Academic IELTS Reading Test 111

IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 111 With Answers ( Passage 1 Dirty river but clean water, Passage 2 Implication of False Belief Experiments 2, Passage 3 Age-Proofing our Brains ) we prefer you to work offline, download the test paper and blank answer sheet.

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For Answers Academic IELTS Reading Test 111 Answers

Reading Passage 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 111 Reading Passage Dirty river but clean water below.

Dirty river but clean water 

Floods can occur in rivers when the flow rate exceeds the capacity of the river channel, particularly at bends or meanders in the waterway. Floods often cause damage to homes and businesses if they are in the natural floodplains of rivers. While riverine flood damage can be eliminated by moving away from rivers and other bodies of water, people have traditionally lived and worked by rivers because the land is usually flat and fertile and because rivers provide easy travel and access to commerce and industry.

{A} FIRE and flood are two of humanity’s worst nightmares. People have, therefore, always sought to control them. Forest fires are snuffed out quickly. The flow of rivers is regulated by weirs and dams. At least, that is how it used to be. But foresters have learned that forests need fires to clear out the brush and even to get seeds to germinate. And a similar revelation is now dawning on hydrologists. Rivers — and the ecosystems they support — need floods. That is why a man-made torrent has been surging down the Grand Canyon. By Thursday, March 6th it was running at full throttle, which was expected to be sustained for 60 hours.

{B} Floods once raged through the canyon every year. Spring Snow from as far away as Wyoming would melt and swell the Colorado river to a flow that averaged around 1,500 cubic meters (50,000 cubic feet) a second. Every eight years or so, that figure rose to almost 3,000 cubic metres. These floods infused the river with sediment, carved its beaches and built its sandbars.

{C} However, in the four decades since the building of the Glen Canyon dam, just upstream of the Grand Canyon, the only sediment that it has collected has come from tiny, undammed tributaries. Even that has not been much use as those tributaries are not powerful enough to distribute the sediment in an ecologically valuable way.

{D} This lack of flooding has harmed local wildlife. The humpback chub, for example, thrived in the rust-red waters of Colorado. Recently, though, its population has crashed. At first sight, it looked as if the reason was that the chub were being eaten by trout introduced for sport fishing in the mid-20th century. But trout and chub co-existed until the Glen Canyon dam was built, so something else is going on. Steve Gloss, of the United States’ Geological Survey (USGS), reckons that the chub’s decline is the result of losing their most valuable natural defense, Colorado’s rusty sediment. The chub was well adapted to the poor visibility created by the thick, red water which gave the river its name, and depended on it to hide from predators. Without the cloudy water the chub became vulnerable. 

{E} And the chub are not alone. In the years since the Glen Canyon dam was built, several species have vanished altogether. These include the Colorado pike-minnow, the razorback sucker and the roundtail chub. Meanwhile, aliens including fathead minnows, channel catfish and common carp, which would have been hard to survive in the savage waters of the undammed canyon, have moved in.

{F} So flooding is the obvious answer. Unfortunately, it is easier said than done. Floods were sent down the Grand Canyon in 1996 and 2004 and the results were mixed. In 1996 the flood was allowed to go on too long. To start with, all seemed well. The floodwaters built up sandbanks and infused the river with sediment. Eventually, however, the continued flow washed most of the sediment out of the canyon. This problem was avoided in 2004, but unfortunately, on that occasion, the volume of sand available behind the dam was too low to rebuild the sandbanks. This time, the USGS is convinced that things will be better. The amount of sediment available is three times greater than it was in 2004. So if a flood is going to do some good, this is the time to unleash one.

{G} Even so, it may turn out to be an empty gesture. At less than 1,200 cubic metres a second, this flood is smaller than even an average spring flood, let alone one of the mightier deluges of the past. Those glorious inundations moved massive quantities of sediment through the Grand Canyon, wiping the slate dirty, and making a muddy mess of silt and muck that would make modern river rafters cringe.

Questions 1-7

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 1-7 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

(1) Damage caused by fire is worse than that caused by flood

(2) The flood peaks at almost 1500 cubic meters every eight years.

(3) Contribution of sediments delivered by tributaries has little impact.

(4) Decreasing number of chubs is always caused by introducing of trout since mid 20th century.

(5) It seemed that the artificial flood in 1996 had achieved success partly at the very beginning.

(6) In fact, the yield of artificial flood water is smaller than an average natural flood at present.

(7) Mighty floods drove fast moving flows with clean and high quality water.

Questions 8-13

Complete the summary below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.

The eco-impact of the Canyon Dam Floods are people’s nightmare. In the past, the canyon was ravaged by floods every year. The snow from far Wyoming would melt in the season of 8…………and cause a flood flow peak in the Colorado river. In the four decades after people built the Glen Canyon dam, it only could gather 9.. ……together from tiny, undammed tributaries. humpback chub population reduced, why? 

Then, several species disappeared including Colorado pike-minnow, 10…………….. and the round-tail chub. Meanwhile, some moved in such as fathead minnows, channel catfish and 11……………. The non-stopped flow led to the washing away of the sediment out of the canyon, which poses great threat to the chubs because it has poor 12 …………… away from predators. In addition, the volume of 13…………available behind the dam was too low to rebuild the bars and flooding became more serious.

Reading Passage 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-27, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 111 Reading Passage Implication of False Belief Experiments 2 below.

Implication of False Belief Experiments 2

{A} A considerable amount of research since the mid-1980s has been concerned with what has been termed children’s theory of mind. This involves children’s ability to understand that people can have different beliefs and representations of the world -a capacity that is shown by four years of age. Furthermore, this ability appears to be absent in children with autism. The ability to work out what another person is thinking is clearly an important aspect of both cognitive and social development. Furthermore, one important explanation for autism is that children suffering from this condition do not have a theory of mind (TOM). Consequently, the development of children’s TOM has attracted considerable attention.

{B} Wimmer and Perner devised a ‘false belief task’ to address this question. They used some toys to act out the following story. Maxi left some chocolate in a blue cupboard before he went out. When he was away his mother moved the chocolate to a green cupboard. Children were asked to predict where Maxi will look for his chocolate when he returns. Most children under four years gave the incorrect answer, that Maxi will look in the green cupboard. Those over four years tended to give the correct answer, that Maxi will look in the blue cupboard. The incorrect answers indicated that the younger children did not understand that Maxi’s beliefs and representations no longer matched the actual state of the world, and they failed to appreciate that Maxi will act on the basis of his beliefs rather than the way that the world is actually organised. 

{C} A simpler version of the Maxi task was devised by Baron-Cohen to take account of criticisms that younger children may have been affected by the complexity and too much information of the story in the task described above. For example, the child is shown two dolls, Sally and Anne, who have a basket and a box, respectively. Sally also has a marble, which she places in her basket, and then leaves to take a walk. While she is out of the room, Anne takes the marble from the basket, eventually putting it in the box. Sally returns, and the child is then asked where Sally will look for the marble. The child passes the task if she answers that Sally will look in the basket, where she put the marble; the child fails the task if she answers that Sally will look in the box, where the child knows the marble is hidden, even though Sally cannot know, since she did not see it hidden there. In order to pass the task, the child must be able to understand that another’s mental representation of the situation is different from their own, and the child must be able to predict behavior based on that understanding. The results of research using false belief tasks have been fairly consistent: most normally-developing children are unable to pass the tasks until around age four.

{D} Leslie argues that, before 18 months, children treat the world in a literal way and rarely demonstrate pretence. He also argues that it is necessary for the cognitive system to distinguish between what is pretend and what is real. If children were not able to do this, they would not be able to distinguish between imagination and reality. Leslie suggested that this pretend play becomes possible because of the presence of a de-coupler that copies primary representations to secondary representations. For example, children, when pretending a banana is a telephone, would make a secondary representation of a banana. They would manipulate this representation and they would use their stored knowledge of ‘telephone to build on this pretence.

{E} There is also evidence that social processes play a part in the development of TOM. Meins and her colleagues have found that what they term mindmindedness in maternal speech to six-month old infants is related to both security of attachment and to TOM abilities. Mindmindedness involves speech that discusses infants’ feelings and explains their behaviour in terms of mental states (e.g. ‘you’re feeling hungry’). 

{F} Lewis investigated older children living in extended families in Crete and Cyprus. They found that children who socially interact with more adults, who have more friends, and who have more older siblings tend to pass TOM tasks at a slightly earlier age than other children. Furthermore, because young children are more likely to talk about their thoughts and feelings with peers than with their mothers, peer interaction may provide a special impetus to the development of a TOM. A similar point has been made by Dunn, who argues that peer interaction is more likely to contain pretend play and that it is likely to be more challenging because other children, unlike adults, do not make large adaptations to the communicative needs of other children.

{G} In addition, there has been concern that some aspects of the TOM approach underestimate children’s understanding of other people. After all, infants will point to objects apparently in an effort to change a person’s direction of gaze and interest; they can interact quite effectively with other people; they will express their ideas in opposition to the wishes of others; and they will show empathy for the feelings of others. All this suggests that they have some level of understanding that their own thoughts are different to those in another person’s mind. Evidence to support this position comes from a variety of sources. When a card with a different picture on each side is shown to a child and an adult sitting opposite her, then three year olds understand that they see a different picture to that seen by the adult

{H} Schatz studied the spontaneous speech of three-year-olds and found that these children used mental terms, and used them in circumstances where there was a contrast between, for example, not being sure where an object was located and finding it, or between pretending and reality. Thus the social abilities of children indicate that they are aware of the difference between mental states and external reality at ages younger than four.

{I}. A different explanation has been put forward by Harris. He proposed that children use ‘simulation’. This involves putting yourself in the other person’s position, and then trying to predict what the other person would do. Thus success on false belief tasks can be explained by children trying to imagine what they would do if they were a character in the stories, rather than children being able to appreciate the beliefs of other people. Such thinking about situations that do not exist involves what is termed counterfactual reasoning. 

Questions 14-20

Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed A-G) with opinions or deeds below. Write the appropriate letters A-G in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.

(A) Baron-Cohen 

(B) Meins 

(C) Wimmer and Perner 

(D) Lewis 

(E) Dunn 

(F) Schatz 

(G) Harris

(14) Giving an alternative explanation that children may not be understanding other’s beliefs.

(15) found that children under certain age can tell difference between reality and mentality

(16) conducted a well-known experiment and drew conclusion that young children were unable to comprehend the real state of the world

(17) found that children who gets along with adults often comparatively got through test more easily

(18) revised an easier experiment to rule out the possibility that children might be influenced by sophisticated reasoning.

(19) Related social factor such as mother-child communication to capability act in TOM

(20) explained children are less likely tell something interactive to their mother than to their friends

Questions 21-27

Summary

Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using no more than three words from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 21-27 on your answer sheet. 

In the 1980s, research was designed to test the subject called ……..21…….. that if children have the ability to represent reality. First experiment was carried out on this subject on a boy. And questions had been made on where the boy could find the location of the ……..22……… But it was accused that it was excessive ……..23……… So a second modified experiment was conducted involving two dolls, and most children passed the test at the age of ……..24……… Then Lewis and Dunn researched ……..25……. children in a certain place, and found children who have more interaction such as more conversation with……..26…….. actually have better performance in the test, and peer interaction is……..27……… because of consisting of pretending elements.

Reading Passage 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 111 Reading Passage Age-Proofing our Brains below.

Age-Proofing our Brains

{A} While it may not be possible to completely age-proof our brains, a brave new world of anti-aging research shows that our gray matter may be far more flexible than we thought. So no one, no matter how old, has to lose their mind. The brain has often been called the three-pound universe. It’s our most powerful and mysterious organ, the seat of the self, laced with as many billions of neurons as the galaxy has stars. No wonder the mere notion of an aging, failing brain–and the prospect of memory loss, confusion, and the unraveling of our personality–is so terrifying. As Mark Williams, M.D., author of The American Geriatrics Society’s Complete Guide to Aging and Health, says, “The fear of dementia is stronger than the fear of death itself.” Yet the degeneration of the brain is far from inevitable. “Its design features are such that it should continue to function for a lifetime,” says Zaven Khachaturian, Ph.D., director of the Alzheimer’s Association’s Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Institute. “There’s no reason to expect it to deteriorate with age, even though many of us are living longer lives.” In fact, scientists’ view of the brain’s potential is rapidly changing, according to Stanford University neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D. “Thirty-five years ago we thought Alzheimer’s disease was a dramatic version of normal aging . Now we realize it’s a disease with a distinct pathology. In fact, some people simply don’t experience any mental decline, so we’ve begun to study them.’ Antonio Damasio, M.D., Ph.D., head of the Department of Neurology at the University of Iowa and author of Descartes’ Error, concurs. “Older people can continue to have extremely rich and healthy mental lives.’

{B} The seniors were tested in 1988 and again in 1991. Four factors were found to be related to their mental fitness: levels of education and physical activity, lung function, and feelings of self-efficacy. “Each of these elements alters the way our brain functions,” says Marilyn Albert, Ph.D., of Harvard Medical School, and colleagues from Yale, Duke, and Brandeis Universities and the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, who hypothesizes that regular exercise may actually stimulate blood flow to the brain and nerve growth, both of which create more densely branched neurons rendering the neurons stronger and better able to resist disease. Moderate aerobic exercise, including long brisk walks and frequently climbing stairs, will accomplish this.

{C} Education also seems to enhance brain function. People who have challenged themselves with at least a college education may actually stimulate the neurons in their brains. Moreover, native intelligence may protect our brains. It’s possible that smart people begin life with a greater number of neurons, and therefore have a greater reserve to fall back on if some begin to fail. “If you have a lot of neurons and keep them busy, you may be able to tolerate more damage to your brain before it shows,’ says Peter Davies, M.D., of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, Early linguistic ability also seems to help our brains later in life. A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at 93 elderly nuns and examined the autobiographies they had written 60 years earlier, just as they were joining a convent The nuns whose essays were complex and dense with ideas remained sharp into their eighties and nineties.

{D} Finally, personality seems to play an important role in protecting our mental prowess. A sense of self-efficacy may protect our brain, buffeting it from the harmful effects of stress. According to Albert, there’s evidence that elevated levels of stress hormones may harm brain cells and cause the hippocampus–a small seahorse-shaped organ that’s a crucial moderator of memory–to atrophy. A sense that we can effectively chart our own course in the world may retard the release of stress hormones and protect us as we age. “It’s not a matter of whether you experience stress or not,’ Albert concludes, “it’s your attitude toward it.” Reducing stress by meditating on a regular basis may buffer the brain as well. It also increases the activity of the brain’s pineal gland , the source of the antioxidant hormone melatonin, which regulates sleep and may retard the aging process. Studies at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and the University of Western Ontario found that people who meditated regularly had higher levels of melatonin than those who took 5-milligram supplements. Another study, conducted jointly by Maharishi International University, Harvard University, and the University of Maryland, found that seniors who meditated for three months experienced dramatic improvements in their psychological well-being, compared to their non-meditative peers.

{E} Animal studies confirm that both mental and physical activity boost brain fitness. At the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology in Urbana, Illinois, psychologist William Greenough, Ph.D., let some rats play with a profusion of toys. These rodents developed about 25 percent more connections between their neurons than did rats that didn’t get any mentally stimulating recreation. In addition, rats that exercised on a treadmill developed more capillaries in specific parts of their brains than did their sedentary counterparts. This increased the blood flow to their brains. “Clearly the message is to do as many different flyings as possible,” Greenough says.

{F} It’s not just scientists who are catching anti-aging fever. Walk into any health food store, and you’ll find nutritional formulas –with names like Brainstorm and Smart ALEC–that claim to sharpen mental ability. The book Smart Drugs & Nutrients, by Ward Dean, M.D., and John Morgenthaler, was self-published in 1990 and has sold over 120,000 copies worldwide. It has also spawned an underground network of people tweaking their own brain chemistry with nutrients and drugs–the latter sometimes obtained from Europe and Mexico. Sales of ginkgo –an extract from the leaves of the 200-million-year-old ginkgo tree, which has been shown in published studies to increase oxygen in the brain and ameliorate symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease–are up by 22 percent in the last six months alone, according to Paddy Spence, president of SPINS, a San Francisco-based market research firm. Indeed, products that increase and preserve mental performance are a small but emerging segment of the supplements industry, says Linda Gilbert, president of HealthFocus, a company that researches consumer health trends. While neuroscientists like Khachaturian liken the use of these products to the superstition of tossing salt over your shoulder, the public is nevertheless gobbling up nutrients that promise cognitive enhancement.

Questions 28-31 

Choose the Four correct letters among A-G 

Write your answers in boxes 28-31 on your answer sheet.

Which of the FOUR situations or conditions assisting the Brains’ function?

(A) Preventive treatment against Alzheimer’s disease 

(B) Doing active aerobic exercise and frequently climbing stairs 

(C) High levels of education 

(D) Early verbal or language competence training 

(E) Having more supplements such as ginkgo tree 

(F) Participate in more physical activity involving in stimulating tasks 

(G) Personality and feelings of self-fulfillment

Questions 32-39

Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed A-G) with opinions or deeds below. Write the appropriate letters A-G in boxes 32-39 on your answer sheet. 

NB you may use any latter more than once

(A) Zaven Khachaturian 

(B) William Greenough 

(C) Marilyn Albert 

(D) Robert Sapolsky 

(E) Linda Gilbert 

(F) Peter Davies 

(G) Paddy Spence

(32) Alzheimer’s was probably a kind of disease rather than a normal aging process.

(33) Keeping neurons busy, people may be able to endure more harm to your brain

(34) Regular exercises boost blood flow to the brain and increase anti-disease disability.

(35) Significant increase of Sales of ginkgo has been shown.

(36) More links between their neurons are found among stimulated animals.

(37) Effectiveness of the use of brains supplements products can be of little scientific proof.

(38) Heightened levels of stress may damage brain cells and cause part of brain to deteriorate.

(39) Products that upgrade and preserve mental competence are still a newly developing industry.

Questions 40

Choose the correct letters among A-D 

Write your answers in box 40 on your answer sheet.

According to the passage, what is the most appropriate title for this passage?

(A) Making our minds last a lifetime 

(B) amazing pills of the ginkgo 

(C) how to stay healthy in your old hood 

(D) more able a brain and neurons

For Answers Academic IELTS Reading Test 111 Answers

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