IELTS Reading Practice Test 49

READING PASSAGE 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.

The Beginning of Football!

A

Football as we now know it developed in Britain in the 19th century, but the game is far older than this. In fact, the term has historically been applied to games played on foot, as opposed to those played on horseback, so ‘football’ hasn’t always involved kicking a ball. It has generally been played by men, though at the end of the 17th century, games were played between married and single women in a town in Scotland. The married women regularly won.

B

The very earliest form of football for which we have evidence is the ‘tsu’chu’, which was played in China and may date back 3,000 years. It was performed in front of the Emperor during festivities to mark his birthday. It involved kicking a leather ball through a 30-40 cm opening into a small net fixed onto long bamboo canes – a feat that demanded great skill and excellent technique.

C

Another form of the game, also originating from the Far East, was the Japanese ‘kemari’ which dates from about the fifth century and is still played today. This is a type of circular football game, a more dignified and ceremonious experience requiring certain skills, but not competitive in the way the Chinese game was, nor is there the slightest sign of struggle for possession of the ball. The players had to pass the ball to each other, in a relatively small space, trying not to let it touch the ground.

D

The Romans had a much livelier game, ‘harpastum’. Each team member had his own specific tactical assignment took a noisy interest in the proceedings and the score. The role of the feet was so small as scarcely to be of consequence. The game remained popular for 700 or 800 years, but, although it was taken to England, it is doubtful whether it can be considered as a forerunner of contemporary football.

E

The game that flourished in Britain from the 8th to the 19th centuries was substantially different from all the previously known forms – more disorganised, more violent, more spontaneous and usually played by an indefinite number of players. Frequently, the games took the form of a heated contest between whole villages. Kicking opponents were allowed, as in fact was almost everything else.

F

There was tremendous enthusiasm for football, even though the authorities repeatedly intervened to restrict it, as a public nuisance. In the 14th and 15th centuries, England, Scotland and France all made football punishable by law, because of the disorder that commonly accompanied it, or because the well-loved recreation prevented subjects from practicing more useful military disciplines. None of these efforts had much effect.

G

The English passion for football was particularly strong in the 16th century, influenced by the popularity of the rather better organised Italian game of ‘calcio’. English football was as rough as ever, but it found a prominent supporter in the school headmaster Richard Mulcaster. He pointed out that it had positive educational value and promoted health and strength. Mulcaster claimed that all that was needed was to refine it a little, limit the number of participants in each team and, more importantly, have a referee to oversee the game.

H

The game persisted in a disorganised form until the early 19th century, when a number of influential English schools developed their own adaptations. In some, including Rugby School, the ball could be touched with the hands or carried; opponents could be tripped up and even kicked. It was recognised in educational circles that, as a team game, football helped to develop such fine qualities as loyalty, selflessness, cooperation, subordination and deference to the team spirit. A ‘games cult’ developed in schools and some form of football became an obligatory part of the curriculum.

I

In 1863, developments reached a climax. At Cambridge University, an initiative began to establish some uniform standards and rules that would be accepted by everyone, but there were essentially two camps: the minority – Rugby School and some others – wished to continue with their own form of the game, in particular allowing players to carry the ball. In October of the same year, eleven London clubs and schools sent representatives to establish a set of fundamental rules to govern the matches played amongst them. This meeting marked the birth of the Football Association.

J

The dispute concerning kicking and tripping opponents and carrying the ball was discussed thoroughly at this and subsequent meetings, until eventually, on 8 December, the die-hard exponents of the Rugby style withdrew, marking a final split between rugby and football. Within eight years, the Football Association already had 50 member clubs, and the first football competition in the world was started – the FA Cup.

Questions 1-7

Reading Passage 1 has ten paragraphs A-J.

Choose the correct headings for paragraphs D-J from the list of headings below.

Write the correct number i-x in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i           Limited success in suppressing the game

ii          Opposition to the role of football in schools

iii         A way of developing moral values

iv         Football matches between countries

v          A game that has survived

vi         Separation into two sports

vii        Proposals for minor improvements

viii       Attempts to standardize the game

ix         Probably not an early version of football

x          A chaotic activity with virtually no rules

Example          Paragraph C                Answer v

1   Paragraph D

2   Paragraph E

3   Paragraph F

4   Paragraph G

5   Paragraph H

6   Paragraph I

7   Paragraph J

Questions 8-13

Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-L from the box below.

Write the correct letter A-F in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.

8   Tsu’chu

9   Kemari

10   Harpastum

11   From the 8th centuries, football in the British Isles

12   In the past, the authorities legitimately despised the football and acted on the belief that football.

13   When it was accepted in academic settings, football.

A   was seen as something to be encouraged in the young.

B   involved individual players having different responsibilities.

C   was influenced by a game from another country.

D   was a cooperative effort by all the players.

E   distracted people from more important activities.

F   was played by teams of a fixed size.

G   was less popular than it later became.

H   was often played by one community against another.

I   formed part of a celebration.

READING PASSAGE 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which are based on Reading Passage 2 below. 

Fossil files “The Paleobiology Database”

A

Are we now living through the sixth extinction as our own activities destroy ecosystems and wipe out diversity? That’s the doomsday scenario painted by many ecologists, and they may well be right. The trouble is we don’t know for sure because we don’t have a clear picture of how life changes between extinction events or what has happened in previous episodes. We don’t even know how many species are alive today, let alone the rate at which they are becoming extinct. A new project aims to fill some of the gaps. The Paleobiology Database aspires to be an online repository of information about every fossil ever dug up. It is a huge undertaking that has been described as biodiversity’s equivalent of the Human Genome Project. Its organizers hope that by recording the history of biodiversity they will gain an insight into how environmental changes have shaped life on Earth in the past and how they might do so in the future. The database may even indicate whether life can rebound no matter what we throw at it, or whether a human-induced extinction could be without parallel, changing the rules that have applied throughout the rest of the planet’s history.

B

But already the project is attracting harsh criticism. Some experts believe it to be seriously flawed. They point out that a database is only as good as the data fed into it, and that even if all the current fossil finds were catalogued, they would provide an incomplete inventory of life because we are far from discovering every fossilised species. They say that researchers should get up from their computers and get back into the dirt to dig up new fossils. Others are more sceptical still, arguing that we can never get the full picture because the fossil record is riddled with holes and biases.

C

Fans of the Paleobiology Database acknowledge that the fossil record will always be incomplete. But they see value in looking for global patterns that show relative changes in biodiversity. “The fossil record is the best tool we have for understanding how diversity and extinction work in normal times,” says John Alroy from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara. “Having a background extinction estimate gives us a benchmark for understanding the mass extinction that’s currently underway. It allows us to say just how bad it is in relative terms.”

D

To this end, the Paleobiology Database aims to be the most thorough attempt yet to come up with good global diversity curves. Every day between 10 and 15 scientists around the world add information about fossil finds to the database. Since it got up and running in 1998, scientists have entered almost 340,000 specimens, ranging from plants to whales to insects to dinosaurs to sea urchins. Overall totals are updated hourly at www. paleodb.org. Anyone can download data from the public part of the site and play with the numbers to their heart’s content. Already, the database has thrown up some surprising results. Looking at the big picture, Alroy and his colleagues believe they have found evidence that biodiversity reached a plateau long ago, contrary to the received wisdom that species numbers have increased continuously between extinction events. “The traditional view is that diversity has gone up and up and up,” he says. “Our research is showing that diversity limits were approached many tens of millions of years before the dinosaurs evolved, much less suffered extinction.” This suggests that only a certain number of species can live on Earth at a time, filling a prescribed number of niches like spaces in a multi-storey car park. Once it’s full, no more new species can squeeze in, until extinctions free up new spaces or something rare and catastrophic adds a new floor to the car park.

E

Alroy has also used the database to reassess the accuracy of species names. His findings suggest that irregularities in classification inflate the overall number of species in the fossil record by between 32 and 44 per cent. Single species often end up with several names, he says, due to misidentification or poor communication between taxonomists in different countries. Repetition like this can distort diversity curves. “If you have really bad taxonomy in one short interval, it will look like a diversity spike – a big diversification followed by a big extinction – when all that has happened is a change in the quality of names,” says Alroy. For example, his statistical analysis indicated that of the 4861 North American fossil mammal species catalogued in the database, between 24 and 31 per cent will eventually prove to be duplicated.

F

Of course, the fossil record is undeniably patchy. Some places and times have left behind more fossil-filled rocks than others. Some have been sampled more thoroughly. And certain kinds of creatures – those with hard parts that lived in oceans, for example – are more likely to leave a record behind, while others, like jellyfish, will always remain a mystery. Alroy has also tried to account for this. He estimates, for example, that only 41 per cent of North American mammals that have ever lived are known from fossils, and he suspects that a similar proportion of fossils are missing from other groups, such as fungi and insects.

G

Not everyone is impressed with such mathematical wizardry. Jonathan Adrain from the University of Iowa in Iowa City points out that statistical wrangling has been known to create mass extinctions where none occurred. It is easy to misinterpret data. For example, changes in sea level or inconsistent sampling methods can mimic major changes in biodiversity. Indeed, a recent and thorough examination of the literature on marine bivalve fossils has convinced David Jablonsky from the University of Chicago and his colleagues that their diversity has increased steadily over the past 5 million years.

H

With an inventory of all living species, ecologists could start to put the current biodiversity crisis in historical perspective. Although creating such a list would be a task to rival even the Palaeobiology Database, it is exactly what the San Francisco-based ALL Species Foundation hopes to achieve in the next 25 years. The effort is essential, says Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson, who is alarmed by current rates of extinction. “There is a crisis. We’ve begun to measure it, and it’s very high,” Wilson says. “We need this kind of information in much more detail to protect all of biodiversity, not just the ones we know well.” Let the counting continue.

Questions 14-19

The reading passage has seven paragraphs, A-F.

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-F from the list below.

Write the correct number, i-vii, in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i           Potential error exists in the database

ii          Supporter of database recleared its value

iii         The purpose of this paleobiology data

iv         Reason why some certain species were not included in it

v          Duplication of the breed but with different names

vi         Achievement of Paleobiology Databasesince

vii        Criticism on the project which is a waste of fund

14   Paragraph A

15   Paragraph B

16   Paragraph C

17   Paragraph D

18   Paragraph E

19   Paragraph F

Questions 20-22

Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed A-C) with opinions or deeds below.

Write the appropriate letters A-C in boxes 20-22 on your answer sheet.

A     Jonathan Adrain

B     John Alroy

C     David Jablonsky

D     Edward O.Wilson

20   Creating the Database would help scientist to identify connections of all species.

21   Believed in the contribution of detailed statistics should cover beyond the known species.

22   reached a contradictory finding to the tremendous species die-out.

Questions 23-24

Choose the TWO correct letter following

Write your answers in boxes 23-24 on your answer sheet.

Please choose TWO CORRECT descriptions about the The Paleobiology Database in this passage:

A     almost all the experts welcome this project

B     intrigues both positive and negative opinions from various experts

C     all different creature in the database have a unique name

D     aims to embrace all fossil information globally

E     get more information from record rather than the field 

Questions 25-26

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

Write your answers in boxes 25-26 on your answer sheet.

25   According to the passage, jellyfish belongs to which category of The Paleobiology Database?

A   repetition breed

B   untraceable species

C   specifically detailed species

D   currently living creature

26   What is the author’s suggestion according to the end of the passage?

A   continue to complete counting the number of species in the Paleobiology Database

B   stop contributing The Paleobiology Database

C   try to create a database of a living creature

D   study more in the field rather than in the book

READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

The History of building Telegraph lines

A

The idea of electrical communication seems to have begun as long ago as 1746 when about 200 monks at a monastery in Paris arranged themselves in a line over a mile long, each holding ends of 25 ft iron wires. The abbot, also a scientist, discharged a primitive electrical battery into the wire, giving all the monks a simultaneous electrical shock. “This all sounds very silly, but is in fact extremely important because, firstly, they all said ‘ow’ which showed that you were sending a signal right along the line; and, secondly, they all said ‘ow’ at the same time, and that meant that you were sending the signal very quickly, “explains Tom Standage, author of the Victorian Internet and technology editor at the Economist. Given a more humane detection system, this could be a way of signaling over long distances.

B

With wars in Europe and colonies beyond, such a signaling system was urgently needed. All sorts of electrical possibilities were proposed, some of them quite ridiculous. Two Englishmen, William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone came up with a system in which dials were made to point at different letters, but that involved five wires and would have been expensive to construct.

C

Much simpler was that of an American, Samuel Morse, whose system only required a single wire to send a code of dots and dashes. At first, it was imagined that only a few highly skilled encoders would be able to use it but it soon became clear that many people could become proficient in Morse code. A system of lines strung on telegraph poles began to spread in Europe and America.

D

The next problem was to cross the sea. Britain, as an island with an empire, led the way. Any such cable to be insulated and the first breakthrough came with the discovery that a rubber-like latex from a tropical tree on the Malay peninsula could do the trick. It was called gutta-percha. The first attempt at a cross channel cable came in 1850. With thin wire and thick installation, it floated and had to be weighed down with a lead pipe.

E

It never worked well as the effect of water on its electrical properties was not understood, and it is reputed that a French fisherman hooked out a section and took it home as a strange new form of seaweed. The cable was too big for a single boat so two had to start in the middle of the Atlantic, join their cables and sail in opposite directions. Amazingly, they succeeded in 1858, and this enabled Queen Victoria to send a telegraph message to President Buchanan. However, the 98-word message took more than 19 hours to send and a misguided attempt to increase the speed by increasing the voltage resulted in the failure of the line a week later.

F

By 1870, a submarine cable was heading towards Australia. It seemed likely that it would come ashore at the northern port of Darwin from where it might connect around the coast to Queensland and New South Wales. It was an undertaking more ambitious than spanning an ocean. Flocks of sheep had to be driven with the 400 workers to provide food. They needed horses and bullock carts and, for the parched interior, camels. In the north, tropical rains left the teams flooded. In the centre, it seemed that they would die of thirst. One critical section in the red heart of Australia involved finding a route through the McDonnell mountain range and the finding water on the other side.

G

The water was not only essential for the construction team. There had to be telegraph repeater stations every few hundred miles to boost the signal and the staff obviously had to have a supply of water. Just as one mapping team was about to give up and resort to drinking brackish water, some aboriginals took pity on them. Altogether, 40,000 telegraph poles were used in the Australian overland wire. Some were cut from trees. Where there were no trees, or where termites ate the wood, steel poles were imported.

H

On Thursday, August 22, 1872, the overland line was completed and the first messages could be sent across the continent; and within a few months, Australia was at last in direct contact with England via the submarine cable, too. The line remained in service to bring news of the Japanese attack on Darwin in 1942. It could cost several pounds to send a message and it might take several hours for it to reach its destination on the other side of the globe, but the world would never be the same again. Governments could be in touch with their colonies. Traders could send cargoes based on demand and the latest prices. Newspapers could publish news that had just happened and was not many months old.

Questions 27-32

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE               if the statement is true

FALSE              if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN    if the information is not given in the passage

27   In the research of French scientists, the metal lines were used to send a message.

28   Abbots gave the monks an electrical shock at the same time, which constitutes the exploration of the long-distance signaling.

29   Using Morse Code to send message need to simplify the message firstly.

30   Morse was a famous inventor before he invented the code

31   The water is significant to early telegraph repeater on the continent.

32   US Government offered fund to the 1st overland line across the continent.

Questions 33-40

Answer the questions below.

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

Write your answers in boxes 33-40 on your answer sheet.

33   Why is the disadvantage for Charles Wheatstone’s telegraph system to fail in the beginning?

34   What material was used for insulating cable across the sea?

35   What was used by British pioneers to increase the weight of the cable in the sea?

36   What dis Fisherman mistakenly take the cable as?

37   Who was the message firstly sent to across the Atlantic by the Queen?

38   What giant animals were used to carry the cable through the desert?

39   What weather condition did it delay the construction in north Australia?

40   How long did it take to send a telegraph message from Australia to England