IELTS Reading Practice Test 16

READING PASSAGE 1

Studies of Noise (Pollution)

People living in a typical urban environment experience a wide range of sounds on a daily basis. In its Guidelines for Community Noise the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared, Worldwide, noise-induced hearing impairment is the most prevalent irreversible occupational hazard, and it is estimated that 120 million people worldwide now have disabling hearing difficulties,

The growing noise pollution problem has many different sources. Booming population growth and the loss of rural land to urban sprawl both play a role. Other factors include the inability of authorities in many parts of the world to implement noise-reducing legislation: the electronic nature of our age, which encourages many noisy gadgets; the rising number of vehicles on street, and busier airports.

Sound intensity is measured in decibels(dB); the unit A-weighted dB(dBA) is used to indicate how humans hear a given sound Zero dBA is considered the point at which a person begins to hear sound. A soft whisper at three feet equals 30 dBA, a busy freeway at 50 feet is around 80 dBA, and a chainsaw can reach 110 dBA.

Mark Stephenson, a senior research audiologist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), says his agency’s definition of hazardous noise is sound that exceeds 85 Dba, meaning the average noise exposure measured over a typical eight-hour workday.

In the United States, about 30 million workers are exposed to hazardous sound levels on the job, according to NIOSH. Noise in the US industry is an extremely difficult problem to monitor, acknowledges Craig Moulton, an industrial hygienist for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Still, he says, OSHA does require that any employer with staff overexposed to noise safeguard those employees against the harmful impact of noise’.

‘For many people in the United States, noise has drastically affected the quality of their lives, says Arline Bronzaft, chair of the Noise Committee of the New York City Council of the Environment, and a psychologist who has done pioneering research on the effects of noise on children’s reading ability. ‘My daughter lives near La Guardia airport in New York City, and she can’t open a window or enjoy her backyard in the summer because of the airplane noise’.

The United States is not the only country where noise pollution is affecting the quality of life. In Japan, noise pollution caused by public loudspeaker announcements and other forms of city noise has forced many Tokyo citizens to wear earplugs as they go about their daily lives. In Europe, about 65% of the population is exposed to ambient sound at levels above 55 dBA, while about 17% is exposed to levels about 65 dBA, according to the European Environment Agency.

Numerous scientific studies over the years have confirmed that exposure to certain levels of sound can damage hearing. NIOSH studies from the mid to late 1990s show that 90% of coal miners have hearing impairment by age 52- compare to 9% of the general population. NIOSH research also reveals that by age twenty-five, the average carpenter’s hearing is equivalent to that of a fifty-year-old male who hasn’t been exposed to noise.

In 2001 researchers from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that, based on audiometric testing of 5,249 children, an estimated 12.5% of American children have noise-induced hearing threshold shifts- or dulled hearing- in one or both ears. Most children with dulled hearing have only limited hearing damage, but continued exposure to excessive noise can lead to difficulties with high-frequency sound discrimination.

The effects of sound don’t stop with the ears. The non-auditory effects of noise were noted as far back as 1930 mm a study published by South and D L Laird in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. The results showed that exposure to noise caused stomach problems in healthy human beings.

Noise has also been shown to affect learning ability. In 1975 Bronzaft collaborated on a study of children in a school near a train track that showed how exposure to noise affects reading ability. Half of the students in the study were in classrooms facing the train track and the other half were in classrooms in the school’s quieter section. The findings were that students on the quieter sidle performed better on reading tests.

Bronzaft and the school principal persuaded the school board to have acoustical tiles installed in the classrooms adjacent to the tracks. The Transit Authority also undertook work on the track near the school in order to reduce noise levels. A follow-up study in 1981 found that children’s reading scores improved after these interventions were put in place.

Anti-noise activists say that Europe and several countries in Asia are more advanced than the United States in terms of combating noise. ‘Population pressure has prompted Europe to move more quickly on the noise issue,’ says Ken Hume, a principal lecturer in human physiology at the Manchester Metropolitan University in England. European cities with at least 250,000 people are developing noise maps of those cities to help leaders determine noise pollution strategies. Paris has already prepared its first noise maps. The map data will be fed into computer models that will help test the sound impact of new road layouts or buildings before construction begins.

Bronzaft stresses that governments worldwide need to direct more financial resources towards studies investigating the effects of noise, and do a better job coordinating their noise pollution efforts, so they can establish health and environmental policies based on solid scientific research.

Question 1-4

Complete the sentences below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

Write your answer in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.

1. Experts consider noise levels to be harmful if they go above _________.

2. Children with “dulled hearing” may eventually have trouble distinguishing _________ sounds.

3. Early research into physical effects other than hearing problems revealed that adults may suffer from ________ if exposed to noise.

4. Some European cities are creating __________ in order to help governments develop noise policies.

Question 5-10

Look at the following statements (questions 5-10) and the list of people and organisations below

Match each statement with the correct person or organisation, A – E.

Write the correct letter A-E in boxes 5-10 on your answer sheet.

 NB   You may use any letter more than once.

List of People and Organisations

A       World Health Organisation (WHO)

B       National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)

C       Craig Moulton

D       Arline Bronzaft

E       Center for Disease Control and Prevention

5. ____A significant proportion of American children have suffered some hearing loss as a result of exposure to noise.

6. ____Noise in our environment can affect the kind of lifestyle we have.

7. ____ American companies are expected to protect workers from the effects of excessive noise.

8. ____  Authorities should increase funding for noise pollution research.

9. ____  Permanent hearing loss caused by noise is the most commonly occurring danger in the global workplace today.

10. ____ Workers in certain occupations in the US have high rates of hearing damage.

Question 11-13

Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet.

11. As a result of the findings from Bronzaft’s train track study

A. The school moved the classrooms located near the track

B. The track was treated to make it less noisy

C. The classrooms facing the track were no longer used

D. The amount of traffic on the track was reduced

12. According to the passage, European countries are examining how noise levels will be affected by

A. Population distribution

B. The size of cities

C. Street design

D. The purpose of tower blocks

13. Which of the following is the most suitable title for Reading Passage 1?

A. Effects of noise on workers’ job performance

B. The cities most effective at reducing noise

C. Educating workers about noise

D. Living in a noisy world

READING PASSAGE 2

Roller Coaster

600 years ago, roller coaster pioneers never would have imagined the advancements that have been made to create the roller coasters of today. The tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world is the Kingda Ka, a coaster in New Jersey that launches its passengers from zero to 128 miles per hour in 3.5 seconds (most sports cars take over four seconds to get to just 60 miles per hour). It then heaves its riders skyward at a 90-degree angle (straight up) until it reaches a height of 456 feet, over one and a half football fields, above the ground, before dropping another 418 feet (Coaster Grotto “Kingda Ka”). With that said, roller coasters are about more than just speed and height, they are about the creativity of the designers that build them, each coaster having its own unique way of producing intense thrills at a lesser risk than the average car ride. Roller coasters have evolved drastically over the years, from their primitive beginnings as Russian ice slides, to the metal monsters of today. Their combination of creativity and structural elements makes them one of the purest forms of architecture.

At first glance, a roller coaster is something like a passenger train. It consists of a series of connected cars that move on tracks. But unlike a passenger train, a roller coaster has no engine or power source of its own. For most of the ride, the train is moved by gravity and momentum. To build up this momentum, you need to get the train to the top of the first hill or give it a powerful launch. The traditional lifting mechanism is a long length of chain running up the hill under the track. The chain is fastened in a loop, which is wound around a gear at the top of the hill and another one at the bottom of the hill. The gear at the bottom of the hill is turned by a simple motor. This turns the chain loop so that it continually moves up the hill like a long conveyor belt. The coaster cars grip onto the chain with several chain dogs, sturdy hinged hooks. When the train rolls to the bottom of the hill, the dogs catch onto the chain links. Once the chain dog is hooked, the chain simply pulls the train to the top of the hill. At the summit, the chain dog is released and the train starts its descent down the hill.

Roller coasters have a long, fascinating history. The direct ancestors of roller coasters were monumental ice slides – long, steep wooden slides covered in ice, some as high as 70 feet – that were popular in Russia in the 16th and 17th centuries. Riders shot down the slope in sledges made out of wood or blocks of ice, crash-landing in a sand pile. Coaster historians diverge on the exact evolution of these ice slides into actual rolling carts. The most widespread account is that a few entrepreneurial Frenchmen imported the ice slide idea to France. The warmer climate of France tended to melt the ice, so the French started building waxed slides instead, eventually adding wheels to the sledges. In 1817, the Russes a Belleville (Russian Mountains of Belleville) became the first roller coaster where the train was attached to the track (in this case, the train axle fit into a carved groove). The French continued to expand on this idea, coming up with more complex track layouts, with multiple cars and all sorts of twists and turns.

In comparison to the world’s first roller coaster, there is perhaps an even greater debate over what was America’s first true coaster. Many will say that it is Pennsylvania’s own Maunch Chunk-Summit Hill and Switch Back Railroad. The Maunch Chunk-Summit Hill and Switch Back Railroad was originally America’s second railroad and is considered by many to be the greatest coaster of all time. Located in the Lehigh Valley, it was originally used to transport coal from the top of Mount Pisgah to the bottom of Mount Jefferson, until Josiah White, a mining entrepreneur, had the idea of turning it into a part-time thrill ride. Because of its immediate popularity, it soon became strictly a passenger train. A steam engine would haul passengers to the top of the mountain, before letting them coast back down, with speeds rumoured to reach 100 miles per hour! The reason that it was called a switchback railroad, was a switch backtrack was located at the top – where the steam engine would let the riders coast back down. This type of track featured a dead end where the steam engine would detach its cars, allowing riders to coast down backwards. The railway went through a couple of minor track changes and name changes over the years but managed to last from 1829 to 1937, over 100 years.

The coaster craze in America was just starting to build. The creation of the SwitchBack Railway, by La Marcus Thompson, gave roller coasters national attention. Originally built at New York’s Coney Island in 1884, SwitchBack Railways began popping up all over the country. The popularity of these rides may puzzle the modern-day thrill-seeker, due to the mild ride they gave in comparison to the modern-day roller coaster. Guests would pay a nickel to wait in line for up to five hours just to go down a pair of side-by-side tracks with gradual hills that vehicles coasted down at the top speed of around six miles per hour. Regardless, Switchback Railways were very popular, and sparked many people, including Thompson, to design coasters that were bigger and better.

The 1910s and 1920s were probably the best decades that the roller coaster has ever seen. The new wave of technology, such as the “unstop wheels”, an arrangement that kept a coaster’s wheels to its tracks by resisting high gravitational forces, showed coasters a realm of possibilities that have never been seen before. In 1919, North America alone had about 1,500 roller coasters, a number that was rising rampantly. Then, the Great Depression gave a crushing blow to amusement parks all over America. As bad as it was, amusement parks had an optimistic look at the future in the late 1930s. But, in 1942 roller coasters could already feel the effects of World War Two, as they were forced into a shadow of neglect. Most, nearly all of America’s roller coasters were shut down. To this very day, the number of roller coasters in America is just a very tiny fraction of the number of roller coasters in the 1920s.

Questions 14-17

Answer the questions below.

A diagram that explains the mechanism and working principles of roller coaster.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

Traditional lifting mechanism

(1) Traditional roller coaster’s lifting force depends on a long time of 14 _______ for climbing up, which is connected firmly to a 15 _______ shape track

(2) there are both 16 _______ on the top and underneath the hill and it is powered by a 17 _______ when it takes a turn.

Questions 18-23

Complete the following summary, using no more than two words from the Reading Passage 2 for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 18-27 on your answer sheet.

The first roller coaster was perhaps originated from Russia which is wrapped up by____18_____ , which was introduced into France, and it was modified to 19_ because temperature there would____20_____the ice. This time _____21_____were installed on the board. In America, the first roller coaster was said to appear in Pennsylvania, it was actually a railroad which was designed to send_______22______between two mountains. Josiah White turned it into a thrill ride, it was also called switch backtrack and a ______23______there allowed riders to slide downward back again.

Questions 24-27 

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 24-27 on your answer sheet, write

YES                  if the statement is true

NO                   if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN    if the information is not given in the passage

24. The most exciting roller coaster in the world is in New Jersey.

25. French added more innovation on Russian ice slides including both cars and tracks.

26. Switchback Railways began to gain popularity since its first construction in New York.

27. The Great Depression affected amusement parks yet did not shake the significant role of US roller coasters in the world.

READING PASSAGE 3

The value of research into mite harvestmen

Few people have heard of the mite harvestman, and fewer still would recognize it at close range. The insect is a relative of the far more familiar daddy longlegs. But its legs are stubby rather than long, and its body is only as big as a sesame seed. To find mite harvestmen, scientists go to dark, humid forests and sift through the leaf litter. The animals respond by turning motionless, making them impossible for even a trained eye to pick out.’ They look like grains of dirt.’ said Gonzalo Giribet, an invertebrate biologist at Harvard University.

Dr Giribet and his colleagues have spent six years searching for mite harvestmen on five continents. The animals have an extraordinary story to tell they carry a record of hundreds of millions of years of geological history, chronicling the journeys that continents have made around the Earth. The Earth’s landmasses have slowly collided and broken apart again several times, carrying animals and plants with them. These species have provided clues to the continents’ paths.

The notion of continental drift originally came from such clues. In 1911, the German scientist Alfred Wegener was struck by the fact that fossils of similar animals and plants could be found on either side of the Atlantic. The ocean was too big for the species to have traveled across it on their own. Wegener speculated correctly, as it turned out that the surrounding continents had originally been welded together in a single landmass, which he called Pangea.

Continental drift, or plate tectonics as it is scientifically known, helped move species around the world. Armadillos and their relatives are found in South America and Africa today because their ancestors evolved when the continents were joined. When South America and North America connected a few million years ago, armadillos spread north, too.

Biogeographers can learn clues about continental drift by comparing related species. However, they must also recognize cases where species have spread for other reasons, such as by crossing great stretches of water. The island of Hawaii, for example, was home to a giant flightless goose that has become extinct. Studies on DNA extracted from its bones show that it evolved from the Canada goose. Having colonized Hawaii, it branched off from that species, losing its ability to fly. This evolution occurred half a million years ago, when geologists estimate that Hawaii emerged from the Pacific.

When species jump around the planet, their histories blur. It is difficult to say much about where cockroaches evolved, for example, because they can move quickly from continent to continent. This process, known as dispersal, limits many studies. ‘Most of them tend to concentrate on particular parts of the world.’ Dr Giribet said. I wanted to find a new system for studying biogeography on a global scale.

Dr Giribet realized that mite harvestmen might be that system. The 5,000 or so mite harvestmen species can be found on every continent except Antarctica. Unlike creatures found around the world like cockroaches, mite harvestmen cannot disperse well. The typical harvestman species has a range of fewer than 50 miles. Harvestmen are not found on young islands like Hawaii, as these types of islands emerged long after the break-up of Pangea.

According to Assistant Professor Sarah Boyer, a former student of Dr Giribet. ‘It’s really hard to find a group of species that is distributed all over the world but that also doesn’t disperse very far.’

What mite harvestmen lack in mobility, they make up in age. Their ancestors were among the first land animals, and fossils of daddy longlegs have been found in 400 million-year-ago rocks. Mite harvestmen evolved long before Pangea broke up and have been carried along by continental drift ever since they’ve managed to get themselves around the world only because they’ve been around for hundreds of millions of years, Dr Boyer said. Dr Boyer, Dr Giribet and their colleagues have gathered thousands of mite harvestmen from around the world, from which they extracted DNA. Variations in the genes helped the scientists build an evolutionary tree. By calculating how quickly the DNA mutated, the scientists could estimate when lineages branched off. They then compared the harvestmen’s evolution to the movements of the continents. ‘The patterns are remarkably clear.’ Dr Boyer said.

The scientists found that they could trace mite harvestmen from their ancestors on Pangea. One lineage includes species in Chile South Africa, Sri Lanka and other places separated by thousands of miles of ocean. But 150 million years ago, all those sites were in Gondwana which was a region of Pangea.

The harvestmen preserve smaller patterns of continental drift, as well as bigger ones. After analyzing the DNA of a Florida harvestman, Metasiro americanus, the scientists were surprised to find that it was not related to other North American species. Its closet relatives live in West Africa. Dr Boyer then began investigating the geological history of Florida and found recent research to explain the mystery. Florida started out welded to West Africa near Segenal. North America than collied into them Pangea was forming. About 170 million years ago, North America ripped away from West Africa, taking Florida with it. The African ancestors of Florida’s harvestmen came along the ride.

Dr Giribet now hopes to study dozens or even hundreds of species, to find clues about plate tectonics that a single animal could not show.

Question 28-33

Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.

28. Why is it difficult to find mite harvestmen?

A  they are too small to see with naked eye.

B  they can easily be confused with daddy longlegs. 

C  they are hard to distinguish from their surroundings.

D. they do not exist in large numbers in any one place. 

29. Why are mile harvestmen of interest to Dr Giribet and his colleagues?

A  they have been studied far less than most other species.

B  they show the effects of climate on the evolution of animals.

C  they have an unusual relationship with plants and other animals. 

D they provide evidence relating to a field of study other than insects.

30. What factor contributed to Wegener’s idea that present-day continents used to form a single landmass?

A  changes in the level of the ocean 

B the distance that species could travel

C  the lack of certain fossils on one side of the Atlantic

D  similarities in living conditions on both sides of the Atlantic

31. What point is made by the reference to armadillos? 

A  regions have both separated and become connected.

B  certain animals could travel longer distances than others.

C  the oldest species of animals are likely to be found in Africa.

D  there is a tendency for animals to spread in a particular direction. 

32. Which of the following is stated in the fifth paragraph?

A  Hawaii is a habitat that cannot support large birds.

B  Hawaii is an attractive habitat for certain species of birds.

C  flightless birds are more likely to become extinct than others. 

D  the Hawaiian goose became flightless after it had reached Hawaii.

33. Why is evidence from cockroaches of limited value? 

A they spread too fast.

B  they multiply too quickly.

C  they are found in too few places.

D  they have divided into too many species. 

Question 34-37

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage?

In boxes 34-37 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

34  The colonization of Hawaii by geese provides evidence of continental drift.

35  The reason why mite harvestmen don’t exist on Hawaii can be explained.

36  The DNA of certain species has evolved more quickly than that of others.

37  Dr Boyer’s theory concerning the origins of Florida is widely accepted.

Question 38-40

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

Write the correct letter A-I in boxes 11-14 on your answer sheet.

List of words

A       branches

B       fossils

C       drift

D       DNA

E       evolution

F       Pangea

G       dispersal

H       ancestors

I        continents

The age and evolution of mite harvestmen

Some of the first creatures to live on land were the 38________ of mite harvestmen.  Boyer, Giribet and others study differences in the DNA of these insects,  and trace the development of a number of 39_______  of the species. 

Their evolution appears to reflect changes in the location of 40_______

For example, the same type of mite harvestman is found in places that are now far apart but used to form Gondwana, part of a huge landmass.