IELTS Reading Recent Actual Test 24

READING PASSAGE 1

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

The Origins Of Laughter

While joking and wit are uniquely human inventions, laughter certainly is not. Other creatures, including chimpanzees, gorillas and even rats, laugh. The fact that they laugh suggests that laughter has been around for a lot longer than we have.

There is no doubt that laughing typically involves groups of people. “Laughter evolved as a signal to others — it almost disappears when we are alone,” says Robert Provine, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland. Provine found that most laughter comes as a polite reaction to everyday remarks such as “see you later”, rather than anything particularly funny. And the way we laugh depends on the company we’re keeping. Men tend to laugh longer and harder when they are with other men, perhaps as a way of bonding. Women tend to laugh more and at a higher pitch when men are present, possibly indicating flirtation or even submission.

To find the origins of laughter, Provine believes we need to look at play. He points out that the masters of laughing are children, and nowhere is their talent more obvious than in the boisterous antics, and the original context is play. Well-known primate watchers, including Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall, have long argued that chimps laugh while at play. The sound they produce is known as a pant laugh. It seems obvious when you watch their behavior — they even have the same ticklish spots as we do. But after removing the context, the parallel between human laughter and a chimp’s characteristic pant laugh is not so clear. When Provine played a tape of the pant laughs to 119 of his students, for example, only two guessed correctly what it was.

These findings underline how chimp and human laughter vary- When we laugh the sound is usually produced by chopping up a single exhalation into a series of shorter with one sound produced on each inward and outward breath. The question is: does this pant laughter have the same source as our own laughter? New research lends weight to the idea that it does. The findings come from Elke Zimmerman, head of the Institute for Zoology in Germany, who compared the sounds made by babies and chimpanzees in response to tickling during the first year of; their life. Using sound spectrographs to reveal the pitch and intensity of vocalizations, she discovered that chimp and human baby laughter follow broadly the same pattern. Zimmerman believes the closeness of baby laughter to chimp laughter supports the idea that laughter was around long before humans arrived on the scene. What started simply as a modification of breathing associated with enjoyable and playful interactions has acquired a symbolic meaning as an indicator of pleasure.

Pinpointing when laughter developed is another matter. Humans and chimps share a common ancestor that lived perhaps 8 million years ago, but animals might have been laughing long before that. More distantly related primates, including gorillas, laugh, and anecdotal evidence suggests that other social mammals can do too. Scientists are currently testing such stories with a comparative analysis of just how common laughter is among animals. So far, though, the most compelling evidence for laughter beyond primates comes from research done by Jaak Panksepp from Bowling Green State University, Ohio, into the ultrasonic chirps produced by rats during play and in response to tickling.

All this still doesn’t answer the question of why we laugh at all. One idea is that laughter and tickling originated as a way of sealing the relationship between mother and child. Another is that the reflex response to tickling is protective, alerting us to the presence of crawling creatures that might harm us or compelling us to defend the parts of our bodies that are most vulnerable in hand-to-hand combat. But the idea that has gained the most popularity in recent years is that laughter in response to tickling is a way for two individuals to signal and test their trust in one another. This hypothesis starts from the observation that although a little tickle can be enjoyable, if it goes on too long it can be torture. By engaging in a bout of tickling, we put ourselves at the mercy of another individual, and laughing is what makes it a reliable signal of trust, according to Tom Flamson, a laughter researcher at the University of California, Los Angels. “Even in rats, laughter, tickle, play and trust are linked. Rats chirp a lot when they play,” says Flamson. “These chirps can be aroused by tickling. And they get bonded to us as a result, which certainly seems like a show of trust.”

We’ll never know which animal laughed the first laugh, or why. But we can be sure it wasn’t in response to a prehistoric joke. The funny thing is that while the origins of laughter are probably quite serious, we owe human laughter and our language-based humor to the same unique skill. While other animals pant, we alone can control our breath well enough to produce the sound of laughter. Without that control there would also be no speech — and no jokes to endure.

Questions 1-6

Look at the following research findings (Questions 1-6) and the list of people below.

Match each finding with the correct person, A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter, A, B, C or D, in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.

NB   You may use any letter more than once.

1   Babies and some animals produce laughter which sounds similar.

2   Primates are not the only animals who produce laughter.

3   Laughter can be used to show that we feel safe and secure with others.

4   Most human laughter is not a response to a humorous situation.

5   Animal laughter evolved before human laughter.

6   Laughter is a social activity.

List of people

A     Provine

B     Zimmerman

C     Panksepp

D     Flamson

Questions 7-10

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

Write the correct letter, A-K, in boxes 7-10 on your answer sheet.

Some scientists believe that laughter first developed out of 7 _______. Research has revealed that human and chimp laughter may have the same 8 _______. Scientists have long been aware that 9 _______ laugh, but it now appears that laughter might be more widespread than once thought. Although the reasons why humans started to laugh are still unknown, it seems that laughter may result from the 10 _______ we feel with another person.

A combat            B chirps                C pitch

D origins              E play                   F rats

G primates          H confidence

I fear                    J babies                K tickling

Questions 11-13

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

In boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE               if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE              if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN    if there is no information on this

11   Both men and women laugh more when they are with members of the same sex.

12   Primates lack sufficient breath control to be able to produce laughs the way humans do.

13   Chimpanzees produce laughter in a wider range of situations than rats do.

READING PASSAGE 2

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

The 2003 Heatwave

It was the summer, scientists now realise, when global warming at last made itself unmistakably felt. We knew that summer 2003 was remarkable: Britain experienced its record high temperature and continental Europe saw forest fires raging out of control, great rivers drying to a trickle and thousands of heat-related deaths. But just how remarkable is only now becoming clear.

The three months of June, July and August were the warmest ever recorded in western and central Europe, with record national highs in Portugal, Germany and Switzerland as well as in Britain. And they were the warmest by a very long way. Over a great rectangular block of the earth stretching from west of Paris to northern Italy, taking in Switzerland and southern Germany, the average temperature for the summer months was 3.78°C above the long-term norm, said the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, which is one of the world’s leading institutions for the monitoring and analysis of temperature records.

That excess might not seem a lot until you are aware of the context – but then you realise it is enormous. There is nothing like this in previous data, anywhere. It is considered so exceptional that Professor Phil Jones, the CRU’s director, is prepared to say openly – in a way few scientists have done before – that the 2003 extreme may be directly attributed, not to natural climate variability, but to global warming caused by human actions.

Meteorologists have hitherto contented themselves with the formula that recent high temperatures are “consistent with predictions” of climate change. For the great block of the map – that stretching between 35-50N and 0-20E – the CRU has reliable temperature records dating back to 1781. Using as a baseline the average summer temperature recorded between 1961 and 1990, departures from the temperature norm, or “anomalies”, over the area as a whole can easily be plotted. As the graph shows, such is the variability of our climate that over the past 200 years, there have been at least half a dozen anomalies, in terms of excess temperature – the peaks on the graph denoting very hot years – approaching, or even exceeding, 2°C. But there has been nothing remotely like 2003, when the anomaly is nearly four degrees.

“This is quite remarkable,’ Professor Jones told The Independent. “It’s very unusual in a statistical sense. If this series had a normal statistical distribution, you wouldn’t get this number. The return period [how often it could be expected to recur] would be something like one in a thousand years. If we look at an excess above the average of nearly four degrees, then perhaps nearly three degrees of that is natural variability, because we’ve seen that in past summers. But the final degree of it is likely to be due to global warming, caused by human actions.”

The summer of 2003 has, in a sense, been one that climate scientists have long been expecting. Until now, the warming has been manifesting itself mainly in winters that have been less cold than in summers that have been much hotter. Last week, the United Nations predicted that winters were warming so quickly that winter sports would die out in Europe’s lower-level ski resorts. But sooner or later, the unprecedented hot summer was bound to come, and this year it did.

One of the most dramatic features of the summer was the hot nights, especially in the first half of August. In Paris, the temperature never dropped below 23°C (73.4°F) at all between 7 and 14 August, and the city recorded its warmest-ever night on 11-12 August, when the mercury did not drop below 25.5°C (77.9°F). Germany recorded its warmest-ever night at Weinbiet in the Rhine Valley with a lowest figure of 27.6°C (80.6°F) on 13 August, and similar record-breaking nighttime temperatures were recorded in Switzerland and Italy.

The 15,000 excess deaths in France during August, compared with previous years, have been related to the high night-time temperatures. The number gradually increased during the first 12 days of the month, peaking at about 2,000 per day on the night of 12-13 August, then fell off dramatically after 14 August when the minimum temperatures fell by about 5°C. The elderly were most affected, with a 70 per cent increase in mortality rate in those aged 75-94.

For Britain, the year as a whole is likely to be the warmest ever recorded, but despite the high temperature record on 10 August, the summer itself – defined as the June, July and August period – still comes behind 1976 and 1995, when there were longer periods of intense heat. “At the moment, the year is on course to be the third hottest ever in the global temperature record, which goes back to 1856, behind 1998 and 2002, but when all the records for October, November and December are collated, it might move into second place/’ Professor Jones said. The ten hottest years in the record have all now occurred since 1990. Professor Jones is in no doubt about the astonishing nature of European summer of 2003. “The temperatures recorded were out of all proportion to the previous record,” he said. “It was the warmest summer in the past 500 years and probably way beyond that. It was enormously exceptional.”

His colleagues at the University of East Anglia’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research are now planning a special study of it. “It was a summer that has not been experienced before, either in terms of the temperature extremes that were reached, or the range and diversity of the impacts of the extreme heat,” said the centre’s executive director, Professor Mike Hulme. “It will certainly have left its mark on a number of countries, as to how they think and plan for climate change in the future, much as the 2000 floods have revolutionised the way the Government is thinking about flooding in the UK. The 2003 heatwave will have similar repercussions across Europe.”

Questions 14-19

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

In boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet write

YES                  if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

NO                   if the statement contradicts the views of the writer

NOT GIVEN    if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

14   The average summer temperature in 2003 is almost 4 degrees higher than the average temperature of the past.

15   Global warming is caused by human activities.

16   Jones believes the temperature variation is within the normal range.

17   The temperature is measured twice a day in major cities.

18   There were milder winters rather than hotter summers.

19   Governments are building new high-altitude ski resorts.

Questions 20-21

Answer the questions below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR NUMBERS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 20-21 on your answer sheet.

20   What are the other two hottest years in Britain besides 2003?

21   What has also influenced government policies like the hot summer in 2003?

Questions 22-25

Complete the summary below using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 22-25 on your answer sheet.

The other two hottest years around the globe were 22 _______. The ten hottest years on record all come after the year 23 _______. This temperature data has been gathered since 24 _______. Thousands of people died in the country of 25 _______.

Question 26

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

Write your answer in box 26 on your answer sheet.

26   Which one of the following can be best used as the title of this passage?

A   Global Warming

B   What Caused Global Warming

C   The Effects of Global Warming

D   That Hot Year in Europe

READING PASSAGE 3

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

Motivating Drives

Scientists have been researching the way to get employees motivated for many years. This research is a relational study which builds the fundamental and comprehensive model for study. This is especially true when the business goal is to turn unmotivated teams into productive ones. But their researchers have limitations. It is like studying the movements of car without taking out the engine.

Motivation is what drives people to succeed and plays a vital role in enhancing an organizational development. It is important to study the motivation of employees because it is related to the emotion and behavior of employees. Recent studies show there are four drives for motivation. They are the drive to acquire, the drive to bond, the drive to comprehend and the drive to defend.

The Drive to Acquire

The drive to acquire must be met to optimize the acquire aspect as well as the achievement element. Thus the way that outstanding performance is recognized, the type of perks that is provided to polish the career path. But sometimes a written letter of appreciation generates more motivation than a thousand dollar check, which can serve as the invisible power to boost business engagement. Successful organizations and leaders not only need to focus on the optimization of physical reward but also on moving other levers within the organization that can drive motivation.

The Drive to Bond

The drive to bond is also key to driving motivation. There are many kinds of bonds between people, like friendship, family. In company, employees also want to be an essential part of company. They want to belong to the company. Employees will be motivated if they find personal belonging to the company. In the meantime, the most commitment will be achieved by the employee on condition that the force of motivation within the employee affects the direction, intensity and persistence of decision and behavior in company.

The Drive to Comprehend

The drive to comprehend motivates many employees to higher performance. For years, it has been known that setting stretch goals can greatly impact performance. Organizations need to ensure that the various job roles provide employees with simulation that challenges them or allow them to grow. Employees don’t want to do meaningless things or monotonous job. If the job didn’t provide them with personal meaning and fulfillment, they will leave the company.

The Drive to Defend

The drive to defend is often the hardest lever to pull. This drive manifests itself as a quest to create and promote justice, fairness, and the ability to express ourselves freely. The organizational lever for this basic human motivator is resource allocation. This drive is also met through an employee feeling connection to a company. If their companies are merged with another, they will show worries.

Two studies have been done to find the relations between the four drives and motivation. The article based on two studies was finally published in Harvard Business Review. Most authors’ arguments have laid emphasis on four-drive theory and actual investigations. Using the results of the surveys which executed with employees from Fortune 500 companies and other two global businesses (P company and H company), the article mentions about how independent drives influence employees’ behavior and how organizational levers boost employee motivation.

The studies show that the drive to bond is most related to fulfilling commitment, while the drive to comprehend is most related to how much effort employees spend on works. The drive to acquire can be satisfied by a rewarding system which ties rewards to performances, and gives the best people opportunities for advancement. For drive to defend, a study on the merging of P company and H company shows that employees in former company show an unusual cooperating attitude.

The key to successfully motivate employees is to meet all drives. Each of these drives is important if we are to understand employee motivation. These four drives, while not necessarily the only human drives, are the ones that are central to unified understanding of modern human life.

Questions 27-31

Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D

Write the correct letter in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.

27   According to the passage, what are we told about the study of motivation?

A   The theory of motivating employees is starting to catch attention in organizations in recent years.

B   It is very important for managers to know how to motivate their subordinates because it is related to the salary of employees.

C   Researchers have tended to be too theoretical to their study.

D   The goal of employee motivation is to increase the profit of organizations.

28   What can be inferred from the passage about the study of people’s drives?

A   Satisfying employees’ drives can positively lead to the change of behavior.

B   Satisfying employees’ drives will negatively affect their emotions.

C   Satisfying employees’ drives can increase companies’ productions.

D   Satisfying employees’ drives will result in employees’ outstanding performance.

29   According to paragraph three, in order to optimize employees’ performance, _________ are needed.

A   Drive to acquire and achievement element

B   Outstanding performance and recognition

C   Career fulfillment and a thousand dollar check

D   Financial incentive and recognition

30   According to paragraph five, how does “the drive to comprehend” help employees perform better?

A   It can help employees better understand the development of their organizations.

B   It can help employees feel their task in meaningful to their companies.

C   It can help employees set higher goals.

D   It can provide employees with repetitive tasks.

31   According to paragraph six, which of following is true about “drive to defend”?

A   Organizational resource is the most difficult to allocate.

B   It is more difficult to implement than the drive to comprehend.

C   Employees think it is very important to voice their own opinions.

D   Employees think it is very important to connect with a merged corporation.

Questions 32-34

Choose THREE letters, A-F.

Write the correct letters in boxes 32-34 on your answer sheet.

Which THREE of the following statements are true of study of drives?

A   Employees will be motivated if they feel belonged to the company.

B   If employees get an opportunity of training and development program, their motivation will be enhanced.

C   If employees’ working goals are complied with organizational objectives, their motivation will be reinforced.

D   If employees’ motivation is very low, companies should find a way to increase their salary as their first priority.

E   If employees find their work lacking challenging, they will leave the company.

F   Employees will worry if their company is sold.

Questions 35-40

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?

In boxes 35-40 on your answer sheet, write

YES                  if the statement agree 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

35   Increasing pay can lead to the high work motivation.

36   Local companies benefit more from global companies through the study.

37   Employees achieve the most commitment if their drive to comprehend is met.

38   The employees in former company presented unusual attitude toward the merging of two companies.

39   The two studies are done to analyze the relationship between the natural drives and the attitude of employees.

40   Rewarding system cause the company to lose profit.