IELTS Reading Practice Test 50

READING PASSAGE 1

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

Density and Crowding

A

Of the great myriad of problems which man and the world face today, there are three significant trends which stand above all others in importance: the unprecedented population growth throughout the world – a net increase of 1,400,000 people per week – and all of its associations and consequences; the increasing urbanization of these people, so that more and more of them are rushing into cities and urban areas of the world; and the tremendous explosion of communication and social contact throughout the world, so that every part of the world is now aware of every other part. All of these trends are producing increased crowding and the perception of crowding.

B

It is important to emphasize at the outset that crowding and density are not necessarily the same. Density is the number of individuals per unit area or unit space. It is a simple physical measurement. Crowding is a product of density, communication, contact, and activity. It implies a pressure, a force, and a psychological reaction. It may occur at widely different densities. The frontiersman may have felt crowded when someone built a homestead a mile away. The suburbanite may feel relatively uncrowded in a small house on a half-acre lot if it is surrounded by trees, bushes, and a hedgerow, even though he lives under much higher physical density than did the frontiersman. Hence, crowding is very much a psychological and ecological phenomenon and not just a physical condition.

C

A classic crowding study was done by Calhoun (1962), who put rats into a physical environment designed to accommodate 50 rats and provided enough food, water, and nesting materials for the number of rats in the environment. The rat population peaked at 80, providing a look at cramped living conditions. Although the rats experienced no resource limitations other than space restriction, a number of negative conditions developed: the two most dominant males took harems of several female rats and occupied more than their share of space, leaving other rats even more crowded; many females stopped building nests and abandoned their infant rats; the pregnancy rate declined; infant and adult mortality rates increased; more aggressive and physical attacks occurred; sexual variation increased, including hypersexuality, inhibited sexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality.

D

Calhoun’s results have led to other research on crowding’s effect on human beings, and these research findings have suggested that high density is not the single cause of negative effects on humans. When crowding is defined only in terms of spatial density (the amount of space per person), the effects of crowding are variable. However, if crowding is defined in terms of social density, or the number of people who must interact, then crowding better predicts negative psychological and physical effects.

E

There are several reasons why crowding makes us feel uncomfortable. One reason is related to stimulus overload – there are just too many stimuli competing for our attention. We cannot notice or respond to all of them. This feeling is typical of the harried mother, who has several children competing for her attention, while she is on the phone and the doorbell is ringing. This leaves her feeling confused, fatigued and yearning to withdraw from the situation. There are strong feelings of a lack of privacy – being unable to pay attention to what you want without being repeatedly interrupted or observed by others.

F

Field studies done in a variety of settings illustrate that social density is associated with negative effects on human beings. In prison studies, males generally became more aggressive with increases in density. In male prison, inmates living in conditions of higher densities were more likely to suffer from the fight. Males rated themselves as more aggressive in small rooms (a situation of high spatial density), whilst the females rated themselves as more aggressive in large rooms (Stokols et al., 1973). These differences relate to the different personal space requirements of the genders. Besides, Baum and Greenberg found that high density leads to decreased attraction, both physical attraction and liking towards others and it appears to have gender differences in the impact that density has on attraction levels, with males experiencing a more extreme reaction. Also, the greater the density is, the less the helping behavior. One reason why the level of helping behavior may be reduced in crowded situations links to the concept of diffusion of responsibility. The more people that are present in a situation that requires help, the less often help is given. This may be due to the fact that people diffuse responsibility among themselves with no one feeling that they ought to be the one to help.

G

Facing all these problems, what are we going to do with them? The more control a person has over the crowded environment the less negatively they experience it, thus the perceived crowding is less (Schmidt and Keating). The ability to cope with crowding is also influenced by the relationship the individual has with the other people in the situation. The high density will be interpreted less negatively if the individual experiences it with people he likes. One of the main coping strategies employed to limit the impact of high density is social withdrawal. This includes behaviors such as averting the gaze and using negative body language to attempt to block any potential intrusions. 

Questions 1-7

Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs, A-G

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-G from the list of headings below.

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

List of headings

i           Other experiments following Calhoun’s experiment offering a clearer indication

ii          The effects of crowding on people in the social scope

iii         Psychological reaction to crowding

iv         Problems that result in crowding

v          Responsibility does not work

vi         What causes the upset feel of crowding

vii        Definitions of crowding and density

viii       Advice for the crowded work environment

ix         Difference between male and females’ attractiveness in a crowd

x          Nature and results of Calhoun’s experiment

1   Paragraph A

2   Paragraph B

3   Paragraph C

4   Paragraph D

5   Paragraph E

6   Paragraph F

7   Paragraph G

Questions 8-13

Complete the sentences below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.

8   Being disturbed repeatedly, the harried mother feels frustrated for the lack of…………………..

9   Inmates in high-density settings were more aggressive in…………………..

10   The different result between male and female is associated with the varying need of………………….

11   Especially for male, Baum and Greenberg found that ………………………. declined with high density.

12   The idea of responsibility diffusion may explain a person’s reluctant to ………………………

13   Schmidt and Keating suggest that if more……………………. was present there would be a reduction in crowding stress.

READING PASSAGE 2

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

Intelligence and Giftedness

A

In 1904 the French minister of education, facing limited resources for schooling, sought a way to separate the unable from the merely lazy. Alfred Binet got the job of devising selection principles and his brilliant solution put a stamp on the study of intelligence and was the forerunner of intelligence tests still used today, he developed a thirty-problem test in 1905, which tapped several abilities related to intellect, such as judgment and reasoning, the test determined a given child’s mental age’. The test previously established a norm for children of a given physical age. (for example, five-year-old on average get ten items correct), therefore, a child with a mental age of five should score 10, which would mean that he or she was functioning pretty much as others of that age. The child’s mental age was then compared to his physical age.

B

A large disparity in the wrong direction (e.g., a child of nine with a mental age of four) might suggest inability rather than laziness and mean he or she was earmarked for special schooling, Binet, however, denied that the test was measuring intelligence, its purpose was simply diagnostic, for selection only. This message was however lost and caused many problems and misunderstanding later.

C

Although Binet’s test was popular, it was a bit inconvenient to deal with a variety of physical and mental ages. So in 1912, Wilhelm Stern suggested simplifying this by reducing the two to a single number, he divided the mental age by the physical age and multiplied the result by 100. An average child, irrespective of age, would score 100. A number much lower than 100 would suggest the need for help, and one much higher would suggest a child well ahead of his peer.

D

This measurement is what is now termed the IQ (for intelligence quotient) score and it has evolved to be used to show how a person, adult or child, performed in relation to others. (the term IQ was coined by Lewis M. Terman, professor of psychology and education of Stanford University, in 1916. He had constructed an enormously influential revision of Binet’s test, called the Stanford-Binet test, versions of which are still given extensively.)

E

The field studying intelligence and developing tests eventually coalesced into a sub-field of psychology called psychometrics (psycho for ‘mind’ and metrics for ‘measurements’). The practical side of psychometrics (the development and use of tests) became widespread quite early, by 1917, when Einstein published his grand theory of relativity, mass-scale testing was already in use. Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare (which led to the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915) provoked the United States to finally enter the First World War in the same year. The military had to build up an army very quickly; it had two million inductees to sort out. Who would become officers and who enlisted men? Psychometricians developed two intelligence tests that help sort all these people out, at least to some extent, this was the first major use of testing to decide who lived and who died, as officers were a lot safer on the battlefield, the tests themselves were given under horrendously bad conditions, and the examiners seemed to lack commonsense, a lot of recruits simply had no idea what to do and in several sessions most inductees scored zero! The examiners also came up with the quite astounding conclusion from the testing that the average American adult’s intelligence was equal to that of a thirteen-year-old!

F

Intelligence testing enforced political and social prejudice, their results were used to argue that Jews ought to be kept out of the united states because they were so intelligently inferior that they would pollute the racial mix, and blacks ought not to be allowed to breed at all. And so abuse and test bias controversies continued to plaque psychometrics.

G

Measurement is fundamental to science and technology, science often advances in leaps and bounds when measurement devices improve, psychometrics has long tried to develop ways to gauge psychological qualities such as intelligence and more specific abilities, anxiety, extroversion, emotional stability, compatibility, with a marriage partner, and so on. Their scores are often given enormous weight, a single IQ measurement can take on a life of its own if teachers and parents see it as definitive, it became a major issue in the 70s, when court cases were launched to stop anyone from making important decisions based on IQ test scores, the main criticism was and still is that current tests don’t really measure intelligence, whether intelligence can be measured at all is still controversial, some say it cannot others say that IQ tests are psychology’s greatest accomplishments. 

Questions 14-17

The Reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-G

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter A-G, in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.

14   IQ is just one single factor of human characteristics.

15   Discussion of the methodology behind Professor Stern’s test.

16   Inadequacy of IQ test from Binet.

17   The definition of IQ was created by a professor.

Questions 18-21

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

Write your answers in boxes 18-21 on your answer sheet.

18   Professor Binet devises the test to ……………………

A   find those who do not perform satisfied

B   choose the best one

C   measure the intelligence

D   establish the standard of intelligence

19   The test is designed according to ……………………

A   math

B   age

C   reading skill

D   gender

20   U.S. Army used Intelligence tests to select………………………

A   Officers

B   Normal Soldiers

C   Examiners

D   Submarine drivers.

21   the purpose of the text is to……………………

A   Give credit to the contribution of Binet in IQ test

B   prove someone’s theory is feasible.

C   discuss the validity and limitation of the test

D   outline the history of the test

Questions 22-26

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?

In boxes 22-26 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

22   Part the intension in designing the test by professor Binet has been misunderstood.

23   Age as a factor is completely overlooked in the simplified tests by Wilhelm Stern

24   Einstein was a counter-example of IQ test conclusion.

25   IQ test may probably lead to racial discrimination as a negative effect.

26   The author regards measuring intelligent test as a goal hardly meaningful.

READING PASSAGE 3

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

Making of Olympic Torch

A

Every two years, people around the world wait in anticipation as a torch-bearing runner enters the Olympic arena and lights the cauldron. The symbolic lighting of the Olympic flame marks the beginning of another historic Olympic Games. The opening ceremony is the end of a long journey for the Olympic torch. The ancient Greeks revered the power of fire. In Greek mythology, the god Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and gave it to humans. The Greeks held their first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. The Games, held every four years at Olympia, honored Zeus and other Greek gods. A constantly burning flame was a regular fixture throughout Greece. At the start of the Olympic Games, the Greeks would ignite a cauldron of flame upon the altar dedicated to Hera, goddess of birth and marriage.

B

The flame was reintroduced to the Olympics at the 1928 Amsterdam Games. A cauldron was lit, but there was no torch relay. The first Olympic torch relay was at the 1936 Berlin Summer Games and it was not introduced to the Winter Olympics until the 1952 Games. It was lit that year not in Olympia, Greece, but in Norway, which was chosen because it was the birthplace of skiing. But since the 1964 Olympics at Innsbruck, Austria, every Olympic Games – Winter and Summer – has begun with a torch-lighting ceremony in Olympia, Greece, followed by a torch relay to the Olympic stadium.

Designing an Olympic Torch

C

The torch starts out as an idea in the mind of a designer or group of designers. Several design teams submit proposals to the Olympic Committee for the opportunity to create and build the torch. The team that wins the assignment will design a torch that is both aesthetically pleasing and functional. A torch can take a year or two to design and build. And once the torch has been built, it must be tested rigorously in all kinds of weather conditions. The look of the modern Olympic torch originated with John Hench, a Disney artist who designed the torch for the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California. His design provided the basis for all future torches. Since then, designers have tried to create a torch that represents the host country and the theme for that Olympic Games.

D

The torch must then be replicated … and replicated. It’s not just one torch making the journey to the Olympic stadium; it’s thousands. Anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 torches are constructed to accommodate the thousands of runners who carry them through each leg of the Olympic relay. Each runner has the opportunity to purchase his torch at the end of his leg of the relay.

Olympic Torch fuel

E

The first torch used in the modern Olympics (the 1936 Berlin Games) was made of a thin steel rod topped with a circular piece from which the flame rose. It was inscribed with a dedication to the runners. The torch must stay lit for the entire length of its journey. It must survive wind, rain, sleet, snow, and a variety of climates (desert, mountain, and ocean). For fuel, early torches burned everything from gunpowder to olive oil. Some torches used a mixture of hexamine (a mixture of formaldehyde and ammonia) and naphthalene (the hydrogen- and carbon-based substance in mothballs) with an igniting liquid. These substances weren’t always the most efficient fuel sources, and they were sometimes dangerous. In the 1956 Games, the final torch in the relay was lit by magnesium and aluminum, burning chunks of which fell from the torch and seared the runner’s arms. The first liquid fuels were introduced at the 1972 Munich Games. Torches since that time have carried liquid fuels – they are stored under pressure as a liquid but burn as a gas to produce a flame. Liquid fuel is safe for the runner and can be stored in a lightweight canister. The torch designed for the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics has an aluminum base that houses a small fuel tank. As fuel rises through the handle, it is pushed through a brass valve with thousands of tiny openings. As the fuel squeezes through the small openings, it builds pressure. Once it makes it through the openings, the pressure drops, and the liquid fuel turns into gas for burning. The tiny holes maintain a high pressure in the fuel to keep the flame going through harsh conditions.

F

The 1996 torch was fueled by propylene, which produced a bright flame. But because propylene contains a high level of carbon, it also produced a lot of smoke – not a plus for the environment. In 2000, the creators of the Sydney Olympic torch came up with a more lightweight, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly design. To fuel their torch, they decided on a mixture of 35 percent propane (the gas used to heat home stoves and barbecue grills) and 65 percent butane (cigarette lighter fuel), which ignites a strong flame without making a lot of smoke. Because the propane/butane mixture can be stored as a liquid under relatively light pressure, it can be kept in a lightweight container. It then burns as a gas under normal atmospheric pressure. The liquid fuel is stored in an aluminum canister located about halfway up the torch. If flows up to the top of the torch through a pipe. Before leaving the pipe, the liquid fuel is forced through a tiny hole. Once it moves through the hole, there is a pressure drop, causing the liquid to turn into gas for burning. The torch moves the liquid fuel at a consistent rate to the burner, so the flame always burns with the same intensity. The torch can stay lit for about 15 minutes.

G

The engineers behind both the 1996 and 2000 torches adopted a burner system that utilized a double flame, helping them to stay lit even in erratic winds. The external flame burns slowly and at a lower temperature than the internal flame. This flame is big and bright orange, so it can be seen clearly, but it is unstable in winds. The interior flame burns hotter, producing a blue flame that is small but very stable because its internal location protects it from the wind. It would act like a pilot light, able to relight the external flame should it go out.

H

When the 2002 Olympic Torch, in Salt lake city, the top section was glass, and the Olympic Flame burned within the glass, echoing the 2002 Olympic theme Light the Fire Within. The glass stood for purity, winter, ice, and nature. Also inside the glass was a geometric copper structure which helped hold the flame. The two silver sections also mirrored the blue/ purple colors of the Fire and Ice theme.

Questions 27-29

Complete the summary below using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage

Write your answers in boxes 27-29 on your answer sheet.

The Olympic torch, as Olympic Committee requested, is carefully designed which takes years to design and build so that it is capable of withstanding all kinds of 27………………….. and staying lit through widely differing weather conditions. The torch used in the modern Olympics which is to hold the 28…………………… And the torch must then be copied and thousands are built as demanded by the thousands of runners who carry them through. Each runner has the opportunity to 29…………………… his torch at the completion of his journey of the relay for memorial and as for souvenirs.

Questions 30-35

Match the following statements as applying to different Olympic flames A-H.

NB  There are more choices than questions. You may not need all the choices.

A   ancient Greek Olympic flames

B   Berlin Games torch (1936)

C   1952 Winter Games flame

D   1956 Games torch

E   Munich Games torch (1972)

F   1996 torch (Atlanta)

G   2000 torch (Sydney)

H   2002 torch (Salt lake city)

Write your answers in boxes 30-35 on your answer sheet.

30   first liquid fuel torch

31   not environmentally friendly

32   began to record the runners’ name

33   potential risky as it burnt runner’s arms

34   special for a theme

35   flame not lit in Greek 

Questions 36-40

Diagram filling

The chart below shows the structure of the 1996 Olympic torch.