IELTS Simon

IELTS Reading: another 'true, false, not given'

Read the following text and try the quick exercise below it.

Primal Therapy

Primal therapy is a trauma-based psychotherapy created by Arthur Janov, who argues that neurosis is caused by the repressed pain of childhood trauma. According to Janov, repressed pain can be sequentially brought to conscious awareness for resolution through re-experiencing specific incidents and fully expressing the resulting pain during therapy. In therapy, the patient recalls and reenacts a particularly disturbing past experience, usually from early in life, and expresses normally repressed anger or frustration, especially through spontaneous and unrestrained screams, hysteria or violence. Janov criticises the talking therapies as they deal primarily with the cerebral cortex and higher-reasoning areas and do not access the source of emotional pain within the more basic parts of the central nervous system.

Primal therapy became very influential during a brief period in the early 1970s, after the publication of Janov's first book, The Primal Scream. It inspired hundreds of spin-off clinics worldwide and served as an inspiration for many popular cultural icons. Singer-songwriter John Lennon and actor James Earl Jones were prominent advocates of primal therapy. However, it has since declined in popularity, partly because Janov did not produce enough evidence to convince research-oriented psychotherapists of its effectiveness.

Are the following statements true, false or not given?

1. During primal therapy sessions, patients are encouraged to remember traumatic childhood events.
2. Primal therapy patients must talk calmly to the therapist.
3. Primal therapy enjoyed a short heyday.
4. Although it is less popular these days, many people still advocate this form of therapy.

IELTS Reading: true, false, not given

The following excerpt comes from test 3 in Cambridge IELTS book 10.

The travel industry includes: hotels, motels and other types of accommodation; restaurants and other food services; transportation services and facilities; amusements, attractions and other leisure facilities; gift shops and a large number of other enterprises. Since many of these businesses also serve local residents, the impact of spending by visitors can easily be overlooked or underestimated. In addition, Meis (1992) points out that the tourism industry involves concepts that have remained amorphous to both analysts and decision makers. Moreover, in all nations this problem has made it difficult for the industry to develop any type of reliable or credible tourism information base in order to estimate the contribution it makes to regional, national and global economies.

Are the two statements below true, false, or not given?

1. Visitor spending is always greater than the spending of residents in tourist areas.
2. It is easy to show statistically how tourism affects individual economies.

Extra task:
Can you explain the meaning of the phrase "the tourism industry involves concepts that have remained amorphous to both analysts and decision makers"?

IELTS Reading: paraphrasing practice

Let's look at some examples of paraphrasing, using the text below.

What is an 'elevator pitch'?

An “elevator pitch” is an overview of a product, service, person, group, organisation or project, and is often part of a fund-raising, marketing, brand or public relations program. The name "elevator pitch" reflects the idea that it should be possible to deliver a short but effective presentation in the time span of an elevator ride from the ground floor to the directors’ boardroom on the top floor of a building.

An elevator pitch is often used by an entrepreneur pitching an idea to an investor to receive funding. Venture capitalists often ask entrepreneurs to give an elevator pitch in order to quickly weed out bad ideas and weak teams. Other uses include job interviewing, dating and professional services. Proposals for books, screenplays, blogs and other forms of publishing are often delivered via an elevator pitch, which may be presented in oral, written or video formats.

Which words or phrases in the passage are similar to those below?

1. a summary
2. succinct
3. gain financial backing
4. eliminate
5. spoken

IELTS Reading: the time problem

'Not having enough time' is the biggest problem for most people taking the reading test. Here are some tips for dealing with this problem:

1. Go straight to the first question. Don't waste time reading the full passage or the first sentence of each paragraph, and don't read any of the other questions.
2. Do 'paragraph' questions last. Questions that ask you to match headings or statements with paragraphs are much easier if you are already familiar with the passage.
3. Don't get stuck on one question. As soon as you realise that you are having difficulties with a question, leave it and move to the next one. Return to difficult questions later if you have time.
4. Remember that the answers to most question sections are in order in the passage. You don't need to go back to the beginning of the passage to search for each answer.
5. Only skim or scan for numbers and names. Otherwise, read at normal speed.
6. Work with an alarm. You can't do this in an exam, but at home you could set the alarm (on your phone) for 2 minutes and try to do each question within this time.

Note:
When preparing for the reading test at home, try not to worry about time at first. Your first concern should be to get the score you need, even if it takes you 3 hours instead of 1 hour to do a full test.

IELTS Reading: vocabulary review

Let's review some vocabulary from the last few reading exercises that I've published here on the blog.

Would you have been able to match the keywords below?

IELTS Reading: instead of skimming and scanning

Many teachers and books talk about skimming and scanning as key techniques for IELTS reading.

I have stopped using the words 'skimming' and 'scanning' in my lessons because I find that they confuse students. In fact, many students get the wrong answers because they 'skim' too quickly and miss the words that they are looking for.

So, forget 'skimming' and 'scanning' and focus on 'finding' and 'understanding'.

1. Finding: read the text to find words from the question.
2. Understanding: when you have found some key words from the question, read that part of the text carefully in order to understand it and get the right answer.

IELTS Reading: how should you practise?

Here's a useful question that a student asked me:

Many students complain that they don’t get a high enough score in IELTS reading, and many teachers respond that you need more practice. Dear Simon, could you describe how to practise for reading correctly? I do practise with the Cambridge books and spend time reading newspapers, but with no results.

Here's my answer:

Good question. First, testing yourself is not the best form of practice. You should test yourself from time to time (e.g. once a week), but spend much more time studying rather than testing. 'Studying' means that your aim is to learn something from what you read. For example, when reading newspaper articles, you might learn a new word or phrase, or you might learn how to use a word correctly in a new context. Don't forget to check things in a dictionary or by searching online, and write new language in a notebook.

The Cambridge IELTS books are a great resource for studying (as well as testing). Try doing some reading tests without a time limit. Allow yourself to use a dictionary to check words, and aim to get all of the answers right. Analyse your mistakes carefully, and make keyword tables.

Above all, remember that IELTS reading is a vocabulary test. Ask yourself what new vocabulary you have learnt this week. Can you point to a page of your notebook and say "I've learnt these 10 or 20 new words and phrases this week"? If you can, you are improving.

IELTS Reading: choose the title

Read the passage below, and select the best title from the following list.

A) The 2020s: a decade of challenges
B) Work in the 2020s: how to succeed
C) Essential skills in a changing job market

As the pace of digital transformation in the workplace accelerates, the next decade will pose challenges for employees as they are pushed more quickly into different types of jobs and teams. Skill demands are changing so rapidly, say futurists, that even when a company lays out what it requires now, by the end of the 2020s that will look very different.

Jason Wingard, dean of Columbia University School of Professional Studies, believes some skills will not be relevant. “You are going to have to look at the market and keep abreast of what are transferable skills,” he says. “You will need to measure yourself against that and ask yourself, ‘Do you have what it takes to be competitive?’”

So what are the five essential skills that workers will need to navigate a changing work environment — and flourish in the next decade?

(Source: Financial Times, 6th January 2020)

IELTS Reading and Listening scores

Students often ask how many correct answers they need (out of 40) to get a band score of 7 in the reading and listening tests.

According to official IELTS guidelines for academic* reading and listening:

• Band 6 is about 23 out of 40
• Band 7 is about 30
• Band 8 is about 35

Note:
The score needed for each band can change depending on the difficulty of each test. If you have a really difficult test, the score needed for band 7 might be 28 or 29. If the test is easier, you might need to score 31 or 32 to get a 7. Click here to see the banding guide on the official IELTS website.

*General reading is scored differently.

IELTS Reading: gap-fill

A student asked me for help with this exercise from Cambridge IELTS 14.

Here's the relevant part of the passage:

There are even more insects that are masters of exploiting filthy habitats, such as faeces and carcasses, where they are regularly challenged by thousands of microorganisms. These insects have many antimicrobial compounds for dealing with pathogenic bacteria and fungi, suggesting that there is certainly potential to find many compounds that can serve as or inspire new antibiotics.

Choose ONE WORD from the passage to fill each gap below.

They are also interested in compounds which insects use to protect themselves from pathogenic bacteria and fungi found in their _____. Piper hopes that these substances will be useful in the development of drugs such as _____.

IELTS Reading: true, false, not given

Read the text below about Issac Newton.

Sir Isaac Newton was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian. His Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Latin for "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"; usually called the Principia), published in 1687, is one of the most important scientific books ever written. It lays the groundwork for most of classical mechanics.

Newton is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential people in human history. French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived. Newton himself had been rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Are the following statements TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN?

1. Newton's Principia is recognised as a groundbreaking text in its field.
2. Many experts regard Newton as the greatest genius the world has seen.
3. Newton wrote that he had achieved everything without the help of others.

IELTS Reading: true, false, not given

Look at the following extract from a text about a psychology experiment:

In the year 1971, Zimbardo accepted a tenured position as professor of psychology at Stanford University. There he conducted the Stanford prison study, in which 21 normal college students were randomly assigned to be "prisoners" or "guards" in a mock prison located in the basement of the psychology building at Stanford. The two week planned study into the psychological impact of prison life ended only after 6 days due to emotional trauma being experienced by the participants.

Are the following statements true, false or not given?

1. The participants in the study were all psychology students.
2. They were given the choice of playing the role of prisoner or guard.
3. A real prison was used in the experiment.
4. The study aimed to investigate the mental and behavioural effects of life in prison.

IELTS Reading: paragraph headings

Read the following passage about a chess-playing computer.

A) On February 10, 1996, Deep Blue became the first machine to win a chess game against a reigning world champion (Garry Kasparov) under regular time controls. However, Kasparov won three and drew two of the following five games, beating Deep Blue by a score of 4–2. Deep Blue was then heavily upgraded and played Kasparov again in May 1997, winning the six-game rematch 3½–2½. Deep Blue won the deciding game six, becoming the first computer system to defeat a reigning world champion in a match under standard chess tournament time controls.

B) After the loss, Kasparov said that he sometimes saw deep intelligence and creativity in the machine's moves, suggesting that during the second game, human chess players had intervened on behalf of the machine, which would be a violation of the rules. IBM denied that it cheated, saying the only human intervention occurred between games. The rules provided for the developers to modify the program between games, an opportunity they said they used to shore up weaknesses in the computer's play that were revealed during the course of the match. This allowed the computer to avoid a trap in the final game that it had fallen for twice before. Kasparov demanded a rematch, but IBM refused and dismantled Deep Blue.

Choose the best heading for paragraphs A and B from the list below.

1. The first chess-playing computer
2. Developers’ intervention is questioned
3. Chess champion accepts defeat
4. Program developers caught cheating
5. A victory for artificial intelligence

IELTS Reading: read better, not faster

Many students worry that they read too slowly, and they ask me for advice about reading faster. These students are surprised when I tell them that it might be better to slow down and read "better" rather than faster.

If you read too quickly, or if you try to find the answers by skimming and scanning, you probably won't fully understand what you're reading, and you might miss the answers that you're searching for. On the other hand, if you read at normal speed, you're more likely to understand what you're reading, and you'll have plenty of time to find the answers.

If you struggle to finish all 40 questions in one hour, it's probably because you didn't understand the passage well enough, not because you didn't read it fast enough. So, you need to analyse your mistakes and look up the words and phrases that you didn't understand. In other words, work on becoming a better reader, not a faster reader.

IELTS Reading: finding enjoyment in reading

Last Monday I tried to persuade you that your reading will improve more quickly if you read things in English that you enjoy.

If you see reading as a boring chore, you're going to have a hard time improving. You need to find real enjoyment in reading; then it becomes easy.

So, let me ask you a question: Are you currently reading something enjoyable or fascinating in English? Let me know in the 'comments' area below.

IELTS Reading: the real secret to improving

The real secret to improving your reading is not a special trick, method or exam technique. It's simpler than that.

If you want to improve your reading, you need to read more.

Read things that truly fascinate you. Read about your hobbies, people you admire, gossip, or whatever you would choose to read for fun in your own language. Do some reading that isn't a form of study. It doesn't matter if you don't understand every word; just expose your brain to lots of interesting English, and you'll learn without even realising!

Of course, you should keep doing your IELTS reading practice too, and there are reading techniques that can help you. Just add some 'fun' reading to your schedule and see what happens.

IELTS Reading: examples of true, false, not given

Here are some good examples of true, false, not given. Can you explain the three answers below?
(from test 4, passage 2 in Cambridge IELTS 14)

1. TRUE

Question: An animal is likely to live longer in a zoo than in the wild.
Passage: The average captive animal will have a greater life expectancy compared with its wild counterpart.

2. FALSE

Question: Zoos have always excelled at transmitting information about animals to the public.
Passage: ...communicate information to visitors about the animals... This was an area where zoos used to be lacking.

3. NOT GIVEN

Question: Improvements in the quality of TV wildlife documentaries have resulted in increased numbers of zoo visitors.
Passage: It is true that television documentaries are becoming ever more detailed and impressive.

IELTS Reading: keywords again!

Here's a table showing the key vocabulary from the four most recent IELTS reading exercises on this blog.

Note: Did you know the word 'introspective'? The noun 'introspection' is a word that I like.

IELTS Reading: prove why the answers are correct

In this lesson I suggested a different way to practise: get the correct answers from the back of the book, and try to prove why they are correct.

Here's an example reading passage:

Behaviourism is a systematic approach to understanding the behaviour of humans and other animals. During the first half of the twentieth century, John B. Watson devised methodological behaviourism, which rejected introspective methods and sought to understand behaviour by only measuring observable behaviours and events.

It was not until the 1930s that B. F. Skinner suggested that private events—including thoughts and feelings—should be subjected to the same controlling variables as observable behaviour. This approach became the basis for his philosophy called "radical behaviourism”. While Watson and Ivan Pavlov investigated the stimulus-response procedures of classical conditioning, Skinner assessed the controlling nature of consequences and also their potential effect on the antecedents of behaviour; the technique became known as operant conditioning.

Now look at the 'true, false, not given' statements and correct answers below. Can you explain why each answer is correct?

1. Watson measured both visible behaviour and hidden emotions. (FALSE)
2. Skinner’s approach differed from that of Watson and Pavlov in that he went beyond the strictly observable. (TRUE)

IELTS Reading: paragraph headings

Read the passage below and choose the best heading for each paragraph.

List of headings:

1. A creature of legend
2. The human impact on mammoths
3. Explaining the appearance of mammoth remains
4. Woolly mammoths in ancient art
5. Woolly mammoth habitats
6. How we know so much about the woolly mammoth

A) The woolly mammoth is an extinct species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the early Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, and its closest living relative is the Asian elephant. The appearance and behaviour of woolly mammoths are among the best studied of any prehistoric animal because of the discovery of frozen carcasses in Siberia and Alaska, as well as skeletons, teeth, stomach contents, dung, and depiction in prehistoric cave paintings.

B) Mammoth remains had long been known in Asia before they became known to Europeans in the 17th century. The origin of these remains was long a matter of debate, and often explained as being remains of legendary creatures. The mammoth was identified as an extinct species of elephant by Georges Cuvier in 1796.

C) The woolly mammoth coexisted with early humans, who used its bones and tusks for making art, tools, and dwellings, and the species was also hunted for food. It disappeared from its mainland range around 10,000 years ago, most likely through climate change and consequent shrinkage of its habitat, hunting by humans, or a combination of the two.

IELTS Reading: a different way to practise

Here's an interesting way to use reading tests from the Cambridge IELTS books:

1. Choose a passage from one of the reading tests.
2. Get the correct answers from the back of the book.
3. Now read the first question, underline keywords, and search for the answer in the passage - you already know the correct answer, so your only aim is to find where it is in the passage.
4. Underline words in the passage that have the same meaning as the keywords in the question.
5. When you have done this for each question, make a keyword table.

This technique forces you to stop testing yourself. Instead, it makes you focus on finding key vocabulary and understanding the reason for each answer. You might be surprised at the improvements you make if you regularly practise in this way.

IELTS Reading: choose the title

Read the following passage and choose the best title from the list below.

Future Shock is a book written by the futurist Alvin Toffler in 1970. In the book, Toffler defines the term "future shock" as a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies. His shortest definition for the term is a personal perception of "too much change in too short a period of time". The book became an international bestseller, selling over 6 million copies, and has been widely translated.

Toffler argued that society is undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial society to a "super-industrial society". This change overwhelms people, he believed, the accelerated rate of technological and social change leaving people disconnected and suffering from "shattering stress and disorientation" - future shocked. Toffler stated that the majority of social problems are symptoms of future shock. In his discussion of the components of such shock he popularized the term "information overload."

A) A shocking vision of the future.
B) What is “future shock”?
C) The career of the futurist Alvin Toffler.
D) A changing society.

IELTS Reading: multiple choice exercise

Read the following text, and chose the best answer to the questions below.

The Placebo Effect

A placebo is a sham or simulated medical intervention. Sometimes patients given a placebo treatment will have a perceived or actual improvement in a medical condition, a phenomenon commonly called the placebo effect.

A study of Danish general practitioners found that 48% had prescribed a placebo at least 10 times in the past year. The most frequently prescribed placebos were antibiotics for viral infections, and vitamins for fatigue. Specialists and hospital-based physicians reported much lower rates of placebo use.

1. The placebo effect refers to

A) a simulated medical treatment
B) an improvement in a patient’s health as a result of a simulated medical treatment
C) a common medical phenomenon

2. According to a study, placebos were prescribed in Denmark

A) mainly by doctors working in hospitals
B) instead of antibiotics
C) for fatigued patients or those suffering with viruses

IELTS Reading: keep a record of key vocabulary

Whenever you do a practice reading test, keep a record of the key vocabulary i.e. the words and phrases that gave you the answers.

Here's a 'keyword' table with vocabulary from the three most recent reading exercises here on the blog.

If you have a vocabulary notebook (which is a good idea), add the phrases above.

IELTS Reading: multiple choice

Read the following short passage, and try the exercise below it.

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature. Since March 1901, it has been awarded annually (with some exceptions) to those who have "done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.

Nobel died in 1896 and he did not leave an explanation for choosing peace as a prize category. As he was a trained chemical engineer, the categories for chemistry and physics were obvious choices. The reasoning behind the peace prize is less clear. According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, his friendship with Bertha von Suttner, a peace activist and later recipient of the prize, profoundly influenced his decision to include peace as a category. Some Nobel scholars suggest it was Nobel's way to compensate for developing destructive forces. His inventions included dynamite and ballistite, both of which were used violently during his lifetime.

(Source: wikipedia.org)

Which TWO of the statements below are correct?

A)  The creator of the Nobel Peace Prize was himself a producer of weapons.
B)  The Nobel Peace Prize is a controversial award.
C)  Nobel was a peace activist during his lifetime.
D)  The ‘peace’ prize category was suggested by one of Nobel’s friends.
E)  Nobel saw the destructive application of some of his inventions.

IELTS Reading: paragraph headings

Choose the best heading for paragraphs A and B from the list below.

i. Why the elderly are living longer
ii. The impossibility of living beyond a certain age
iii. Medical and healthcare developments since the 1960s
iv. Is there a maximum age for humans?

A) A fundamental question in ageing research is whether humans and other species possess an immutable lifespan limit. A theoretical study suggested the maximum human lifespan to be around 125 years. The longest-living person whose dates of birth and death were verified to the modern norms of Guinness World Records and the Gerontology Research Group was Jeanne Calment, a French lady who lived to 122.

B) Reduction of infant mortality has accounted for most of the increased average life span longevity, but since the 1960s, mortality rates among those over 80 years have decreased by about 1.5% per year. The progress being made in lengthening lifespans and postponing senescence is entirely due to medical and public-health efforts, rising standards of living, better education, healthier nutrition and more salubrious lifestyles.

IELTS Reading: problems with Cambridge 14 answers

A few people have asked me about the answers given at the back of Cambridge 14. It seems that some alternative answers have not been listed.

For example, a student called Haley asked me about the following questions, from test 1 in Cambridge IELTS 14 (General Training):

Q19. What do visitors need to show when parking?
I answered 'prearranged permits' but the answer key says 'permits'

Q20. Where can the nursery pick-up point be found?
I answered 'outside Concorde Building' but the answer key says 'Concorde Building'

Q27. What are Sure Smart Maternity Payments?
I answered 'individual grants' but the answer key says 'grants'

Would Haley's answers be correct? The answer is yes - all three answers are perfectly fine. The words 'prearranged', 'outside' and 'individual' are not necessary, but they certainly don't make the answers wrong.

IELTS Reading: true, false, not given

Read the following text about the printing press:

From a single point of origin, Mainz, Germany, printing spread within several decades to over two hundred cities in a dozen European countries. By 1500, printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million volumes. In the 16th century, with presses spreading further afield, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies. The operation of a press became so synonymous with the enterprise of printing that it lent its name to an entire new branch of media, the press.

In Renaissance Europe, the arrival of mechanical movable type printing introduced the era of mass communication which permanently altered the structure of society. The relatively unrestricted circulation of information and ideas transcended borders and threatened the power of political and religious authorities. The sharp increase in literacy broke the monopoly of the literate elite on education and learning and bolstered the emerging middle class.

Answer TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN:

1. By the beginning of the 16th century, the printing press was in use in several different countries.
2. The printing press was popular because it was so easy to operate.
3. Movable type printing can be linked to a rise in the number of people who could read and write.
4. Printing had a negative effect on the middle classes.

IELTS Reading: why isn't my score improving?

A student emailed me the other day, asking me to explain why his reading score was stuck at 5.5.

I had never met the student, so I could only offer general advice. Here's what I wrote in my response to his email:

The first step towards making an improvement is to understand what you're doing wrong. So, you need to analyse what's happening when you do reading tests. Here are some questions that you could ask yourself:

• Do you finish all 40 questions?
• Do you find one type of question very difficult?
• Are you reading too slowly, or maybe too quickly?
• Are you following all of the advice that I gave in this lesson?
• Are you doing realistic practice tests using the Cambridge books?
• What scores do you get when you do practice tests?
• What problems do you notice when you do practice tests?

Try to work out what is going wrong, and then I'll be able to give you better advice.

IELTS Reading: read phrase by phrase

People who read too quickly in the IELTS test often miss the answers. If you go too fast, you won't really understand what you're reading, and you'll start to panic when you don't find what you're looking for.

On the other hand, some people read too slowly; they read each word as if it were a separate item on the page. These people tend not to finish the test.

Instead of skimming too quickly or reading each word slowly, I recommend that you read phrase by phrase. For example, read the first sentence of this lesson as three phrases:

People who read too quickly .....  in the IELTS test ..... often miss the answers.

Try to get into the habit of reading phrase by phrase. You should find that you can go at a reasonable speed and that you'll understand (almost) everything.

IELTS Reading: keep to a time schedule

A student asked me the following question:

"In the reading test I always spend too much time on the first two sections and never reach passage 3. How can I change this habit?"

I think the student already knew what my answer would be:

"You need to be more disciplined and force yourself to keep to a time schedule in the test."

Remember:

- Spend 20 minutes on each passage.
- Miss any questions that seem too difficult.
- Move on if a question is taking you too long.
- Get to the end of the test, and return to the questions you missed.