Long Pham IZONE - Chiến lược học IELTS

READING - SUMMARY COMPLETION

I. SUMMARY COMPLETION WITHOUT OPTIONS

1. TASK DESCRIPTION:
● You complete the summary by writing the required number of words from the
passage in each gap.
● The summary reports the main ideas from the passage, but the information may
not be presented in the same order.
● The summary usually relates to one section of the passage, but may also report the
meaning of the whole passage.
● The wording of the summary is not exactly the same as the wording in the
passage, but it contains the same information.
● You write the words IN THE SAME FORM as you see them in the passage (e.g.
singular/ plural) – you don’t need to change them in any way.

2. STRATEGIES
● Read the instructions carefully to see how many words you can write, and whether
you are told which paragraph(s) the summary comes from
● Read the summary heading (if there is one) to help you find the right place in the
passage
● Read through the summary to get an idea of what it is about and how much of the
passage it covers
● Decide what type of information is needed to complete each gap, e.g. a name, a
number or a specific term
● Note any grammatical clues, e.g. articles or prepositions, which may help you find
the answer
● Underline or highlight the key words around the gap
● Read the passage and decide where the answer to the first question comes from.
● Decide exactly which words or numbers you should write as your answer.
● Read above and below this part to find the rest of the answers.
● Answers usually BUT NOT ALWAYS come in order

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3. SAMPLE TASK
EXERCISE 1:
GOLD BUGS
A Medieval alchemists found, in the end, that they could not create gold. Modern
geochemists have a similar problem. They find it hard to understand how natural gold
deposits form. There is much hand waving about gold-rich fluids from deep in the
earth, and chemical precipitation, but the physics does not add up. The answer may be
that what is happening is not geochemical at all, but biochemical. And a casual
experiment conducted by a bacteriologist may hold the key.

B Derek Lovley, of the University of Massachusetts, has been studying ‘metal-eating’

bacteria for two decades. These bacteria make their living by converting the dissolved
ions of metallic elements from one electrical state to another. This reduction releases
energy, which the bacteria extract for their own purposes.

C Unsurprisingly, such bacteria tend to prefer common metals such as iron and
manganese for lunch, though some species are able to subsist on such exotica as
uranium. Dr Lovley decided to put some of his bacteria into a solution of gold
chloride. He was fully prepared for nothing to happen, as gold compounds are
generally toxic to bacteria. Instead, the test tube containing the solution turned a
beautiful shade of purple, the colour of metallic gold when it is dispersed very finely
in water.

Complete the summary below with words taken from the reading passage. Choose ONE
OR TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

SUMMARY
Even today, scientists are unable to work out how gold is made. Recently, however, they
have considered that the process may be 1.............An experiment was carried out using
bacteria that create their own 2................using metal. The types of metal these organisms
usually feed on are either .......or............However, when the bacteria were added to a test
tube of 4......................solution, it changed 5.....................indicating the presence of gold
compounds.

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II. SUMMARY COMPLETION WITHOUT OPTIONS

1. TASK DESCRIPTION
● You complete the gaps in the summary by choosing the correct answer from a box
of options.
● The options are often labeled (for i.e. A-F)
● The options are usually single words but they may be short phrases.
● There will be some extra words in the box that you do not need to use.
● The summary may cover the ideas in the whole passage or may be based on a
section of the passage only.
● Write THE LETTER that labels the option, NOT THE WORDS.

2. STRATEGIES
● Before you look at the passage, read the summary and underline the main words
and ideas.
● Think about the type of information that is missing in each gap based on the
grammar surrounding it. For i.e. are you looking for a name, a number, a specific
term or something else?
● Read the passage and find the main words and ideas you underlined in the
summary.
● The summary usually relates to one section of the passage, but may also report the
meaning of the whole passage.
● Go through the summary gap by gap, and read the relevant sections of the passage.
● A number of words from the box will fit each gap logically and grammatically, but
remember that you have to choose THE ONE THAT REPORTS THE
MEANING OF THE PASSAGE exactly.
● Options are usually synonyms that paraphrase the ideas in the text, so be careful
not to choose words just because they appear in the passage.

3. SAMPLE TASK

EXERCISE 2

KEY CONSIDERATION
A Research shows that, when choosing a home, most people are keen to find somewhere
that is in the right place: that is close to work or study or has easy access to public
transport. Property consultants agree that, cost aside, aspects such as the number or
size of the rooms, or the furniture (if the property is furnished), play a secondary role.

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B In the same way, the medical care in hospitals and the hospital record on this are far
more important to patients than things like whether the latest drugs are being used or
whether the number of nurses and doctors is considered exemplary.

Complete the summary using the list of words, A-I, below.

SUMMARY
Studies indicate that people generally focus on the 1.............................of housing, rather
than on the physical 2.............................or the 3............................. . This general
4.............................also applies to medical treatment. Patients note the quality of care,
rather than focusing on the level of 5.............................at the hospital.

A. way
B. features
C. contents
D. staffing
E. movement
F. location
G. principle
H. prices
I. pieces

III. SKILL-BUILDING EXERCISES

EXERCISE 3:

THE FUTURE OF VIRTUAL REALITY

A For the next ten years, various aspects of society could be going through enormous
change as Virtual Reality (VR) technology moves towards fully operational and
interactive implementation of its potential. To what extent VR establishes itself as an
integral part of our lives, and how quickly it is likely to move from niche technology
to common usage throughout society, is currently under discussion. However, many
experts are of the opinion that VR may well have become sufficiently developed for it
to form an essential part of life by 2030 (if not sooner). Over 40 million people
currently own VR headsets, and this figure is expected to double over the next three
years. By 2025, we may well have reached the point at which almost 200 million

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users own a VR viewing device, the Head Mounted Display (HMD), more commonly
known as a VR headset.

B The ultimate aim of these headsets is to generate a 360-degree, 3D virtual world,

enabling the viewer to enjoy what they are watching without the physical limits of a
TV, computer or cinema screen. There are two LCD displays, one for each eye, which
display images being sent by the computer or some such device (via an HDMI cable)
or on the screen of a smartphone inserted into the front of the headset. Lenses, set
inside the HMD between the user’s eyes and the LCD displays, are necessary to
counteract the natural differences between what one human eye and the other
simultaneously see.

C These lenses enable two 2D images of the display to be viewed, thus creating a
tailored picture for each eye. These combine to create the illusion of ‘real life’ in 3D.
The HMD also uses ‘head tracking’, a system that follows the principle of aircraft
flight, tracking three measurements known as pitch, yaw and roll (or movement along
the x, y and z axes). It means that when the user tilts their head up, down, or to the
side, VR follows these motions and allows them to ‘see’ all around them.

D With such technology in place, one of the most notable sectors in which VR is likely
to have far-reaching effects will be the games industry. In this field, traditional games
are in development even now with far greater scope for creativity than ever before.
Role Playing Games (RPGs), in which a gamer plays the part of a character from a
first-person viewpoint, moving through an entirely imagined, graphically rendered
world, are nothing new. However, VR games designers will be able to add to this
existing appeal by enabling the user to look all around themselves at a fully
immersive world, one in which the flow of the narrative can more easily be controlled
by the gamer, rather than the creator.

E Despite this, games designers currently appear to be more attracted to the untapped
potential of new approaches to their end product. For example, games may become
less about employing motor skills, such as swift reflexes or hand-eye coordination.
Instead, the aim may be to enjoy the experience of a VR world in a more unhurried
way, with traditional game mechanics (e.g. accumulating points, moving through a
series of levels) running alongside as a secondary concern.

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F Other fields are similarly going to find their landscapes greatly altered. Educators, for
one, will be presented with a vast array of new opportunities through which to pass on
knowledge. Within the next five to ten years, teachers may become able to move
completely away from the course book or flat screen – even the classroom itself – and
into an immersive world of instruction and learning. By way of example, history
students could be taken into the epicentre of the world’s greatest battles and conflicts,
experiencing and understanding the machinations of victory first-hand. Medical
students may be provided with the opportunity to travel through the human body as if
they were themselves the size of a blood cell, building their comprehension of how
veins and arteries, or nerve systems, are interconnected. Music students will be able to
watch a VR orchestra perform their new composition in a venue of their choice,
whether that be the local concert hall or even the Sydney Opera House.

G Current HMDs do not allow for any dialogue to take place between the user and the
simulated people they encounter in the VR world. However, this is unlikely to be the
case forever; a student of Mandarin should one day be able to ‘walk’ the streets of
Beijing, conversing with the local native- speakers, and practising the regional
pronunciation. Similarly, by the year 2021, the concept of travel may have undergone
a profound transformation. Parts of the world currently inaccessible to most people,
whether because the expense of flying is too great or because those places are too
remote to be easily reached, will become open to visitors in the form of exact VR
replicas of the original cities, rainforests, beaches and so on. Not only is this bound to
please avid travellers, it could also appease the concerned environmentalist; the
number of commercial flights operating each day might well decrease as people opt
for VR vacations.

H Despite its potential to change life as we know it today, it is also possible that VR will
ultimately fail to catch on, and HMDs will be consigned to history in the same way as
were CDs, MiniDisc players and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). After all, even
the technology that today seems improbable will at some point become outdated. If
this does indeed occur, the most likely cause of its failure will be that the vast
majority of computers and consoles available for the home market lack the required
processing power. One potentially disastrous side effect of underpowered hardware is
that latency issues - when what the viewer sees on the display fails to catch up with
the movement of their head can cause motion sickness in the HMD wearer. Even the
most devoted VR enthusiast may be unwilling to accept this as the consequence of
their interest in new technologies.

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3.1. Read the summary completion task (3.2.) and answer the following questions (do not
try to complete the summary yet)
1. What do you notice about the options in the box you have to choose from?
2. Use the following questions to help you locate which parts of the reading text you need
to focus on the complete the gaps.
a. What does the title of the summary tell you?
b. Which parts of the summary can you use to scan the passage and locate the
information quickly?
c. In which paragraph of the reading text does it talk about HMDs as part of our lives?
d. In which paragraph of the reading text are CDs and PDAs mentioned in connection
with HMDs?

3.2. Complete the summary using the list of words, A-J, below. Write the correct letter,
A-J.
There is some debate as to whether VR will become something used in a
A
1.............................way, rather than predominantly in niche areas of technology. On the
I
other hand, experts say it is 2.............................that by 2030, HMDs will have become
part of our everyday lives. On the other hand, it is also possible that they will go the same
way as other 3.............................technologies,
E such as CDs or PDAs. This is because
G
most home consoles and computers are 4.............................of coping with the VR
software. Thus, even enthusiastic users are likely to be 5.............................
D to endure the
resultant physical side-effects.

A. mainstream C. unable E. outmoded G. incapable I. conceivable

B. interactive D. reluctant F. operational H. essential J. functioning

3.3. Check the answers to 3.2. Mark them S (same word as appears in the text) or P
(paraphrase or synonym of the word/ idea in the text)

3.4. Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the
passage for each answer

Applications of VR
The influence and effects of VR technology will be 6..............................
far-reaching This will be the
most noticeable in one particular 7.............................
field – Video Games. Since games
designers and developers are increasingly able to use their 8.............................in
untapped potential new

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ways, the conventional mechanics and concerns of game playing may become
9............................. . Further changes are likely to happen away from this field as well:
teachers will be able to enter an 10.............................that
immersive world enables learning to take place
away from typical classroom setting; music students could theoretically listen to their
latest 11.............................being
composition played in the Sydney Opera House, while students of
Medicines will be able to understand how so many parts of the human body are
12............................. . Furthermore, differing approaches to travel may mean that fewer
flights are taken, as people “virtually” visit the destinations of their choice. This
development is likely to please environmentalists as well as 13.............................

EXERCISE 4:

HOLOGRAPHICS AND ANIMATION IN MUSIC AND PERFORMANCE

A For hundreds of years, the more forward-thinking elements of science and technology
have stoked imaginations in the world of entertainment. For example, a huge number
of science fiction movies were produced over the 20th century, a period during which
space exploration became first a possibility, then a reality. Many such films depict
situations in which one character (in full bodily form) interacts with a 3D, holographic
image of another. Despite the optimism in some quarters, genuine interaction with
holograms in the real world is still as far from becoming a reality as ever.
Additionally, there is some doubt as to whether the existing, limited holographic
technology is even worth exploring any further. However, what is currently available
has begun to be used for entertainment purposes in a wide range of industries.

B The music industry is one. It has sought to take advantage of this technology since its
infancy. There have been numerous examples - concerts and events - during which
audiences have been able to watch modern vocalists sharing the stage with
holographic images of performers who departed this world some time ago. In fact, the
technology has been developed to such an advanced stage that it is almost possible to
stage an entire concert 'performed’ by dead rock stars. Critics have argued that this is
exploitative of both audience and musician, pointing out the questionable morality of
putting on stage an artist who has no way of refusing to be there.

C On the other hand, it might be argued that, to modern audiences so accustomed to a

daily intake of entertainment viewed almost entirely on 2D screens, on-stage
animation allows people once again to embrace the excitement of the 3D, live arena.

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Such shows, its advocates argue, are likely to become commonplace as the world of
entertainment expands its horizons. (Great actors could also be resurrected to take
their place on the theatre stage, for example.) This is due in no small part to the fact
that the on-stage technology making this possible is actually less complex than one
might expect, certainly if, rather than a true holographic performance, reflective
technology is used instead.
D To achieve this, a laser projector shoots down an image beam that is set up to be
exactly perpendicular to the floor. If the angle of projection is greater or less than 90
degrees, even by the tiniest amount, the projection will fail. As the song is being
played, the animated image is projected onto a mirrored surface which has been set
into the stage floor. This set up means that a 'suspension of disbelief’ can be created
within the onlooking audience, as it collectively sees the moving image while, at the
same time, the transparent foil used to make the screen is invisible, stretched back as
it is at an angle of 45 degrees. There is no maximum or minimum height at which
projection fails to work, and, after a series of relatively simple calculations, the laser
projector can be simply fixed to a lighting rig set up high above the stage.

E The future of holographic performance does appear rather limited, however,

particularly in the context of bringing musicians back to life in this way. For one
thing, it is impossible to create a new performance from old videotape, and there is a
limited amount of original footage of these icons that was shot while they were alive.
It is unlikely that a great deal more will be found. Following on from this, the only
way to generate an entirely new show would be through Computer-Generated imagery
(CGI) and this, for most fans, would defeat the object of the exercise entirely. Finally,
most of this past footage was shot on acetate film, which cannot come close to the
modern ultra HD technology that is the bare minimum required for a truly lifelike
reanimation. Consumers would soon grow tired of these limitations, however much of
a novelty the experience might once have been.

Questions 1-5
Complete the summary using ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each gap.

While the music industry has begun to explore potential uses for holographic
technology in the context of live performance, critics argue that the staging of a
1.....................to include a fake performance from a deceased artist is both exploitative
and morally questionable. Despite a belief elsewhere that 3D 2..................in live shows
will inevitably become commonplace, it is more likely that the lack of original

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3.....................will limit how much can be achieved. Additionally, real-time holographic

concerts and tours could potentially be staged that allow the artists to remain in a practice
4............while performing, but it is thought that this is unlikely to hold much
5.................for audiences.

Questions 6 – 9
Label the diagram below
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer

Laser projector attached to a 6 ________

Image is sent in a 7 ________ from projector
Animation of artist hits a 8 ___________
Audience sees image as reflected onto a 9 _________ screen

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IV. EXAM PRACTICE

EXERCISE 5
Question 1-4
The Reading Passage has four sections, A-D
Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.

List of headings
i. A possible explanation
ii. Why names of objects are unhelpful
iii. Checking out the theory
iv. A curious state of affairs
v. The need to look at how words are formed
vi. How age impacts on learning colours
vii. Some unsurprising data

1. Section A
2. Section B
3. Section C
4. Section D

LEARNING COLOUR WORDS

Young children struggle with colour concepts, and the reason for this may have
something to do with how we use the words that describe them.

A In the course of the first few years of their lives, children who are brought up in
English- speaking homes successfully master the use of hundreds of words. Words for
objects, actions, emotions, and many other aspects of the physical world quickly
become part of their infant repertoire. For some reasons, however, when it comes to
learning colour words, the same children perform very badly. At the age of four
months, babies can distinguish between basic colour categories. Yet it turns out they
do this in much the same way as blind children. "Blue" and "yellow" appear in older
children's expressive language in answer to questions such as "What colour is this?",
but their mapping of objects to individual colours is haphazard and interchangeable. If
shown a blue cup and asked about its colour, typical two-year-olds seem as likely to
come up with "red" as "blue." Even after hundreds of training trials, children as old as
four may still end up being unable to accurately sort objects by colour.

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B In an effort to work out why this is, cognitive scientists at Stanford University in
California hypothesized that children's incompetence at colour-word learning may be
directly linked to the way these words are used in English. While word order for
colour adjectives varies, they are used overwhelmingly in pre-nominal position (e.g.
"blue cup"); in other words, the adjective comes before the noun it is describing. This
is in contrast to post-nominal position (e.g. "The cup is blue") where the adjective
comes after the noun. It seems that the difficulty children have may not be caused by
any unique property of colour, or indeed, of the world. Rather, it may simply come
down to the challenge of having to make predictions from colour words to the objects
they refer to, instead of being able to make predictions from the world of objects to
the colour words. To illustrate, the word "chair" has a meaning that applies to the
somewhat varied set of entities in the world that people use for sitting on. Chairs have
features, such as arms and legs and backs, that are combined to some degree in a
systematic way; they turn up in a range of chairs of different shapes, sizes, and ages. It
could be said that children learn to narrow down the set of cues that make up a chair
and in this way they learn the concept associated with that word. On the other hand,
colour words tend to be unique and not bound to other specific co-occurring features;
there is nothing systematic about colour words to help cue their meaning. In the
speech that adults direct at children, colour adjectives occur pre-nominally ("blue
cup") around 70 percent of the time. This suggests that most of what children hear
from adults will, in fact, be unhelpful in learning what colour words refer to.

C To explore this idea further, the research team recruited 41 English children aged
between 23 and 29 months and carried out a three- phase experiment. It consisted of a
pre-test, followed by training in the use of colour words, and finally a post-test that
was identical to the pre-test. The pre- and post-test materials comprised six objects
that were novel to the children. There were three examples of each object in each of
three colours—red, yellow, and blue. The objects were presented on trays, and in both
tests, the children were asked to pick out objects in response to requests in which the
colour word was either a prenominal ("Which is the red one?") or a post-nominal
(“Which one is red?"). In the training, the children were introduced to a "magic
bucket" containing five sets of items familiar to 26-month-olds (balls, cups, crayons,
glasses, and toy bears) in each of the three colours. The training was set up so that
half the children were presented with the items one by one and heard them labelled
with colour words used pre-nominally ("This is a red crayon"), while the other half
were introduced to the same items described with a post-nominal colour word ("This
crayon is red"). After the training, the children repeated the selection task on the

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unknown items in the post-test. To assess the quality of children's understanding of

the colour words, and the effect of each type of training, correct choices on items that
were consistent across the pre- and post-tests were used to measure children's colour
knowledge.

D Individual analysis of pre- and post-test data, which confirmed parental vocabulary
reports, showed the children had at least some knowledge of the three colour words:
they averaged two out of three correct choices in response to both pre- and
post-nominal question types, which, it has been pointed out, is better than chance.
When children's responses to the question types were assessed independently,
performance was at its most consistent when children were both trained and tested on
post-nominal adjectives, and worst when trained on pre-nominal adjectives and tested
on post-nominal adjectives. Only children who had been trained with post- nominal
colour-word presentation and then tested with post-nominal question types were
significantly more accurate than chance. Comparing the pre- and post-test scores
across each condition revealed a significant decline in performance when children
were both pre- and post-tested with questions that placed the colour words
pre-nominally. As predicted, when children are exposed to colour adjectives in
post-nominal position, they learn them rapidly (after just five training trials per
colour); when they are presented with them pre-nominally, as English
overwhelmingly tends to do, children show no signs of learning.

Questions 5-9
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

The Hypothesis
Children learn many words quite quickly, but their ability to learn colour words takes
longer than expected. In fact, despite 5............................ many four-year-olds still
struggle to arrange objects into colour categories. Scientists have hypothesised that this is
due to the 6............................ of the adjectives in a phrase or sentence and the challenges
this presents. While objects consist of a number of 7............................ that can be used to
recognise other similar objects, the 8............................ of a colour cannot be developed
using the same approach. As a consequence, the way colour words tend to be used in
English may be 9............................ to children.

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Questions 10 – 13
Choose TWO letters, A-E.

Questions 10 – 11
Which TWO of the following statements about the experiment are true?

A. The children were unfamiliar with the objects used in the pre- and post-test.
B. The children had to place the pre- and post-test objects onto coloured trays.
C. The training was conducted by dividing the children into two groups.
D. Pre-nominal questions were used less frequently than post-nominal questions in the
training.
E. The researchers were looking for inconsistencies in children’s knowledge of word
order.

Questions 12-13
Which TWO of the following outcomes are reported in the passage?

A. Average results contradicted parental assessment of children's knowledge.

B. Children who were post-tested using post-nominal adjectives performed well,
regardless of the type of training.
C. Greatest levels of improvement were achieved by children who were trained and
post-tested using post-nominal adjectives.
D. Some children performed less well in the post-test than in the pre-test.
E. Some children were unable to accurately name any of the colours in the pre- and
post-tests.

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EXERCISE 6:

Questions 1 – 4
Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B and D-F from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.

List of headings

i. Predicting climatic changes

ii. The relevance of the Little Ice Age today
iii. How cities contribute to climate change
iv. Human impact on the climate
v. How past climatic conditions can be determined
vi. A growing need for weather records
vii. A study covering a thousand years
viii. People have always responded to climate change
ix. Enough food at last

List of paragraphs

Paragraph A – viii
1. Paragraph B
Paragraph C – v
2. Paragraph D
3. Paragraph E
4. Paragraph F

THE LITTLE ICE AGE

A This book will provide a detailed examination of the Little Ice Age and other climatic
shifts, but, before I embark on that, let me provide a historical context. We tend to
think of climate - as opposed to weather - as something unchanging, yet humanity has
been at the mercy of climate change for its entire existence, with at least eight glacial
episodes in the past 730,000 years. Our ancestors adapted to the universal but
irregular global warming since the end of the last great Ice Age, around 10,000 years
ago, with dazzling opportunism. They developed strategies for surviving harsh
drought cycles, decades of heavy rainfall or unaccustomed cold; adopted agriculture
and stock-raising, which revolutionised human life; and founded the world’s first

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pre-industrial civilisations in Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Americas. But the price of
sudden climate change, in famine, disease and suffering, was often high.

B The Little Ice Age lasted from roughly 1300 until the middle of the nineteenth
century. Only two centuries ago, Europe experienced a cycle of bitterly cold winters;
mountain glaciers in the Swiss Alps were the lowest in recorded memory, and pack
ice surrounded Iceland for much of the year. The climatic events of the Little Ice Age
did more than help shape the modern world. They are the deeply important context for
the current unprecedented global warming. The Little Ice Age was far from a deep
freeze, however; rather an irregular seesaw of rapid climatic shifts, few lasting more
than a quarter-century, driven by complex and still little understood interactions
between the atmosphere and the ocean. The seesaw brought cycles of intensely cold
winters and easterly winds, then switched abruptly to years of heavy spring and early
summer rains, mild winters, and frequent Atlantic storms, or to periods of droughts,
light northeasterly winds, and summer heat waves.

C Reconstructing the climate changes of the past is extremely difficult, because

systematic weather observations began only a few centuries ago, in Europe and North
America. Records from India and tropical Africa are even more recent. For the time
before records began, we have only ‘proxy records’ reconstructed largely from tree
rings and ice cores, supplemented by a few incomplete written accounts. We now
have hundreds of tree-ring records from throughout the northern hemisphere, and
many from south of the equator, too, amplified with a growing body of temperature
data from ice cores drilled in Antarctica, Greenland, the Peruvian Andes, and other
locations. We are close to a knowledge of annual summer and winter temperature
variations over much of the northern hemisphere going back 600 years.

D This book is a narrative history of climatic shifts during the past ten centuries, and
some of the ways in which people in Europe adapted to them. Part One describes the
Medieval Warm Period, roughly 900 to 1200. During these three centuries, Norse
voyagers from Northern Europe explored northern seas, settled Greenland, and visited
North America. It was not a time of uniform warmth, for then, as always since the
Great Ice Age, there were constant shifts in rainfall and temperature. Mean European
temperatures were about the same as today, perhaps slightly cooler.

E It is known that the Little Ice Age cooling began in Greenland and the Arctic in about
1200. As the Arctic ice pack spread southward, Norse voyages to the west were

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rerouted into the open Atlantic, then ended altogether. Storminess increased in the
North Atlantic and North Sea. Colder, much wetter weather descended on Europe
between 1315 and 1319, when thousands perished in a continent-wide famine. By
1400, the weather had become decidedly more unpredictable and stormier, with
sudden shifts and lower temperatures that culminated in the cold decades of the late
sixteenth century. Fish were a vital commodity in growing towns and cities, where
food supplies were a constant concern. Dried cod and herring were already the staples
of the European fish trade, but changes in water temperatures forced fishing fleets to
work further offshore. The Basques, Dutch, and English developed the first offshore
fishing boats adapted to a colder and stormier Atlantic. A gradual agricultural
revolution in northern Europe stemmed from concerns over food supplies at a time of
rising populations. The revolution involved intensive commercial farming and the
growing of animal fodder on land not previously used for crops. The increased
productivity from farmland made some countries self-sufficient in grain and livestock
and offered effective protection against famine.

F Global temperatures began to rise slowly after 1850, with the beginning of the
Modern Warm Period. There was a vast migration from Europe by land-hungry
farmers and others, to which the famine caused by the Irish potato blight contributed,
to North America, Australia, New Zealand, and southern Africa. Millions of hectares
of forest and woodland fell before the newcomers’ axes between 1850 and 1890, as
intensive European farming methods expanded across the world. The unprecedented
land clearance released vast quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,
triggering for the first time humanly caused global warming. Temperatures climbed
more rapidly in the twentieth century as the use of fossil fuels proliferated and
greenhouse gas levels continued to soar. The rise has been even steeper since the early
1980s. The Little Ice Age has given way to a new climatic regime, marked by
prolonged and steady warming. At the same time, extreme weather events like
Category 5 hurricanes are becoming more frequent.

Questions 5 – 9
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Weather during the little ice age

Documentation of past weather conditions is limited: our main sources of knowledge of
conditions in the distant past are 5......................and 6........................ . We can deduce that

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the Little Ice Age was a time of 7............................rather than of consistent freezing.
Within it there were some periods of very cold winters, others of 8...........................and
heavy rain, and yet others that saw 9............................ with no rain at all.

Questions 10 – 13

Classifying the following events as occurring during

A. Medieval Warm Period

B. Little Ice Age
C. Modern Warm Period

10. Many Europeans started farming abroad.

11. The cutting down of trees began to affect the climate.
12. Europeans discovered other lands.
13. Changes took place in fishing patterns.

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EXERCISE 7

Questions 1 – 6
Reading Passage has six paragraphs, A-F.
Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-F from the list of headings below.
List of headings

i. Differences between languages highlight their impressiveness

ii. The way in which a few sounds are organised to convey a huge range of meaning
iii. Why the sounds used in different languages are not identical
iv. Apparently incompatible characteristics of language
v. Even silence can be meaningful
vi. Why language is the most important invention of all
vii. The universal ability to use language

1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
3. Paragraph C
4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
6. Paragraph F

THIS MARVELLOUS INVENTION

A Of all mankinds manifold creations, language must take pride of place. Other
inventions – the wheel, agriculture, sliced bread - may have transformed our material
existence, but the advent of language is what made us human. Compared to language,
all other inventions pale in significance, since everything we have ever achieved
depends on language and originates from it. Without language, we could never have
embarked on our ascent to unparalleled power over all other animals, and even over
nature itself.

B But language is foremost not just because it came first. In its own right it is a tool of
extraordinary sophistication, yet based on an idea of ingenious simplicity: ‘this
marvellous invention of composing out of twenty-five or thirty sounds that infinite
variety of expressions which, whilst having in themselves no likeness to what is in our
mind, allow us to disclose to others its whole secret, and to make known to those who
cannot penetrate it all that we imagine, and all the various stirrings of our soul’. This

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was how, in 1660, the renowned French grammarians of the Port-Royal abbey near
Versailles distilled the essence of language, and no one since has celebrated more
eloquently the magnitude of its achievement. Even so, there is just one flaw in all
these hymns of praise, for the homage to languages unique accomplishment conceals
a simple yet critical incongruity. Language is mankind's greatest invention - except, of
course, that it was never invented. This apparent paradox is at the core of our
fascination with language, and it holds many of its secrets.

C Language often seems so skillfully drafted that one can hardly imagine it as anything
other than the perfected handiwork of a master craftsman. How else could this
instrument make so much out of barely three dozen measly morsels of sound? In
themselves, these configurations of mouth p, f, b, v, t, d, k, g, sh, a, e and so on -
amount to nothing more than a few haphazard spits and splutters, random noises with
no meaning, no ability to express, no power to explain. But run them through the cogs
and wheels of the language machine, let it arrange them in some very special orders,
and there is nothing that these meaningless streams of air cannot do: from sighing the
interminable boredom of existence to unravelling the fundamental order of the
universe.

D The most extraordinary thing about language, however, is that one doesn’t have to be
a genius to set its wheels in motion. The language machine allows just about
everybody from pre- modern foragers in the subtropical savannah, to postmodern
philosophers in the suburban sprawl - to tie these meaningless sounds together into an
infinite variety of subtle senses, and all apparently without the slightest exertion. Yet
it is precisely this deceptive ease which makes language a victim of its own success,
since in everyday life its triumphs are usually taken for granted. The wheels of
language run so smoothly that one rarely bothers to stop and think about all the
resourcefulness and expertise that must have gone into making it tick. Language
conceals art.
E Often, it is only the estrangement of foreign tongues, with their many exotic and
outlandish features, that brings home the wonder of languages design. One of the
showiest stunts that some languages can pull off is an ability to build up words of
breath-breaking length, and thus express in one word what English takes a whole
sentence to say. The Turkish word çehirliliçtiremediklerimizdensiniz, to take one
example, means nothing less than ‘you are one of those whom we can’t turn into a
town-dweller’. (In case you were wondering, this monstrosity really is one word, not

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merely many different words squashed together - most of its components cannot even
stand up on their own.)
F And if that sounds like some one-off freak, then consider Sumerian, the language
spoken on the banks of the Euphrates some 5,000 years ago by the people who
invented writing and thus enabled the documentation of history. A Sumerian word like
munintuma'a (‘when he had made it suitable for her’) might seem rather trim
compared to the Turkish colossus above. What is so impressive about it, however, is
not its lengthiness but rather the reverse - the thrifty compactness of its construction.
The word is made up of different slots, each corresponding to a particular portion of
meaning. This sleek design allows single sounds to convey useful information, and in
fact even the absence of a sound has been enlisted to express something specific. If
you were to ask which bit in the Sumerian word corresponds to the pronoun ‘it’ in the
English translation ‘when he had made it suitable for her’, then the answer would
have to be nothing. Mind you, a very particular kind of nothing: the nothing that
stands in the empty slot in the middle. The technology is so fine-tuned then that even
a non-sound, when carefully placed in a particular position, has been invested with a
specific function. Who could possibly have come up with such a nifty contraption?

Questions 7 – 10
Complete the summary using the list of words, A – G, below.

The importance of language

The wheel is one invention that has had a major impact on 7.....................aspects of life,
but no impact has been as 8.....................as that of language. Language is very
9....................., yet composed of just a small number of sounds. Language appears to be
10.....................to use. However, its sophistication is often overlooked.

A. Difficult
B. complex
C. original
D. admired
E. material
F. easy
G. fundamental

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Questions 11 – 14
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in the passage?
Write
YES if the statement agrees with the views/ claims of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the views/ claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

11. Human beings might have achieved their present position without language.
12. The Port-Royal grammarians did justice to the nature of language.
13. A complex idea can be explained more clearly in a sentence than in a single word.
14. The Sumerians were responsible for starting the recording of events.

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