IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 135

IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 135 ( Passage 1 New agriculture in Oregon, US, Passage 2 Inspired by Mimicking Mother Nature, Passage 3 The Secrets of Persuasion ) we prefer you to work offline, download the test paper, and blank answer sheet.

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For Answers Academic IELTS Reading Test 135 Answers

Reading Passage 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 135 Reading Passage New Agriculture in Oregon, US below.

New Agriculture in Oregon, US

{A} Onion growers in eastern Oregon are adopting a system that saves water and keeps topsoil in place, while producing the highest quality “super-colossal” onions. Pear growers in southern Oregon have reduced their use of some of the most toxic pesticides by up to two-thirds, and are still producing top-quality pears. Range managers throughout the state have controlled the poisonous weed tansy ragwort with insect predators and saved the Oregon livestock industry up to $4.8 million a year.

{B} These are some of the results Oregon growers have achieved in collaboration with Oregon State University (OSU) researchers as they test new farming methods including integrated pest management (IPM). Nationwide, however, IPM has not delivered results comparable to those in Oregon. A recent U.S General Accounting Office (GAO) report indicates that while integrated pest management can result in dramatically reduced pesticide use, the federal government has been lacking in effectively promoting that goal and implementing IPM. Farmers also blame the government for not making the new options of pest management attractive. “Wholesale changes in the way that farmers control the pests on their farms is an expensive business.” Tony Brown, of the National Farmers Association, says. “If the farmers are given tax breaks to offset the expenditure, then they would willingly accept the new practices.” The report goes on to note that even though the use of the riskiest pesticides has declined nationwide, they still make up more than 40 percent of all pesticides used today; and national pesticide use has risen by 40 million kilograms since 1992. “Our food supply remains the safest and highest quality on Earth but we continue to overdose our farmland with powerful and toxic pesticides and to under-use the safe and effective alternatives,” charged Patrick Leahy, who commissioned the report. Green action groups disagree about the safety issue. “There is no way that habitual consumption of foodstuffs grown using toxic chemicals of the nature found on today’s farms can be healthy for consumers,” noted Bill Bowler, spokesman for Green Action, one of many lobbyists interested in this issue.

{C} The GAO report singles out Oregon’s apple and pear producers who have used the new IPM techniques with growing success. Although Oregon is clearly ahead of the nation, scientists at OSU are taking the Government Accounting Office criticisms seriously. “We must continue to develop effective alternative practices that will reduce environmental hazards and produce high quality products,” said Paul Jepson, a professor of entomology at OSU and new director of

{D} OSU’s Integrated Plant Protection Centre (IPPC). The IPPC brings together scientists from OSU’s Agricultural Experiment Station, OSU Extension service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Oregon farmers to help develop agricultural systems that will save water and soil, and reduce pesticides. In response to the GAO report, the Centre is putting even more emphasis on integrating research and farming practices to improve Oregon agriculture environmentally and economically.

{E} “The GAO report criticizes agencies for not clearly communicating the goals of IPM,” said Jepson. “Our challenge is to greatly improve the communication to and from growers, to learn what works and what doesn’t. The work coming from OSU researchers must be adopted in the field and not simply languish in scientific journals.”

{F} In Oregon, growers and scientists are working together to instigate new practices. For example, a few years ago scientists at OSU’s Malheur Experiment Station began testing a new drip irrigation system to replace old ditches that wasted water and washed soil and fertilizer into streams. The new system cut water and fertilizer use by half, kept topsoil in place and protected water quality. 

{G} In addition, the new system produced crops of very large onions, rated “super colossal” and highly valued by the restaurant industry and food processors. Art Pimms, one of the researchers at Malheur comments: “Growers are finding that when they adopt more environmentally benign practices, they can have excellent results. The new practices benefit the environment and give the growers their success.”

{H} OSU researchers in Malheur next tested straw mulch and found that it successfully held soil in place and kept the ground moist with less irrigation. In addition, and unexpectedly, the scientists found that the mulched soil created a home for beneficial beetles and spiders that prey on onion thrips – a notorious pest in commercial onion fields – a discovery that could reduce the need for pesticides. “I would never have believed that we could replace the artificial pest controls that we had before and still keep our good results,” commented Steve Black, a commercial onion farmer in Oregon, “but instead we have actually surpassed expectations.”

{I} OSU researchers throughout the state have been working to reduce dependence on broad spectrum chemical sprays that are toxic to many kinds of organisms, including humans. “Consumers are rightly putting more and more pressure on the industry to change its reliance on chemical pesticides, but they still want a picture-perfect product,” said Rick Hilton, entomologist at OSU’s Southern Oregon Research and Extension Centre, where researchers help pear growers reduce the need for highly toxic pesticides. Picture perfect pears are an important product in Oregon and traditionally they have required lots of chemicals. In recent years, the industry has faced stiff competition from overseas producers, so any new methods that growers adopt must make sense economically as well as environmentally. Hilton is testing a growth regulator that interferes with the molting of codling moth larvae . Another study used pheromone pensers to disrupt codling moth mating. These and other methods of integrated pest management have allowed pear growers to reduce their use of organophosphates by two-thirds and reduce all other synthetic pesticides by even more and still produce top-quality pears. These and other studies around the state are part of the effort of the IPPC to find alternative farming practices that benefit both the economy and the environment. 

Questions 1-8 IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 135

Use the information in the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 135 passage to match the people (listed A-G) with opinions or deeds below. Write the appropriate letters A-G in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.

NB you may use any letter more than once

(1) There is a double-advantage to the new techniques.

(2) The work on developing these alternative techniques is not finished.

(3) Eating food that has had chemicals used in its production is dangerous to our health.

(4) Changing current farming methods into a new one is not a cheap process.

(5) Results have exceeded the anticipated goal.

(6) The research done should be translated into practical projects.

(7) The U.S. produces the best food in the world nowadays.

(8) Expectations of end users of agricultural products affect the products.

Questions 9-13 IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 135

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

In boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet, write

(9) Integrated Pest Management has generally been regarded as a success across the US.

(10) Oregon farmers of apples and pears have been promoted as successful examples of Integrated Pest Management.

(11) The IPPC uses scientists from different organisations globally

(12) Straw mulch experiments produced unplanned benefits.

(13) The apple industry is now facing a lot of competition from abroad.

Reading Passage 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-27, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 135 Reading Passage Inspired by Mimicking Mother Nature below.

Inspired by Mimicking Mother Nature

{A} Researchers and designers around the globe endeavor to create new technologies that, by honoring the tenets of life, are both highly efficient and often environmentally friendly. And while biomimicry is not a new concept (Leonardo da Vinci looked to nature to design his flying machines, for example, and pharmaceutical companies have long been miming plant organisms in synthetic drugs), there is a greater need for products and manufacturing processes that use a minimum of energy, materials, and toxins. What’s more, due to technological advancements and a newfound spirit of innovation among designers, there are now myriad ways to mimic Mother Nature’s best assets.

{B} “We have a perfect storm happening right now,” says Jay Harman, an inventor and CEO of PAX Scientific, which designs fans, mixers, and pumps to achieve maximum efficiency by imitating the natural flow of fluids. “Shapes in nature are extremely simple once you understand them, but to understand what geometries are at play, and to adapt them, is a very complex process. We only just recently have had the computer power and manufacturing capability to produce these types of shapes.” “If we could capture nature’s efficiencies across the board, we could decrease dependency on fuel by at least 50 percent,” Harman says. “What we’re finding already with the tools and methodology we have right now is that we can reduce energy consumption by between 30 and 40 percent.” 

{C} It’s only recently that mainstream companies have begun to equate biomimicry with the bottom line. DaimlerChrysler, for example, introduced a prototype car modeled on a coral reef fish. Despite its boxy, cube-shaped body, which defies a long-held aerodynamic standard in automotive design (the raindrop shape), the streamlined boxfish proved to be aerodynamically ideal and the unique construction of its skin—numerous hexagonal, bony plates—a perfect recipe for designing a car of maximum strength with minimal weight.

{D} Companies and communities are flocking to Janine Benyus, author of the landmark book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (Perennial, 2002) and cofounder of the Biomimicry Guild, which seats biologists at the table with researchers and designers at companies such as Nike, Interface carpets, Novell, and Procter & Gamble. Their objective is to marry industrial problems with natural solutions.

{E} Benyus, who hopes companies will ultimately transcend mere product design to embrace nature on a more holistic level, breaks biomimicry into three tiers. On a basic (albeit complicated) level, industry will mimic nature’s precise and efficient shapes, structures, and geometries. The microstructure of the lotus leaf, for example, causes raindrops to bead and run off immediately, while self-cleaning and drying its surface—a discovery that the British paint company Sto has exploited in a line of building paints. The layered structure of a butterfly wing or a peacock plume, which creates iridescent color by refracting light, is being mimicked by cosmetics giant L’Oreal in a soon-to-be-released line of eye shadow, lipstick, and nail varnish.

{F} The next level of biomimicry involves imitating natural processes and biochemical “recipes”: Engineers and scientists are now looking at the nasal glands of seabirds to solve the problem of desalination; the abalone’s ability to self-assemble its incredibly durable shell in water, using local ingredients, has inspired an alternative to the conventional, and often toxic, “heat, beat, and treat” manufacturing method. How other organisms deal with harmful bacteria can also be instructive: Researchers for the Australian company Biosignal, for instance, observed a seaweed that lives in an environment teeming with microbes to figure out how it kept free of the same sorts of bacterial colonies, called biofilms, that cause plaque on your teeth and clog up your bathroom drain. They determined that the seaweed uses natural chemicals, called furanones, that jam the cell-to-cell signaling systems that allow bacteria to communicate and gather.

{G} Ultimately, the most sophisticated application of biomimicry, according to Benyus, is when a company starts seeing itself as an organism in an economic ecosystem that must make thrifty use of limited resources and creates symbiotic relationships with other organisms. A boardroom approach at this level begins with imagining any given company, or collection of industries, as a forest, prairie, or coral reef, with its own “food web”(manufacturing inputs and outputs) and asking whether waste products from one manufacturing process can be used, or perhaps sold, as an ingredient for another industrial activity. For instance, Geoffrey Coates, a chemist at Cornell, has developed a biodegradable plastic synthesized from carbon dioxide and limonene (a major component in the oil extracted from citrus rind) and is working with a cement factory to trap their waste CO2 and use it as an ingredient.

{H} Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives (ZERI), a global network of scientists, entrepreneurs, and educators, has initiated eco industrial projects that attempt to find ways to reuse all wastes as raw materials for other processes. Storm Brewing in Newfoundland, Canada—in one of a growing number of projects around the world applying ZERI principles—is using spent grains, a by-product of the beer-making process, to make bread and grow mushrooms.

As industries continue to adopt nature’s models, entire manufacturing processes could operate locally, with local ingredients like the factories that use liquefied beach sand to make windshields. As more scientists and engineers begin to embrace biomimicry, natural organisms will come to be regarded as mentors, their processes deemed masterful.

Questions 14-19

Look at the following descriptions mentioned in IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 135 Reading Passage 2. Match the three kinds of levels (A-C) listed below the descriptions. Write the appropriate letters, A-C, in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.

(A) First level: mimic nature’s precise and efficient shapes, structures, and geometries

(B) Second level: imitating natural processes and biochemical ‘recipes’

(C) Third level: creates symbiotic relationships with other like organisms

(14) Synthesized Plastic, developed together with cement factory, can recycle waste gas.

(15) Cosmetics companies produce a series of shine cosmetics colours

(16) People are inspired how to remove excess salt inspired by nature.

(17) Daimler Chrysler introduced a fish-shaped car.

(18) Marine plan company integrated itself into a part in economic ecosystem

(19) natural chemicals developed based on seaweed known to kill bacteria

Questions 20-27

Do the following statements agree with the information given in IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 135 Reading Passage 2? In boxes 20-27 on your answer sheet, write

(20) Biomimicry is a totally new concept that has been unveiled recently.

(21) Leonardo da Vinci has been the first designer to mimic nature

(22) Scientists believe it involves more than mimicking the shape to capture the design in nature

(23) We can save the utilisation of energy by up to 40% if we take advantage of the current findings.

(24) Daimler Chrysler’s prototype car modelled on a coral reef fish is a best-seller.

(25) Some great companies and communities themselves are seeking solutions beyond their own industrial scope

(26) The British paint company Sto did not make the microstructure of the lotus leaf,applicable

(27) a Canadian beer Company increased the production the by applying ZERI principles

Reading Passage 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 135 Reading Passage The Secrets of Persuasion below.

The Secrets of Persuasion

{A} Our mother may have told you the secret to getting what you ask for was to say please. The reality is rather more surprising. Adam Dudding talks to a psychologist who has made a life’s work from the science of persuasion. Some scientists peer at things through high-powered microscopes. Others goad rats through mazes, or mix bubbling fluids in glass beakers. Robert Cialdini, for his part, does curious things with towels, and believes that by doing so he is discovering important insights into how society works.

{B} Cialdini’s towel experiments (more of them later), are part of his research into how we persuade others to say yes. He wants to know why some people have a knack for bending the will of others, be it a telephone cold caller talking to you about timeshares, or a parent whose children are compliant even without threats of extreme violence. While he’s anxious not to be seen as the man who’s written the bible for snake-oil salesmen, for decades the Arizona State University social psychology professor has been creating systems for the principles and methods of persuasion and writing bestsellers about them. Some people seem to be born with the skills; Cialdini’s claim is that by applying a little science, even those of us who aren’t should be able to get our own way more often. “All my life I’ve been an easy mark for the blandishment of salespeople and fundraisers and I’d always wondered why they could get me to buy things I didn’t want and give to causes I hadn’t heard of,” says Cialdini on the phone from London, where he is plugging his latest book.

{C} He found that laboratory experiments on the psychology of persuasion were telling only part of the story, so he began to research influence in the real world, enrolling in sales-training programmes: “I learnt how to sell automobiles from a lot, how to sell insurance from an office, how to sell encyclopedias door to door.” He concluded there were six general “principles of influence” and has since put them to the test under slightly more scientific conditions. Most recently, that has meant messing about with towels. Many hotels leave a little card in each bathroom asking guests to reuse towels and thus conserve water and electricity and reduce pollution. Cialdini and his colleagues wanted to test the relative effectiveness of different words on those cards. Would guests be motivated to co-operate simply because it would help save the planet, or were other factors more compelling? To test this, the researchers changed the card’s message from an environmental one to the simple and truthful) statement that the majority of guests at the hotel had reused their towel at least once. Guests given this message were 26% more likely to reuse their towels than those given the old message. In Cialdini’s book “Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion”, co-written with another social scientist and a business consultant, he explains that guests were responding to the persuasive force of “social proof”, the idea that our decisions are strongly influenced by what we believe other people like us are doing.

{D} So much for towels. Cialdini has also learnt a lot from confectionery. Yes! cites the work of New Jersey behavioural scientist David Strohmetz, who wanted to see how restaurant patrons would respond to a ridiculously small favour from their food server, in the form of an after-dinner chocolate for each diner. The secret, it seems, is in how you give the chocolate. When the chocolates arrived in a heap with the bill, tips went up a miserly 3% compared to when no chocolate was given. But when the chocolates were dropped individually in front of each diner, tips went up 14%. The scientific breakthrough, though, came when the waitress gave each diner one chocolate, headed away from the table then doubled back to give them one more each, as if such generosity had only just occurred to her. Tips went up 23%. This is “reciprocity” in action: we want to return favours done to us, often without bothering to calculate the relative value of what is being received and given.

{E} Geeling Ng, operations manager at Auckland’s Soul Bar, says she’s never heard of Kiwi waiting staff using such a cynical trick, not least because New Zealand tipping culture is so different from that of the US: “If you did that in New Zealand, as diners were leaving they’d say ‘can we have some more?” But she certainly understands the general principle of reciprocity. The way to a diner’s heart is “to give them something they’re not expecting in the way of service. It might be something as small as leaving a mint on their plate, or it might be remembering that last time they were in they wanted their water with no ice and no lemon. “In America it would translate into an instant tip. In New Zealand it translates into a huge smile and thank you.” And no doubt, return visits. 

THE FIVE PRINCIPLES OF PERSUASION 

{F} Reciprocity: People want to give back to those who have given to them. The trick here is to get in first. That’s why charities put a crummy pen inside a mailout, and why smiling women in supermarkets hand out dollops of free food. Scarcity: People want more of things they can have less of. Advertisers ruthlessly exploit scarcity (“limit four per customer”, “sale must end soon”), and Cialdini suggests parents do too: “Kids want things that are less available, so say ‘this is an unusual opportunity; you can only have this for a certain time’.”

{G} Authority: We trust people who know what they’re talking about. So inform people honestly of your credentials before you set out to influence them. “You’d be surprised how many people fail to do that,” says Cialdini. “They feel it’s impolite to talk about their expertise.” In one study, therapists whose patients wouldn’t do their exercises were advised to display their qualification certificates prominently. They did, and experienced an immediate leap in patient compliance.

{H} Commitment/consistency: We want to act in a way that is consistent with the commitments we have already made. Exploit this to get a higher sign-up rate when soliciting charitable donations. First ask workmates if they think they will sponsor you on your egg-and-spoon marathon. Later, return with the sponsorship form to those who said yes and remind them of their earlier commitment.(

{I} Liking: We say yes more often to people we like. Obvious enough, but reasons for “liking” can be weird. In one study, people were sent survey forms and asked to return them to a named researcher. When the researcher gave a fake name resembling that of the subject (eg, Cynthia Johnson is sent a survey by “Cindy Johansen”), surveys were twice as likely to be completed. We favour people who resemble us, even if the resemblance is as minor as the sound of their name.

{J} Social proof: We decide what to do by looking around to see what others just like us are doing. Useful for parents, says Cialdini. “Find groups of children who are behaving in a way that you would like your child to, because the child looks to the side, rather than at you.” More perniciously, social proof is the force underpinning the competitive materialism of “keeping up with the Joneses”

Questions 28-31 IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 135

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

Write your answers in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.

Question 28 The main purpose of Ciadini’s research of writing is to

(A) explain the reason way researcher should investigate in person 

(B) explore the secret that why some people become the famous sales person 

(C) help people to sale products 

(D) prove maybe there is a science in the psychology of persuasion

Question 29 Which of statement is CORRECT according to Ciadini’s research methodology

(A) he checked data in a lot of latest books 

(B) he conducted this experiment in laboratory 

(C) he interviewed and contact with many sales people 

(D) he made lot phone calls collecting what he wants to know

Question 30 Which of the following is CORRECT according to the towel experiment in the passage?

(A) Different hotel guests act in a different response 

(B) Most guests act by idea of environment preservation 

(C) more customers tend to cooperate as the message requires than simply act environmentally

(D) people tend to follow the hotel’s original message more

Question 31 Which of the followings is CORRECT according to the candy shop experiment in the passage?

(A) Presenting way affects diner’s tips 

(B) Regular customer gives tips more than irregulars 

(C) People give tips only when offered chocolate 

(D) Chocolate with bill got higher tips

Questions 32-35  IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 135

Do the following statements agree with the information given in IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 135 Reading Passage 3? In boxes 32-35 on your answer sheet, write

(32) Robert Cialdini experienced “principles of influence” himself in realistic life.

(33) Principle of persuasion has different types in different countries.

(34) In New Zealand, people tend to give tips to attendants after being served a chocolate.

(35) Elder generation of New Zealand is easily attracted by extra service of restaurants by principle of reciprocity.

Questions 36-40

Use the information in the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 135 passage to match the category (listed A-E) with the correct description below. Write the appropriate letters A-E in boxes 36 – 40 on the answer sheet. 

NB You may use any letter more than once.

(36) Some experts may reveal qualifications in front of clients. 

(37) Parents tend to say something that other kids are doing the same. 

(38) Advertisers ruthlessly exploit the limitation of chances

(39) Use a familiar name in a survey. 

(40) Ask colleagues to offer a helping hand

For Answers Academic IELTS Reading Test 135 Answers