitable heading for paragraph B?
A. Habitat and eating habits of pandas
B. Pandas’ special limbs
C. The food of pandas
3. What is the suitable heading for paragraph C?
A. Pandas bring about many economic benefits
B. Pandas play a crucial role in forests
C. Pandas’ territory
4. What is the suitable heading for paragraph D?
A. The habitat of pandas in China
B. Threats to pandas’ habitat
C. Pandas’ reserves in China

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READING PASSAGE 2 (Cambridge 15, Test 3, p. 63 & 64)

Questions 14—20
Reading Passage 2 has seven sections, A—G.
Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i—x, in boxes 14—20 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings

i. Getting the finance for production

ii. An unexpected benefit
iii. From initial inspiration to new product
iv. The range of potential customers for the device
v. What makes the device different from alternatives
vi. Cleaning water from a range of sources
vii. Overcoming production difficulties
viii. Profit not the primary goal
ix. A warm welcome for the device
x. The number of people affected by water shortages

14. Section A
15. Section B
16. Section C
17. Section D
18. Section E
19. Section F
20. Section G
 
The Desolenator: producing clean water

A. Travelling around Thailand in the 1990s, William Janssen was impressed with the
basic rooftop solar heating systems that were on many homes, where energy from the sun
was absorbed by a plate and then used to heat water for domestic use. Two decades later
Janssen developed that basic idea he saw in Southeast Asia into a portable device that uses
the power from the sun to purify water.

B. The Desolenator operates as a mobile desalination unit that can take water from
different places, such as the sea, rivers, boreholes and rain, and purify it for human
consumption. It is particularly valuable in regions where natural groundwater reserves have
been polluted, or where seawater is the only water source available.
Janssen saw that there was a need for a sustainable way to clean water in both the developing

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and the developed countries when he moved to the United Arab Emirates and saw large-
scale water processing. 'I was confronted with the enormous carbon footprint that the Gulf
nations have because of all of the desalination that they do,' he says.

C. The Desolenator can produce 15 litres of drinking water per day, enough to sustain
a family for cooking and drinking. Its main selling point is that unlike standard desalination
techniques, it doesn't require a generated power supply: just sunlight. It measures 120 cm
by 90 cm, and is easy to transport, thanks to its two wheels. Water enters through a pipe,
and flows as a thin film between a sheet of double glazing and the surface of a solar panel,
where it is heated by the sun. The warm water flows into a small boiler (heated by a solar-
powered battery) where it is converted to steam. When the steam cools, it becomes distilled
water. The device has a very simple filter to trap particles, and this can easily be shaken
to remove them. There are two tubes for liquid coming out: one for the waste — salt from
seawater, fluoride, etc. — and another for the distilled water. The performance of the unit is
shown on an LCD screen and transmitted to the company which provides servicing when
necessary.

D. A recent analysis found that at least two-thirds of the world's population lives with
severe water scarcity for at least a month every year. Janssen says that by 2030 half of the
world's population will be living with water stress — where the demand exceeds the supply
over a certain period of time. 'It is really important that a sustainable solution is brought to
the market that is able to help these people,' he says. Many countries 'don't have the money
for desalination plants, which are very expensive to build. They don't have the money to
operate them, they are very maintenance intensive, and they don't have the money to buy the
diesel to run the desalination plants, so it is a really bad situation.'

E. The device is aimed at a wide variety of users — from homeowners in the developing
world who do not have a constant supply of water to people living off the grid in rural parts
of the US. The first commercial versions of the Desolenator are expected to be in operation
in India early next year, after field tests are carried out. The market for the self-sufficient
devices in developing countries is twofold — those who cannot afford the money for the
device outright and pay through microfinance, and middle- income homes that can lease
their own equipment. 'People in India don't pay for a fridge outright; they pay for it over six
months. They would put the Desolenator on their roof and hook it up to their municipal
supply and they would get very reliable drinking water on a daily basis,' Janssen says. In the
developed world, it is aimed at niche markets where tap water is unavailable — for camping,
on boats, or for the military, for instance.

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F. Prices will vary according to where it is bought. In the developing world, the price will
depend on what deal aid organisations can negotiate. In developed countries, it is likely to
come in at $1,000 (€685) a unit, said Janssen. 'We are a venture with a social mission. We
are aware that the product we have envisioned is mainly finding application in the developing
world and humanitarian sector and that this is the way we will proceed. We do realise, though,
that to be a viable company there is a bottom line to keep in mind,' he says.

G. The company itself is based at Imperial College London, although Janssen, its chief
executive, still lives in the UAE. It has raised E340,000 in funding so far. Within two years, he
says, the company aims to be selling 1,000 units a month, mainly in the humanitarian field.
They are expected to be sold in areas such as Australia, northern Chile, Peru, Texas and
California.

Questions 21—26
Complete the summary below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 21—26 on your answer sheet.

How the Desolenator works

The energy required to operate the Desolenator comes from sunlight. The device can be used
in different locations, as it has 21……………………. Water is fed into a pipe, and a 22…………………….
of water flows over a solar panel. The water then enters a boiler, where it turns into steam.
Any particles in the water are caught in a 23……………………. The purified water comes out
through one tube, and all types of 24……………………. come out through another. A screen
displays the 25……………………. of the device, and transmits the information to the company so
that they know when the Desolenator requires 26…………………….

 
READING PASSAGE 3 (Cambridge 14, Test 2, p. 47 & 48)

Questions 27-34
Reading Passage 3 has eight sections, A-H.
Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 27-34 on your answer sheet.

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List of Headings

i. Complaints about the impact of a certain approach

ii. Fundamental beliefs that are in fact incorrect
iii. Early recommendations concerning business activities
iv. Organisations that put a new approach into practice
v. Companies that have suffered from changing their approach
vi. What people are increasingly expected to do
vii. How to achieve outcomes that are currently impossible
viii. Neither approach guarantees continuous improvement
ix. Evidence that a certain approach can have more disadvantages than advantages

27. Section A
28. Section B
29. Section C
30. Section D
31. Section E
32. Section F
33. Section G
34. Section H

 
Why companies should welcome disorder

A Organisation is big business. Whether it is of our lives - all those inboxes and calendars
- or how companies are structured, a multi-billion dollar industry helps to meet this need.
We have more strategies for time management, project management and self-organisation
than at any other time in human history. We are told that we ought to organise our company,
our home life, our week, our day and even our sleep, all as a means to becoming more
productive. Every week, countless seminars and workshops take place around the world to
tell a paying public that they ought to structure their lives in order to achieve this.
This rhetoric has also crept into the thinking of business leaders and entrepreneurs, much
to the delight of self-proclaimed perfectionists with the need to get everything right. The
number of business schools and graduates has massively increased over the past 50 years,
essentially teaching people how to organise well.

B Ironically, however, the number of businesses that fail has also steadily increased.
Work-related stress has increased. A large proportion of workers from all demographics
claim to be dissatisfied with the way their work is structured and the way they are managed.
This begs the question: what has gone wrong? Why is it that on paper the drive for

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organisation seems a sure shot for increasing productivity, but in reality falls well short of
what is expected?

C This has been a problem for a while now. Frederick Taylor was one of the forefathers
of scientific management. Writing in the first half of the 20th century, he designed a number
of principles to improve the efficiency of the work process, which have since become
widespread in modern companies. So the approach has been around for a while.

D New research suggests that this obsession with efficiency is misguided. The problem
is not necessarily the management theories or strategies we use to organise our work; it’s the
basic assumptions we hold in approaching how we work. Here it’s the assumption that order
is a necessary condition for productivity. This assumption has also fostered the idea that
disorder must be detrimental to organisational productivity. The result is that businesses
and people spend time and money organising themselves for the sake of organising, rather
than actually looking at the end goal and usefulness of such an effort.

E What’s more, recent studies show that order actually has diminishing returns. Order
does increase productivity to a certain extent, but eventually the usefulness of the process
of organisation, and the benefit it yields, reduce until the point where any further increase in
order reduces productivity. Some argue that in a business, if the cost of formally structuring
something outweighs the benefit of doing it, then that thing ought not to be formally
structured. Instead, the resources involved can be better used elsewhere.

F In fact, research shows that, when innovating, the best approach is to create an
environment devoid of structure and hierarchy and enable everyone involved to engage as
one organic group. These environments can lead to new solutions that, under conventionally
structured environments (filled with bottlenecks in terms of information flow, power
structures, rules, and routines) would never be reached.

G In recent times companies have slowly started to embrace this disorganisation. Many
of them embrace it in terms of perception (embracing the idea of disorder, as opposed to
fearing it) and in terms of process (putting mechanisms in place to reduce structure).
For example, Oticon, a large Danish manufacturer of hearing aids, used what it called a
‘spaghetti’ structure in order to reduce the organisation’s rigid hierarchies. This involved
scrapping formal job titles and giving staff huge amounts of ownership over their own time
and projects. This approach proved to be highly successful initially, with clear improvements
in worker productivity in all facets of the business.
In similar fashion, the former chairman of General Electric embraced disorganisation, putting
forward the idea of the ‘boundaryless’ organisation. Again, it involves breaking down the
barriers between different parts of a company and encouraging virtual collaboration and

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flexible working. Google and a number of other tech companies have embraced (at least in
part) these kinds of flexible structures, facilitated by technology and strong company values
which glue people together.

H A word of warning to others thinking of jumping on this bandwagon: the evidence

so far suggests disorder, much like order, also seems to have diminishing utility, and can
also have detrimental effects on performance if overused. Like order, disorder should be
embraced only so far as it is useful. But we should not fear it - nor venerate one over the
other.
This research also shows that we should continually question whether or not our existing
assumptions work.

Questions 35-37
Complete the sentences below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 35-37 on your answer sheet.
35. Numerous training sessions are aimed at people who feel they are not …………
enough.
36. Being organised appeals to people who regard themselves as
37. Many people feel ………………..with aspects of their work.

Questions 38-40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 38-40 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
38. Both businesses and people aim at order without really considering its value.
39. Innovation is most successful if the people involved have distinct roles.
40. Google was inspired to adopt flexibility by the success of General Electric.

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INTERMEDIATE
COURSE
READING
LESSON 2
Nội dung: Kỹ thuật xác định từ khóa

Tổng quan

Ở bài trước, người học đã nắm được cách lựa chọn cách liên kết thông tin trong bài đọc, từ
đó áp dụng vào dạng bài Matching headings (Nối tiêu đề)

Trong bài học này, người học sẽ tìm hiểu về kỹ thuật xác định từ khóa, từ đó áp dụng vào
dạng bài Completion (Điền từ) và Trắc nghiệm (Multiple choice)

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Kỹ thuật xác định từ khóa (Keywords)

Dưới áp lực xử lý thông tin để trả lời 40 câu hỏi của 3 bài đọc IELTS (khoảng 2400-2700 từ)
trong thời gian 60 phút, tốc độ của việc xác định vị trí các thông tin trong bài đọc sẽ quyết
định tốc độ làm bài của người đọc. Một kỹ thuật để tăng tốc xác định thông tin trong bài đọc
là thông qua việc xác định từ khóa liên quan đến thông tin đó, từ đó người đọc có thể định vị
được vị trí thông tin cần sử dụng để trả lời câu hỏi nhanh hơn.

1. Từ khoá là gì?
Từ khóa là những từ mang nội dung chính của câu.
Ví dụ: Dựa vào những từ dưới đây, đoán câu đầy đủ:
Sir Alexander Fleming/ talented/ scientist/ 20th century

Câu đầy đủ: .................................................................................................................................

Tuy nhiên, không phải tất cả các từ khóa trong câu đều có vai trò như nhau trong việc giúp
người đọc đẩy nhanh tốc độ tìm thông tin cần thiết trong bài đọc.
Từ khóa được chia làm 3 loại, được phân loại theo mức độ hữu dụng trong việc tìm thông tin
cần thiết trong bài đọc.

2. Phân loại từ khóa theo vai trò trong việc tìm kiếm thông tin
Khi đọc và phân tích câu hỏi, người đọc cần phải xác định và phân loại từ khóa theo mức độ
hữu dụng trong việc tìm kiếm thông tin trong bài đọc.
Từ khóa được chia thành ba loại:
• Từ khóa khó thay thế: bao gồm các tên riêng, con số nổi bật, hầu như không bao giờ
bị thay thế trong bài đọc → Ưu tiên sử dụng loại từ khóa này để tìm kiếm thông tin.
• Từ khóa dễ thay thế: bao gồm các danh từ và có thể bị thay thế bằng cách diễn đạt
khác trong bài đọc → Sử dụng loại từ khóa này để tìm kiếm thông tin khi đề bài
không chứa Từ khóa khó thay thế.
• Từ khóa chìm: bao gồm các động từ, tính từ, hoặc chủ đề của bài đọc. Động từ và tính
từ trong hầu hết các trường hợp sẽ bị thay thế bằng từ đồng nghĩa hoặc cách diễn đạt
khác trong bài đọc. Chủ đề của bài đọc sẽ được lặp lại nhiều lần nên không có nhiều
giá trị trong việc xác định thông tin cần thiết è Sử dụng loại từ khóa này để hiểu nội
dung chính của đề bài. Chỉ dùng để tìm kiếm thông tin khi đề bài không chứa 2 loại
từ khóa trên, hoặc khi không xác định được cách diễn đạt thay thế cho 2 loại từ khóa
trên trong bài đọc.

Thứ tự ưu tiên sử dụng từ khóa để xác định thông tin cần thiết: Từ khóa khó thay thế → Từ
khóa dễ thay thế → Từ khóa chìm.
Trong trường hợp đề bài không chứa Từ khóa khó thay thế, người đọc cần sử dụng 2 loại từ
khóa còn lại để xác định thông tin cần thiết trong bài đọc.

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Ví dụ:
Dựa vào nguyên tắc trên, tìm và gạch chân những từ khóa trong các câu dưới đây
1. The ceremony of Lupercalia was held in the second month of the year.
2. The ancient Roman originally celebrated Lupercalia by offering some animals.
3. During the ancient festival, the skins of newly killed goats were thought to bring
pregnant women healthy babies.
4. The celebration of St. Valentine was quieter than the ceremony for Lupercalia.

Đối chiếu nghĩa tương ứng của các câu trên và nối với câu nào trong đoạn trích sau:

Many scholars have deconstructed Valentine and his day in books, articles and blog
postings (a). Some suggest that the modern holiday is a Christian cover-up of the more
ancient Roman celebration of Lupercalia in mid-February (b). Lupercalia originated
as a ceremony in a rural area involving the sacrifice of goats and dogs and evolved
later into an urban festival (c). During the festivities half-naked young men ran through
the streets of Rome, streaking people with thongs cut from the skins of newly killed
goats (d). Pregnant women thought it brought them healthy babies (e). In 496 A.D.,
however, Pope Gelasius supposedly denounced the disorderly festival (f). Still, there is
no evidence that the pope purposely replaced Lupercalia with the calmer ceremony for
the sacrificed St. Valentine or any other Christian celebration (g).

 
Completion Tasks: Table, Note, Flow-chart and Diagram
Tất cả các loại dạng bài này đều yêu cầu người dự thi phải hiểu cấu trúc tổ chức của một
phần của văn bản. Các yêu cầu cho cả bốn loại nhiệm vụ là tương tự nhau.
• Note thường thể hiện một văn bản theo thứ tự thời gian (theo thứ tự mà một loạt các
sự kiện đã xảy ra) hoặc theo chủ đề (liên quan đến hoặc dựa trên các chủ đề hoặc
một chủ đề).
• Table biểu thị một văn bản so sánh các mục khác nhau.
• Flow-chart đại diện cho một văn bản phác thảo một quá trình hoặc một loạt các
sự kiện.
• Diagram đại diện cho một văn bản mô tả cách một cái gì đó hoạt động.

3
Luyện tập 1

Doing more exercise won't help you burn more calories

A. A simple calculation lies at the heart of a lot of mainstream weight loss advice. If calories
out exceed calories in, you will lose weight. It is why both exercise and diet are said to be
key to staying trim, and why many of us feel we can make amends for overindulging by
joining the gym or dusting off our running shoes. It now turns out something weirder is
going on. Working out a lot doesn’t appear to burn more calories than doing a little. In fact,
going mad in the gym doesn’t seem to burn any more calories than moderate activity a few
days a week and taking the stairs, for instance.

B. Some of the biggest clues that something was up with the exercise and weight loss
equation lie far from the gym, on the plains of Tanzania. Here, the Hadza people live as
we all once did, as hunter-gatherers. The men walk about 10 kilometres each day, stalking
game with bows and arrows, while women spend hours on the move, digging for wild tubers
and picking berries. A few years ago, Herman Pontzer, an evolutionary anthropologist at
Hunter College in New York, and his colleagues headed to Tanzania to study the Hadza and
their metabolism. Pontzer wasn’t expecting to reveal any big mysteries around exercise. “It
started off that we wanted to just ask a basic question: ‘How many calories do you need
to burn to live as a hunter-gatherer?'” he says. To the team’s amazement, the Hadza got
through only slightly more than Westerners who drive to a job to sit all day, with the men
using up about 2600 calories and the women 1900. “I couldn’t believe it,” says Pontzer.

C. The findings caused a stir. They called into question the widely accepted idea that
sedentary lifestyles in many societies are responsible for the obesity epidemic. Instead,
Pontzer and his team began to wonder whether our daily energy expenditure could have
evolved to be fixed at these levels, regardless of whether we sit at a desk all day or search
the plains looking for our next meal.
To back up the idea, what’s needed is to study other ways of living too, including populations
with Western lifestyles. That’s where Lara Dugas of Loyola University Chicago comes into the
story. Her team kitted out nearly 2000 people from the US, Ghana, Jamaica, South Africa and
the Seychelles with activity monitors for eight days to gauge their basic pattern of physical
activity. She then tracked their weight over several years. The upshot? Activity levels didn’t
predict weight two years later. In fact, those who met the US guideline of 150 minutes of
moderate-intensity exercise per week, according to the monitor data, tended to have put on
more weight than those that did less. A paradox indeed.

D. In 2016, Pontzer and Dugas joined forces. They looked in more detail at over 300 of the
people in Dugas’s original study. It turned out that those who were moderately active used

4
up about 200 more calories per day than sedentary people, but after that, calorie burning
plateaued. Those who exercised every day didn’t burn any more than those who worked
out a few times a week. “Only at the very, very low end did we see anything like a trend of
lower activity being paired with lower energy expenditure,” says Pontzer.

E. This view tallies with calculations of how much people exercise when viewed over longer
time spans, says Glenn Gaesser at Arizona State University. “If you add up the amount of
calories individuals would expend doing 150 minutes of exercise a week, times 52 weeks
of the year, you come up into the literally tens of thousands of calories that are expended.”
And yet exercisers only weigh around 2 kilograms less on average, he says. As the evidence
piles up, says Pontzer, the idea that activity dictates how many calories you burn looks
“pretty naive”.

F. It seems time to put the calories in, calories out equation to rest. But how can it be that
people do more exercise without seeming to expend extra energy? The assumption has
been that they eat more to make up for it, whether because they are hungrier or feel like
they have earned it. “You can consume a doughnut in less than a minute,” says Gaesser.
“But that minute of consuming the doughnut might take an hour or more of walking to
match in terms of calories.” It also doesn’t help that people grossly overestimate their
energy use during exercise. In one study, people were assigned a treadmill workout and
then told to estimate how many calories they burned and eat an equivalent amount from
a buffet. They guessed they used up 800 calories and ate about 550. In reality, they had
burned just 200. That might help explain why Dugas found that those meeting US exercise
guidelines tended to have put on more weight. But it wouldn’t explain why Hadza's prolific
activity doesn’t add up to much more energy consumption over the course of a day than a
sedentary lifestyle.

G. So another suggestion for this exercise paradox is that our bodies compensate for a
hard workout by moving less the rest of the day. Some clues have come from mice. When
given running wheels to prompt exercise, they were found to move around less than usual
in between bouts of activity. The number of calories saved from moving less the rest of
the day almost exactly negated the calories burned from running. It seems people make
similar sorts of adjustments when they embark on a new exercise regime, even if they
don’t realize it.

H. Rather than think of people as active or sedentary, an increasing number of us are both
active, playing sports or working out regularly, and sedentary, spending the rest of the day
sitting, says James Betts, who studies nutrition and exercise at the University of Bath, UK.
So it is a mistake to just count the calories burned on a treadmill and not consider the rest
of the day, he says. “All these other parts of exercise, just moving around more, can be the

5
biggest component of energy expenditure and can dictate which person might be lean and
which person might be obese,” he says.

I. Ultimately, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that diet offers greater potential than exercise
to get the calorie equation working more in your favor. But exercise does still have a place
in the weight-loss journey: once you lose weight, it can help prevent the common problem
of putting it back on. And there are plenty of other excellent reasons to exercise. “The
Hadza are about three times more physically active than any Western population,” says
Pontzer. “And, not a shocker, they also have excellent heart health, they never get diabetes,
they’re not overweight. They age extraordinarily well.” Being active improves overall health,
mobility and brain function, and reduces the risk for many chronic conditions including
Alzheimer’s disease. “Exercise has health-promoting actions that far exceed its role of
regulating weight,” says Gaesser, “so don’t be disappointed if you don’t lose a lot of weight.”

Questions 1-5
Complete the notes below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS OR A NUMBER for each answer.

Energy expenditure from exercise and weight loss

• Inhabit in 1 ………………...as 2 ………………...

• The men’s job: hunting with bows and
arrows.
The Hadza • The women’s job: digging for tubers and
picking berries.
• The men’s energy expenditure: up to 3
………………... calories, 700 more than the women’s.

• Monitored for more than a week to measure

2000 people from the US, Ghana,
their activity’s 4 ………………...
Jamaica, South Africa and the
• Those who followed the US exercise
Seychelles
guidelines ironically gained more weight

Encouraged to 5 ………………... with running

Mice
wheels but found to move less than usual.

6
Questions 6 - 8
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Numerous studies are indicative of the more considerable 6 ………………. of proper dietary
regimes compared to that of exercise. That said, regular exercise holds remarkable health-
related merits, not limited to 7………………., as can be seen in the lifestyle of the Hadza, who are
much more physically active than Westerners are. Exercise can not only better a person’s
overall health, mobility and brain function but ward off many 8……………..… as well.

Luyện tập 2

HOW TO DECIDE

A. A good life is the fruit of a succession of good decisions, especially around love and
work. However, we seldom accord the business of decision-making the kind of careful
attention it requires. When faced with a large decision, we lack rituals and procedures. We
typically procrastinate, lean on the nearest person or rush headlong into an unexamined
solution. Fortunately, decision-making is a skill and – like any other – it can be taught.
The chief enemy of good decisions is a lack of sufficient perspectives on a problem. We
should systematically think through any issue from six distinct angles: through the eyes
of – variously – our Enemy, our Gut, Death, Caution, Courage and our Parents. As we try
out, juggle with and then synthesise these oblique perspectives, we will feel our sense
of possibility expand – and a tolerable way forward gradually emerge from the present
confusion.

B. Our enemies have deep insights into us: they know our frailties, they actively want
the worst for us and they’re bringing a desperate, mean intelligence to bear on our case.
Thinking of them helps beautifully to clarify our thoughts. It can be unfeasibly hard to be a
true friend to ourselves, in the way we should be; our minds may well go blank if asked to
imagine what a sweet and well-meaning person might advise us to do next. We’re so much
better at getting into the heads of our bitterest foes. They appreciate our weaknesses and
temptations like no other. We can at least put these characters to constructive use: by
doing the very opposite of what we suspect (probably very correctly) they might propose
and say. We will be energised and focused by the haunting voices of those dispiriting but
very telling and mesmerising judges: those who refuse to believe in us.

C. In a sense, we know the answer already – or at least one version of it. We call it gut-instinct
and it is there from the moment a dilemma first appears. The Gut is the accumulation of all
the decision-making lessons we’ve ever derived across our lives, revealed unconsciously
at speed. Most of us have become rather good at not listening to the Gut. Probably it got

7
us into trouble a number of times, maybe pushing us into some crazy moments for which
we paid dear. Now we pride ourselves on being thinking people, who take their time, gather
evidences and make full use of their higher mental powers, as well we should. Nevertheless,
we thereby lose a source of very important insight. We should be brave enough to invite our
Gut to the decision-making table, not necessarily in order to follow it but in order to know
what it wants, and then submit its stubborn and impatient certainties to gentle rational
cross-examination.

D. The largest, but always easily-forgotten certainty, is that all our decisions are unfolding in
the backdrop of a giant ticking death clock. We should listen to its beat and take its daunting
messages to heart. The thought of Death has a habit of highlighting our responsibilities
to ourselves and of weakening our concern for living according to what is expected of
us by society. It is a terrifying agent of reality. Death may lend us a perverse new sort of
confidence to tackle challenges. By frightening us about one enormous thing, it may make
us less scared of the many smaller obstacles in our way. Our lives won’t be what they
could be unless we submit pretty much every choice we face to the arbiter of eternity and
oblivion. The thought of death is the guarantor of the meaningfulness of our lives.

E. Somewhere around the table at every decision must be the voice of caution. It wears
dowdy clothes and speaks quietly. It certainly lacks glamour in an age of bravado and
bombast. It’s easy to feel that we must always and invariably jump – because life has to
be about giving the new ago. It may not be. Let’s remember, Caution clears its throat to tell
us, that most new businesses fail, most schemes end in disaster and most relationships
merely rehash the themes of the current unsatisfactory one. Furthermore, there is a huge
amount to be lost and there are many people around us who may get very hurt by our
ambitions. Caution does not look down on the idea of compromise, it recognises that there
are, at points, simply no ideal options for the imperfect beings we ultimately are. Caution
has the bravery not always to rebel against reality.

F. From an early age, we’ve learnt how to follow the rules, wait in line and do the dutiful,
expected things. We can be good boys and girls; it got us to where we are today. There
would have been no other way to learn how to spell, drive a car or take up a position in the
working world. But there can now be a subtle risk from an opposite direction; the risk of
being overly faithful for too long to conventions that were dreamt up without our particular
interests and hopes in mind. At points, we need vigorously to relearn the art of Courage, to
remember that the happiest lives have invariably had inflection points where people did the
slightly unexpected and weird thing, took a gamble and won. Sometimes, Caution is just
weakness and cowardice wrapped up in the cloak of self-deception. Courage and Caution
need to fight this one out, without any presumption of victory on either side.

8
G. They have been in our heads longer than anyone else. They don’t necessarily know best,
that is more than evident. But we have to bring their way of thinking to consciousness,
because it is there anyway, constantly subtly influencing what we think and may plan. We
should articulate directly what each parent (if we knew them) would have advised us to do.
Even if they are long dead, the exercise won’t be hard. We are probably their best mimics
and interpreters. Then comes the job of sifting through the advice. A lot of it stands to be
self-serving. They may oddly have been a bit competitive with us. They may have made
mistakes they needed to justify to themselves; they may not have wanted us to be happy in
our own way. But they also – at their kindest moments – genuinely didn’t want us to suffer
more than we had to or repeat the mistakes they had already paid dearly for. At moments
of great choice, we should bear to reclaim our real inheritance: the experience of those who
came before us.

Questions 1-8
Complete the table below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
THE BUSINESS OF MAKING GOOD DECISIONS

Aspects to consider What we should do

Enemies
→ do the exact 1 ....................... of what our
• understand our weaknesses
enemies want
• always try to stop us

Gut
• gives us a sense of knowing
what is right → make use of our own insights into the issue
• is the 2 ....................... of all by 3 ....................... to the gut
decisions we’ve learned to
make

Death
• motivates us to live for
ourselves
• is a 4 ....................... reminder
→ keep death clock beats in mind
of reality
• give us 5 .......................
confidence to overcome
obstacles

9
 Caution
• is subtle and quite → always consider the consequences of
• is invariably not willing to react our decisions
against 6 .......................

Courage
• plays a role as 7 ....................... → be brave to take risks
leading us to a happy life

Parents
• know and influence us more
than anyone else
→ interpret advices from our parents and
• want us to receive better
then sift through them
things and avoid their previous
costly 8 .......................

Multiple-Choice Questions

Câu hỏi trắc nghiệm bắt đầu bằng một câu hỏi trực tiếp và sau đó có bốn câu trả lời có thể.
Một số bắt đầu bằng một câu chưa hoàn chỉnh và sau đó có bốn kết thúc có thể xảy ra. Bạn
có thể thấy cả hai loại trong bài kiểm tra. Các câu trả lời theo thứ tự đoạn văn.

Bước 1: Analyse questions (phân tích câu hỏi)

Bước 2: Skim and Scan information (Tìm thông tin)
Bước 3: Choose the correct answers (Chọn đáp án đúng)

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

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 crisis, 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.

10
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 Extension)

1. In families, having clear roles can

A. Be the most difficult task.
B. Help families 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 effective role.
 
Luyện tập 3

Don’t let perfection be the enemy of productivity.

A. There’s an argument that, for unimportant decisions, you should either decide quickly
or outsource the decision. But perfectionists have a hard time designating decisions as

11
unimportant. They like to be in control of everything. Why? Because imperfections bother
them more than they do other people. If something goes wrong, perfectionists might feel
explosive frustration or a niggling sense of irritation that’s hard to ignore, and they don’t
want to take that risk. Sometimes, perfectionists are so accustomed to micromanaging
that it doesn’t even occur to them that any decision is unimportant. They’re blind to it. They
habitually and automatically classify everything as worthy of their full effort.

B. The belief that you need to beat expectations in any situation can manifest in many
ways. Let’s say someone offers to pay you $1,000 for a service. If you’re a perfectionist,
providing $1,000 of value might not seem like enough. You might think that you need to
give what your competitors would charge $1,500 for because you want to outperform.
You think: “If I don’t overdeliver, I’m underdelivering.” Or if you judge that 24 hours is a
respectable timeframe in which to respond to a colleague’s email, you might set your own
bar at within six hours. The key point is that you believe what’s generally reasonable doesn’t
apply to you, and your own standard needs to be different.

C. Sometimes this line of thinking comes from wanting an excessive cushion; for instance,
you think “if I aim to deliver 1.5X or 2X value for all the services I provide, then I’m never
going to under-deliver.” It can also be driven by anxiety, insecurity or imposter syndrome;
for instance, you think the only way to prevent anyone from being disappointed or unhappy
with you is by always exceeding expectations. Perfectionists also sometimes imagine
there will be catastrophic consequences if they fail to overdeliver; for example, they worry
a client won’t want to work with them if they take a day to answer an email request, even if
it’s a non-urgent query and they’re happy with everything else.

D. When perfectionists want to adopt new habits, they tend to fall into one of three
categories. They bite off more than they can chew and their plans are too onerous to
manage; they avoid starting any habit unless they’re 100% sure they can hit their goal
everyday, which leads to procrastination; or they take on only those habits that they can
stick to no matter what.

E. Perfectionism is often driven by striving for excellence, but it can be self-sabotaging if it

leads to suboptimal behavior like continuing habits beyond their usefulness, overdelivering
when you don’t have to, or overthinking every decision you make.
(Adapted from “Don’t let perfection be the enemy of productivity”
– Harvard Business Review)

Questions 1-4
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C, or D.

12
1. Perfectionists often like to have control over everything
A. Because they fear judgement.
B. Because they like working extra hours.
C. Because they want people to look at them as a role model.
D. Because they hate mistakes.
2. A perfectionist’s way of thinking can be a result of
A. mental issues.
B. social expectation.
C. family history.
D. peer pressure.
3. When perfectionists take up a new habit
A. They will always try to take up more than what he can actually do.
B. They often fall behind with their deadlines.
C. They will most likely follow only one habit.
D. They can have very different ways of following it.
4. A perfectionist’s expectations can be harmful
A. When they cannot be met.
B. When they create undesired behaviors.
C. When they are too low.
D. When they are too high.

 
Luyện tập 4

CRANBERRIES
A. Cranberries are native to North America and have never become widely naturalized to
other parts of the world. In fact, over 80% of all cranberries grown worldwide are grown in the
U.S. and Canada. (And roughly twice as many cranberries are grown in the U.S. compared
to Canada.) For U.S. consumers, cranberries are an indigenous food that has unique ties
to this region of the world. Among our WHFoods, cranberries are most closely related to
blueberries. Both of these berries belong to the Ericaceae family of plants, as well as to the
Vaccinium genus. When you compare the phytonutrient richness of these two berries, you
will also find a good bit of overlap. But we think it is safe to say that cranberries are unique
in many ways, and one of these ways involves the manner in which they grow.

B. As a food native to North America, cranberries have traditionally been enjoyed by many
native peoples throughout what is now the United States and Canada. Cranberries were
originally given different names in various tribal languages, including the name "ibimi"—
which meant bitter/sour berries—in Wampanoag and Lenni Lenape. The name "cranberry"
came from much later observations by European colonizers of North America that the

13
flowers of cranberry plants were shaped like the head and neck of sandhill cranes, which
lead to the term "craneberry." The word "craneberry" was eventually shortened to "cranberry."

C. As the world's largest single producer of cranberries, the United States has a well-
documented history of cranberry production. The key cranberry-producing states of
Wisconsin (by far the largest producer) and Massachusetts (easily landing in second place)
combined in 2016 to produce over 8 million barrels of cranberries. Approximately 1 million
additional barrels were produced by the states of New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington.
Cranberry production in the U.S. has a rich family history and a high degree of continuity
in comparison to many other areas of agricultural production. For example, cranberry
marshes developed in the late 1800's and early 1900's around Manitowish Waters and Eagle
River in Wisconsin remain productive to this day. In addition, some of the cranberry vines
that currently produce cranberries are more than 200 years in age. On a worldwide basis,
no country comes so close to producing the number of cranberries as the United States,
with the possible exception of Canada. In 2014, about 840 million pounds of cranberries
were produced in the U.S., and about 388 million pounds were produced in Canada. Chile
produced about 180 million pounds and a handful of other countries produced 10% or less
of this Chilean amount. These additional countries included Belarus, Azerbaijan, Latvia,
and Romania.

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

14. Cranberries and blueberries are similar because

A. They have vibrant red color due to presence of anthocyanins and proanthocyanidins
B. Their richness in phytonutrients is similar to each other
C. They are similarly popular as plants in Ericaceae family
D. They both have over two dozen health-supportive phytonutrients
15. The meaning of the word cranberry can most likely stem from:
A. A word in tribal languages meaning bitterness or sourness.
B. The shape of its flower that is similar to body parts of a particular species of
cranes.
C. The similar shape between the neck of sandhill cranes and the cranberry fruits.
D. The colonizers from North America that found this fruit on their colony in Europe

14
16. What is true about the cranberry production in the US?
A. Massachusetts produced most cranberries, followed by other states such as
Wisconsin or New Jersey.
B. New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington combined were able to produce 1 million
barrels of cranberries more than Wisconsin and Massachusetts.
C. Many centuries-old cranberry trees in the US are said to be still able to produce fruits.
D. The productivity of cranberries developed around Manitowish Waters and Eagle
River in Wisconsin is growing over the period of 200 years

15
INTERMEDIATE
COURSE
READING
LESSON 3
Nội dung: Scanning

Tổng quan
Ở bài trước, người học đã nắm được kỹ thuật xác định từ khóa và ứng dụng vào dạng bài
Completion (Điền từ) và Multiple Choices (Trắc nghiệm).
Trong bài học này, người học sẽ tìm hiểu về kỹ thuật Scanning và những cách để tăng tốc
độ đọc, từ đó áp dụng vào dạng bài Locate information (Định vị thông tin) và TRUE/ FALSE/
NOT GIVEN.

1
Scanning (Tìm kiếm thông tin)
Bài đọc IELTS thường có nội dung tương đối dài (800 - 900 từ). Do đó, việc xác định vị trí của
đáp án là rất khó nếu như người đọc không có kỹ năng đọc phù hợp. Kỹ năng scanning sẽ
giúp bạn giải quyết vấn đề này.
1. Scanning là gì?
Đọc lướt

Tìm chi tiết cụ thể

Scanning

Không cần hiểu nội

dung bài đọc

Trong IELTS, scanning là đọc lướt một đoạn văn và tìm từ khóa của câu hỏi trong đoạn văn
đó mà chưa tập trung hiểu ý nghĩa. Khi xác định được vị trí của từ khóa, người đọc sẽ khoanh
vùng được phần thông tin chứa đáp án.

2. Kỹ thuật chuyển động mắt (Eye movement):

Kỹ thuật chuyển động mắt phối hợp cùng Scanning để tăng tốc độ xác định keyword.
Khi thực hiện kỹ thuật này, người đọc tập trung duy nhất vào việc tìm từ khóa mà chưa
cần đọc hiểu nội dung bài đọc.

Hướng đi của mắt: Đọc bắt đầu từ cuối đoạn văn lên, và theo trình từ từ phải qua trái (cùng
lúc hãy dùng một chiếc bút để lướt theo, giúp tập trung sự chú ý của mắt theo chuyển động
của bút).
Lưu ý: Khi đọc từ trên xuống dưới và từ trái qua phải, người đọc sẽ dễ bị cuốn vào việc đọc
hiểu văn bản và khiến cho việc tìm kiếm từ khóa lâu hơn. Di chuyển mắt theo hướng ngược
lại – dưới lên trên, phải qua trái – sẽ tránh việc người đọc tốn nhiều thời gian cho việc đọc
hiểu hơn là việc tìm kiếm thông tin cần thiết một cách nhanh chóng.

2
3. Phương pháp scan hiệu quả:

Ghi nhớ các từ khóa cần tìm (ghi nhớ ý nghĩa từ)

Xác định keyword và từ đồng nghĩa với keywords khi scan

Áp dụng kỹ năng chuyển động mắt (Eye movement)

Tăng tốc tìm keyword để xác định thông tin trả lời trước khi đọc
hiểu nội dung (chưa cần đọc hiểu ở bước này)

Đánh dấu từ khóa tìm được (gạch chân, khoanh tròn)t

Tiết kiệm thời gian cho lần tiếp theo sử dụng từ khóa (kiểm tra
đáp án, trả lời câu hỏi khác)

Locate information

Với dạng bài này, người ra đề sẽ đưa ra 4-5 thông tin và yêu cầu người đọc nối mỗi thông tin
này với tên một đoạn văn (các sự lựa chọn) chứa thông tin đó. Đặc điểm nhận dạng:
Which paragraph/ section contains the following information?

Trong quá trình làm bài, ta sẽ thường gặp các khó khăn như:
+ Thông tin trong các câu hỏi không theo trình tự bài đọc (thông tin ở câu 1 không
nhất thiết phải nằm ở phần đầu bài đọc)
+ Số lượng các đoạn văn (sự lựa chọn) thường nhiều hơn số lượng các thông tin
(câu hỏi)
+ Một đoạn văn có thể chứa hai thông tin nhưng cũng có thể không chứa thông
tin nào

Các bước làm bài

Bước 1: Analyse questions (phân tích câu hỏi)
Bước 2: Skim and Scan information (Tìm thông tin)
Bước 3: Choose the correct answers (Chọn đáp án đúng)
Children with auditory problems

A. Hearing impairment or other auditory function deficit in young children can have a major
impact on their development of speech and communication, resulting in a detrimental effect

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on their ability to learn at school. This is likely to have major consequences for the individual
and the population as a whole. The New Zealand Ministry of Health has found from research
carried out over two decades that 6-10% of children in that country are affected by hearing
loss.

B. A preliminary study in New Zealand has shown that classroom noise presents a major
concern for teachers and pupils. Modern teaching practices, the organization of desks in
the classroom, poor classroom acoustics, and mechanical means of ventilation such as
air-conditioning units all contribute to the number of children unable to comprehend the
teacher’s voice. Education researchers Nelson and Soli have also suggested that recent
trends in learning often involve collaborative interaction of multiple minds and tools as much
as individual possession of information. This all amounts to heightened activity and noise
levels, which have the potential to be particularly serious for children experiencing auditory
function deficit. Noise in classrooms can only exacerbate their difficulty in comprehending
and processing verbal communication with other children and instructions from the teacher.

C. Children with auditory function deficit are potentially failing to learn to their maximum
potential because of noise levels generated in classrooms. The effects of noise on the
ability of children to learn effectively in typical classroom environments are now the subject
of increasing concern. The International Institute of Noise Control Engineering (I-INCE), on
the advice of the World Health Organization, has established an international working party,
which includes New Zealand, to evaluate noise and reverberation control for school rooms.

D. While the detrimental effects of noise in classroom situations are not limited to children
experiencing disability, those with a disability that affects their processing of speech and
verbal communication could be extremely vulnerable. The auditory function deficits in
question include hearing impairment, austistic spectrum disorders (ASD) and attention
deficit disorders (ADD/ADHD).

E. Autism is considered a neurological and genetic life-long disorder that causes discrepancies
in the way information is processed. This disorder is characterized by interlinking problems
with social imagination, social communication and social interaction. According to Janzen,
this affects the ability to understand and relate in typical ways to people, understand events
and objects in the environment, and understand or respond to sensory stimuli. Autism does
not allow learning or thinking in the same ways as in children who are developing normally

The Reading Passage has five sections, A-E

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Which section contains the following information?
1. A description of a global team effort
2. A hypothesis as to one reason behind the growth in classroom noise
3. A list of medical conditions which place some children more at risk from noise than
others.
4. The estimated proportion of children in New Zealand with auditory problems.

So sánh thông tin trong câu hỏi và bài đọc – Trả lời TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN
Với một số dạng câu hỏi nhất định trong IELTS Reading (ví dụ: T / F / NG), bạn cần xác định
các thành phần của câu hỏi và sau đó so sánh chúng với thông tin được đưa ra trong văn
bản để trả lời câu hỏi một cách chính xác.

Unusual Sports
A. Do you ever get bored with the same old sports? If you're tired of tennis, fed up with
football or bored of basketball, don't worry. There are plenty of new and unusual sports
out there for you to try. Many of these are a mix of existing sports, sometimes with a local
element added. Bossaball, for example, is a mix of football and volleyball, played on an
inflatable pitch with a trampoline in the middle. To make it more exciting, it also has elements
of Brazilian martial arts!

B. If you are very good at horse riding, you could try the national sport of Afghanistan,
buzkashi. Many versions have been played in the Central Asian region for hundreds of years.
The game involves players on horseback trying to get hold of a dead goat. The Afghan
Buzkashi Federation wants the game to spread throughout the world and has finally written
down the rules because they hope to get Olympic status for the sport.

C. A sport that is more likely to become famous is kabaddi. It is popular in India and
other parts of South Asia. It is similar in some ways to the game called 'tag' or 'it' which
school children play. One person is 'it' and has to catch the others. In kabaddi, a 'raider' from
one team tries to tag a player from the other team and then return to their own half of the
field without getting caught. In some versions of the game, the raider must chant the word
'kabaddi' as he returns to his place. Kabaddi is good fun, good exercise and doesn't need any
equipment. It is played at the Asian Games.

D. There is an unusual sport which describes itself as a 'classic mix of brains and brawn'.
The game, called 'chess boxing', involves a round of chess and then a round of boxing, then
another of chess, and so on. There is one minute between rounds. The first chess boxing
world championship took place in 2003 in Amsterdam and was won by a Dutchman, lepe
Rubingh. Since then, it has become more popular, particularly in Germany, the UK, India and
Russia. It is a difficult sport, as players need to be very good• at two very different activities
and be able to switch quickly between the two.

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E. Finally, an unusual sport that will be familiar to most of us is roshambo, which began
in China about 2000 years ago and spread gradually to the rest of the world. Played by young
and old, in the UK it is known as 'rock-paper­scissors'. It is surprising that it is called a sport
and taken so seriously: there's a World Rock Paper Scissors Society and a league which
holds championships every year. So, whatever kinds of sport you like, there is something
new and interesting for you to try.
(Source: Mindset for IELTS 1)
Glossary
• fed up: chán
• inflatable pitch: sân chơi được bơm hơi
• trampoline: tấm đệm nhảy
• martial arts: võ thuật
• rules: luật lệ
• chant: ca hát
• take place: diễn ra

Questions 1-5
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage?
In boxes 1-3 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. People play bossaball on a soft surface.

2. Buzkashi is an Olympic sport.
3. Kabaddi is often played in schools.
4. lepe Rubingh invented chess boxing.
5. Lepe Rubingh is from Germany.
6. People consider roshambo a serious sport.
 
The Pompidou Centre
More than three decades after it was built, the Pompidou Centre in Paris has survived its
moment at the edge of architectural fashion and proved itself to be one of the most remarkable
buildings of the 20th century.

It was the most outstanding building constructed in Paris for two generations. It looked like
an explosion of brightly coloured service pipes in the calm of the city centre. However, when
in 1977 the architects Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano stood among a large crowd of 5,000
at the opening of the Centre Culturel d'Art Georges Pompidou (known as the Pompidou), no
one was really aware of the significance of this unusual building.

6
Rogers was only 38 when he and Piano won the competition to design a new cultural centre
for Paris in the old market site. Young, unknown architects, they had been chosen from
a field of nearly 700 to design one of the most prestigious buildings of its day. After six
difficult years, with 25,000 drawings, seven lawsuits, battles over budgets, and a desperate
last-minute scramble to finish the building, it had finally been done.

Yet the opening was a downbeat moment. The Pompidou Centre had been rubbished by the
critics while it was being built, there was no more work in prospect for the architects, and
their partnership had effectively broken down. But this was just a passing crisis. The Centre,
which combined the national museum of modern art, exhibition space, a public library and a
centre for modern music, proved an enormous success. It attracted six million visitors in its
first year, and with its success, the critics swiftly changed their tune.

The architects had been driven by the desire for ultimate flexibility, for a building that would
not limit the movement of its users. All the different parts were approached through the
same enormous entrance hall and served by the same escalator, which was free to anyone
to ride, whether they wanted to visit an exhibition or just admire the view. With all the services
at one end of the building, escalators and lifts at the other, and the floors hung on giant
steel beams providing uninterrupted space the size of two football pitches, their dream had
become a reality.

The image of the Pompidou pervaded popular culture in the 1970s, making appearances
everywhere - on record-album covers and a table lamp, and even acting as the set for a
James Bond 1 film. This did much to overcome the secretive nature of the architectural
culture of its time, as it enabled a wider audience to appreciate the style and content of the
building and so moved away from the strictly professional view.

The following year, Rogers was commissioned to design a new headquarters for Lloyd's Bank
in London and went on to create one of Britain's most dynamic architectural practices. Piano
is now among the world's most respected architects. But what of their shared creation?

It was certainly like no previous museum, with its plans for a flexible interior that not only
had movable walls but floors that could also be adjusted up or down. This second feature
did not in the end survive when the competition drawings were turned into a real building. In
other ways, however, the finished building demonstrated a remarkable degree of refinement
- of craftsmanship even - in the way the original diagram was transformed into a superbly
detailed structure. It was this quality which, according to some critics, suggested that the
Pompidou should be seen as closer to the 19th-century engineering tradition than the
space age.

7
Nevertheless, as a model for urban planning, it has proved immensely influential. The
Guggenheim in Bilbao* and the many other major landmark projects that were built in the
belief that innovatively designed cultural buildings can bring about urban renewal are all
following the lead of the Pompidou Centre.

Other buildings may now challenge it for the title of Europe's most outlandish work of
architecture. However, more than a quarter of a century later, this construction - it is hard to
call it a building when there is no façade, just a lattice of steel beams and pipes and a long
external escalator snaking up the outside - still seems extreme.

Today, the Pompidou Centre itself still looks much as it did when it opened. The shock
value of its colour-coded plumbing and its structure has not faded with the years. But while
traditionalists regarded it as an ugly attack on Paris when it was built, they now see it for
what it is - an enormous achievement, technically and conceptually.

Questions 1-4
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
1. What does the writer say in the first paragraph about the opening of the Pompidou
Centre?
A The elderly did not like it.
B The architects were not present.
C The atmosphere was very noisy.
D The people did not realise its importance.
2 What does the writer say in the second paragraph about the construction of the
Pompidou?
A There was a hurry to complete it.
B It cost less than expected.
C Other experts helped draw the plans.
D The market location was criticised.
3 What is the writer’s main purpose in the third paragraph?
A to explain the multi-functional role of the centre
B to praise the architects for their design ideas
C to say why some people’s opinions quickly altered
D to show how the media benefited from its success
4 What was the architects’ ‘dream’, referred to in the fourth paragraph?
A to become famous
B to provide entertainment
C to allow visitors to use it freely
D to build the biggest museum in the world

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Questions 5-8
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-F, below.

5 The escalators and lifts inside the Pompidou

6 In the 1970s, pictures of the Pompidou
7 The original plans for the floors of the Pompidou
8 The detailed structure of the finished building
A reminded some people of past building styles.
B were used to decorate everyday objects.
C fitted in well with the external surroundings.
D were situated on one side of the building.
E showed people which area to visit.
F were changed during the construction process.
 
Yes/ No/ Not Given có cách làm bài tương tự với True/ False/ Not Given. Tuy nhiên, điểm
khác biệt chính của hai dạng này phụ thuộc vào nội dung bài đọc. Cụ thể, True/ False/ Not
Given yêu cầu người học nhận diện những thông tin thực tế, còn Yes/ No/ Not Given yêu cầu
người học hiểu được ý kiến người tác giả

Questions 9-14
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-F, below.
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in the reading passage?
Write
YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
9 The Pompidou has influenced the way cities are designed.
10 The Guggenheim has been more popular than the Pompidou.
11 The word building fits the Pompidou better than the word construction.
12 The Pompidou’s appearance has changed considerably since it opened.
13 Nowadays, the design of the Pompidou fails to shock people.
14 The traditionalist view of the Pompidou has changed over the years.

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READING PASSAGE 3 (Cambridge 14, Test 2)

The power of play

Virtually every child, the world over, plays. The drive to play is so intense that children will
do so in any circumstances, for instance when they have no real toys, or when parents do
not actively encourage the behavior. In the eyes of a young child, running, pretending, and
building are fun. Researchers and educators know that these playful activities benefit the
development of the whole child across social, cognitive, physical, and emotional domains.
Indeed, play is such an instrumental component to healthy child development that the Unit-
ed Nations High Commission on Human Rights (1989) recognized play as a fundamental
right of every child.

Yet, while experts continue to expound a powerful argument for the importance of play in
children’s lives, the actual time children spend playing continues to decrease. Today, chil-
dren play eight hours less each week than their counterparts did two decades ago (Elkind
2008). Under pressure of rising academic standards, play is being replaced by test prepara-
tion in kindergartens and grade schools, and parents who aim to give their preschoolers a
leg up are led to believe that flashcards and educational ‘toys’ are the path to success. Our
society has created a false dichotomy between play and learning.

Through play, children learn to regulate their behavior, lay the foundations for later learning
in science and mathematics, figure out the complex negotiations of social relationships,
build a repertoire of creative problem-solving skills, and so much more. There is also an
important role for adults in guiding children through playful learning opportunities.

Full consensus on a formal definition of play continues to elude the researchers and the-
orists who study it. Definitions range from discrete descriptions of various types of play
such as physical, construction, language, or symbolic play (Miller & Almon 2009), to lists of
broad criteria, based on observations and attitudes, that are meant to capture the essence
of all play behaviors (e.g. Rubin etal. 1983).

A majority of the contemporary definitions of play focus on several key criteria. The found-
er of the National Institute for Play, Stuart Brown, has described play as ‘anything that
spontaneously is done for its own sake’. More specifically, he says it ‘appears purpose-
less, produces pleasure and joy, [and] leads one to the next stage of mastery’ (as quoted
in Tippett 2008). Similarly, Miller and Almon (2009) say that play includes ‘activities that
are freely chosen and directed by children and arise from intrinsic motivation’. Often, play
is defined along a continuum as more or less playful using the following set of behavioral
and dispositional criteria (e.g. Rubin et al. 1983):

10
Play is pleasurable: Children must enjoy the activity or it is not play. It is intrinsically moti-
vated: children engage in play simply for the satisfaction the behavior itself brings. It has
no extrinsically motivated function or goal. Play is process oriented: When children play,
the means are more important than the ends. It is freely chosen, spontaneous and volun-
tary. If a child is pressured, they will likely not think of the activity as play. Play is actively
engaged: Players must be physically and/or mentally involved in the activity. Play is non-lit-
eral. It involves make-believe.

According to this view, children’s playful behaviors can range in degree from 0% to 100%
playful. Rubin and colleagues did not assign greater weight to any one dimension in deter-
mining playfulness; however, other researchers have suggested that process orientation
and a lack of obvious functional purpose may be the most important aspects of play (e.g.
Pellegrini 2009).

From the perspective of a continuum, play can thus blend with other motives and attitudes
that are less playful, such as work. Unlike play, work is typically not viewed as enjoyable
and it is extrinsically motivated (i.e. it is goal oriented). Researcher Joan Goodman (1994)
suggested that hybrid forms of work and play are not a detriment to learning; rather, they
can provide optimal contexts for learning. For example, a child may be engaged in a dif-
ficult, goal-directed activity set up by their teacher, but they may still be actively engaged
and intrinsically motivated. At this mid-point between play and work, the child’s motivation,
coupled with guidance from an adult, can create robust opportunities for playful learning.

Critically, recent research supports the idea that adults can facilitate children’s learning
while maintaining a playful approach in interactions known as ‘guided play’ (Fisher et al.
2011). The adult’s role in play varies as a function of their educational goals and the child’s
developmental level (Hirsch-Pasek et al. 2009).

Guided play takes two forms. At a very basic level, adults can enrich the child’s environ-
ment by providing objects or experiences that promote aspects of a curriculum. In the
more direct form of guided play, parents or other adults can support children’s play by join-
ing in the fun as a co-player, raising thoughtful questions, commenting on children’s dis-
coveries, or encouraging further exploration or new facets to the child’s activity. Although
playful learning can be somewhat structured, it must also be child-centered (Nicolopolou
et al. 2006). Play should stem from the child’s own desire.

Both free and guided play are essential elements in a child-centered approach to playful
learning. Intrinsically motivated free play provides the child with true autonomy, while
guided play is an avenue through which parents and educators can provide more targeted
learning experiences. In either case, play should be actively engaged, it should be predomi-
nantly child-directed, and it must be fun.

11
Tương tự với dạng bài Locate information, ở dạng bài này, thí sinh sẽ phải nối các mục như
tên ngườI, ngày, tháng, năm, tên các dự án hoặc nghiên cứu ... với từng thông tin tương ứng
với nội dung trong bài.

Questions 27-31
Look at the following statements (Questions 27-31) and the list of researchers below.
Match each statement with the correct researcher, A-G.
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.
27. Play can be divided into a number of separate categories.
28. Adults’ intended goals affect how they play with children.
29. Combining work with play may be the best way for children to learn.
30. Certain elements of play are more significant than others.
31. Activities can be classified on a scale of playfulness.

List of Researchers
A. Elkind
B. Miller & Almon
C. Rubin et al.
D. Stuart Brown
E. Pellegrini
F. Joan Goodman
G. Hirsch-Pasek et al.

 
Questions 32-36
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 32-36 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

32. Children need toys in order to play.

33. It is a mistake to treat play and learning as separate types of activities.
34. Play helps children to develop their artistic talents.
35. Researchers have agreed on a definition of play.
36. Work and play differ in terms of whether or not they have a target.

Questions 37-40
Complete the summary below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

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 Guided play
In the simplest form of guided play, an adult contributes to the environment in which the child
is playing. Alternatively, an adult can play with a child and develop the play, for instance by
37............................. the child to investigate different aspects of their game. Adults can help
children to learn through play, and may make the activity rather structured, but it should still
be based on the child’s 38................................ to play. Play without the intervention of adults
gives children real 39……………........................ ; with adults, play can be 40............................. at
particular goals. However, all forms of play should be an opportunity for children to have fun.

13