IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 138

IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 138 ( Passage 1 Terminated Dinosaur Era, Passage 2 Homeopathy Overdosing on nothing, Passage 3 British Architecture 2 ) we prefer you to work offline, download the test paper, and blank answer sheet.

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For Answers Academic IELTS Reading Test 138 Answers

Reading Passage 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 138 Reading Passage Terminated Dinosaur-Era below.

Terminated Dinosaur Era

{A} The age of dinosaurs, which ended with the cataclysmic bang of a meteor impact 65 million years ago, may also have begun with one. Researchers recently found the first direct, though tentative, geological evidence of a meteor impact 200 million years ago, coinciding with a mass extinction that eliminated half of the major groups of life and opened the evolutionary door for what was then a relatively small group of animals: dinosaurs.

{B} The cause and timing of the ascent of dinosaurs has been much debated. It has been impossible to draw any specific conclusions because the transition between the origin of dinosaurs and their ascent to dominance has not been sampled in detail. “There is a geochemical signature of something important happening, probably an asteroid impact, just before the time in which familiar dinosaur-dominated communities appear,” said Dr. Paul E. Olsen, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y.

{C} Olsen and his colleagues studied vertebrate fossils from 80 sites in four different ancient rift basins, part of a chain of rifts that formed as North America began to split apart from the supercontinent that existed 230- 190 million years ago. In the layer of rock corresponding to the extinction, the scientists found elevated amounts of the rare element iridium. A precious metal belonging to the platinum group of elements, iridium is more abundant in meteorites than in rocks. 

{D} On Earth, A similar spike of iridium in 65 million-year-old rocks gave rise in the 1970s to the theory that a meteor caused the demise of the dinosaurs. That theory remained controversial for years until it was corroborated by other evidence and the impact site was found off the Yucatan Peninsula. Scientists will need to examine the new iridium anomaly similarly. The levels are only about one-tenth as high as those found at the later extinction. That could mean that the meteor was smaller or contained less iridium or that a meteor was not involved–iridium can also come from the Earth’s interior, belched out by volcanic eruptions. Dr Michael J. Benton, a professor of vertebrate palaeontology at the University of Bristol in England, described the data as “the first reasonably convincing evidence of an iridium spike”.

{E} The scientists found more evidence of rapid extinction in a database of 10,000 fossilized footprints in former lake basins from Virginia to Nova Scotia. Although individual species cannot usually be identified solely from their footprints – the tracks of a house cat, for example, resemble those of a baby tiger – footprints are much more plentiful than fossil bones and can provide a more complete picture of the types of animals walking around. “It makes it very easy for us to tell the very obvious signals of massive fauna change,” Dr. Olsen said. Because the sediment piles up quickly in lake basins, the researchers were able to assign a date to each footprint, based on the layer of rock where it was found. They determined that the mix of animals walking across what is now the East Coast of North America changed suddenly about 200 million years ago.

{F} The tracks of several major reptile groups continue almost up to the layer of rock marking the end of the Triassic geologic period 202 million years ago, and then vanish in younger layers from the Jurassic period . “I think the footprint methodology is very novel and very exciting,” said Dr. Peter D. Ward, a professor of geology at the University of Washington. He called the data “very required more research. Last year, researchers led by Dr. Ward reported that the types of carbon in rock changed abruptly at this time, indicating a sudden dying off of plants over less than 50,000 years. The footprint research reinforces the hypothesis that the extinction was sudden. 

{G} Several groups of dinosaurs survived that extinction, and the footprints show that new groups emerged soon afterward. Before the extinction, about one-fifth of the footprints were left by dinosaurs; after the extinction, more than half were from dinosaurs. The changes, the researchers said, occurred within 30,000 years-a geological blink of an eye. The scientists postulate that the asteroid or comet impact and the resulting death of Triassic competitors allowed a few groups of carnivorous dinosaurs to evolve in size very quickly and dominate the top of the terrestrial food chain globally.

{H} Among the creatures that disappeared in the extinction were the dominant predators at the time: 15-foot-long rauisuchians with great knife-like teeth and phytosaurs that resembled large crocodiles. Dinosaurs first evolved about 230 million years ago, but they were small, competing in a crowded ecological niche. Before the extinction 200 million years ago. the largest of the meat-eating dinosaurs were about the see of large dogs. Not terribly impressive.” Dr. Olsen said. The dinosaurs quickly grew. The toe-to-heel length of the foot of a meat eater from the Jurassic period was on average 20 percent longer than its Triassic ancestor. Larger feet can carry bigger bodies; the scientists infer the dinosaurs doubled in weight, eventually evolving into fearsome velociraptors Tyrannosaurus rex and other large carnivorous dinosaurs.

{I} The spurt in evolution is similar to the rise of mammals after the extinction of dinosaurs. Mammals, no larger than small dogs during the age of dinosaurs, diversified into tigers, elephants, whales and people after the reptilian competition died away. The success of the dinosaurs after the Triassic-Jurassic extinction may be why they did not survive the second extinction. “Small animals always do better in catastrophic situations, Dr. Olsen said, because they can survive on smaller amounts of food.” He also pointed out that scientists now believe the small dinosaurs did survive. “We just call them birds,” he said.

Question 1-6 IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 138

Use the information in the passage to match the people listed A-C) with opinions or deeds (listed 1-6) below. 

Write the appropriate letter (A-C) in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.

(A) Paul Olsen

(B) Michael Benton 

(C) Peter Ward

(1) Large animals are in a disadvantageous position when disasters happen.

(2) Radical changes in carbon types are related to massive extinction of vegetation.

(3) The changes in earth’s animal species become easier to identify by adding footprint investigation.

(4) Geochemical evidence suggests an asteroid impact before dinosaurs appeared.

(5) Footprint study is a way of research.

(6) Persuasive clues of an iridium spike were discovered for the first time.

Question 7-13 IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 138

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage? In boxes 7-13 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

(7) The rare element, iridium, was presented both on earth and in meteorites.

(8) The meteor impact theory had been suspected before the discovery of the impact site and other supporting evidence.

(9) Footprints are of little value in providing information, in comparison to fossil bones, because individual species cannot be identified with footprints.

(10) According to scientists, the transition to a dinosaur-dominated era took place very quickly by geological time scales.

(11) The creatures that disappeared in the extinction were dominantly the 15-foot-long rauisuchians and large crocodiles.

(12) Tyrannosaurus rex was larger in body size than other carnivorous dinosaurs.

(13) Large dinosaurs died out but small ones evolved and competed with birds and mammals.

Reading Passage 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-27, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 138 Reading Passage Homeopathy Overdosing on nothing below.

Homeopathy Overdosing on nothing

{A} An international protest this week aims to demonstrate the truth about homoeopathy -that there/s literally nothing in it, says Martin Robbins AT 10.23 am on 30 January, more than 300 activists in the UK, Canada, Australia and the US will take part in a mass homoeopathic “overdose”. Skeptics will publicly swallow an entire bottle of homoeopathic pills to demonstrate to the public that homoeopathic remedies, the product of a scientifically unfounded 18th-century ritual, are simply sugar pills. Many of the sceptics will swallow 84 pills of Arsenicum album, a homoeopathic remedy based on arsenic which is used to treat a range of symptoms, including food poisoning and insomnia. The aim of the “10:23” campaign, led by the Merseyside Skeptics Society, based in Liverpool, UK, is to raise public awareness of just exactly what homeopathy is, and to put pressure on the UK’s leading pharmacist, Boots, to remove the remedies from sale. The campaign is called 10:23in honor of the Avogadro constant (approximately 6 x 1023, the number of atoms or molecules in one mole of a substance), of which more later.

{B} That such a protest is even necessary in 2010 is remarkable, but somehow the homeopathic industry has not only survived into the 21st century, but prospered. In the UK alone more than £40 million is spent annually on homoeopathic treatments, with £4 million of this being sucked from the National Health Service budget. Yet the basis for homoeopathy defies the laws of physics, and high-quality clinical trials have never been able to demonstrate that it works beyond the placebo effect.

{C} The discipline is based on three “laws”; the law of similars, the law of infinitesimals and the law of succession. The law of similars states that something which causes your symptoms will cure your symptoms, so that, for example, as caffeine keeps you awake, it can also be a cure for insomnia. Of course, that makes little sense, since drinking caffeine, well, keeps you awake. Next is the law of infinitesimals, which claims that diluting a substance makes it more potent. Homoeopaths start by diluting one volume of their remedy -arsenic oxide, in the case of Arsenicum album -in 99 volumes of distilled water or alcohol to create a “centesimal”. They then dilute one volume of the centesimal in 99 volumes of water or alcohol, and so on, up to 30 times. Application of Avogadro’s constant tells you that a dose of such a “30C” recipe is vanishingly unlikely to contain even a single molecule of the active ingredient. The third pillar of homoeopathy is the law of succession. This states-and I’m not making this up -that by tapping the liquid in a special way during the dilution process, a memory of the active ingredient is somehow imprinted on it. This explains how water is able to carry a memory of arsenic oxide, but apparently not of the contents of your local sewer network.

{D} The final preparation is generally dropped onto a sugar pill which the patient swallows. Homeopaths claim that the application of these three laws results in a remedy that, even though it contains not a single molecule of the original ingredient, somehow carries an “energy signature” of it that nobody can measure or detect. Unsurprisingly, when tested under rigorous scientific conditions, in randomized, controlled and double-blind trials, homoeopathic remedies have consistently been shown to be no better than a placebo. Of course, the placebo effect is quite powerful, but it’s a bit like justifying building a car without any wheels on the basis that you can still enjoy the comfy leather seats and play with the gear shift.

{E} Even some retailers who sell the treatments have admitted there is no evidence that they work. In November, Paul Bennett, the superintendent pharmacist at Boots, appeared before the UK parliament’s Commons Science and Technology Committee’s “evidence check” on homoeopathy. He was questioned by Member of Parliament Phil Willis, who asked: “Do they work beyond the placebo effect?””I have no evidence before me to suggest that they are efficacious,” Bennett replied. He defended Boots’s decision to sell homoeopathic remedies on the grounds of consumer choice. “A large number of our consumers actually do believe they are efficacious, but they are licensed medicinal products and, therefore, we believe it is right to make them available,” he said.

{F} You might agree. You might also argue that homoeopathy is harmless: if people want to part with their money for sugar pills and nobody is breaking the law, why not let them? To some extent that’s true -there’s only so much damage you can do with sugar pills short of feeding them to a diabetic or dropping a large crate of them on someone’s head. However, we believe there is a risk in perpetuating the notion that homoeopathy is equivalent to modern medicine. People may delay seeking appropriate treatment for themselves or their children.

{G} We accept that we are unlikely to convince the true believers. Homoeopathy has many ways to sidestep awkward questions, such as rejecting the validity of randomized controlled trials, or claiming that homoeopathic remedies only work if you have symptoms of the malady they purport to cure. Our aim is to reach out to the general public with our simple message: “There is nothing in it”. Boots and other retailers are perfectly entitled to continue selling homoeopathic remedies if they so wish and consumers are perfectly entitled to keep on buying them. But hopefully the 10:23 campaign will ram home our message to the public. In the 21st century, with decades of progress behind us, it is surreal that governments are prepared to spend millions of tax pounds on homoeopathy. There really is nothing in it.

Questions 14-20 IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 138

Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of heading below. Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

(i) The definition of three laws 

(ii) Quoting three laws to against the homeopathy

(iii) There are many methods of avoiding answering ambiguous questions. 

(iv) The purpose of illustrating the symptoms of homeopathy

(v) The constant booming of homeopathy 

(vi) Some differences between homeopathy and placebo 

(vii) Placebo is better than homeopathy 

(viii) A example of further demonstrating the negative effect of homeopathy. 

(ix) The purpose of staging a demonstration to against homeopathy

(14) Paragraph A.

(15) Paragraph B

(16) Paragraph C

(17) Paragraph D

(18) Paragraph E

(19) Paragraph F

(20) Paragraph G

Questions 21-27

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 138 Reading passage 2? In boxes 21-27 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

(21) Skeptics planning to hold a demonstration in the “10.23″campaign is against UK’s leading pharmacist, Boots.

(22) National Health Service budget gained a small portion of homoeopathic industry

(23) The example of Caffeine is to present that homoeopathy resists the laws of similars.

(24) Instilling the idea to people that homoeopathy is equal to modern medicine poses danger.

(25) Paul Bennett claimed effectiveness of taking the homoeopathic medicine is proved

(26) The adoption of homoeopathy mainly contributes to the delay in seeking appropriate treatment for themselves or their children.

(27) The campaign has exerted pressure on Boots and other retailers.

Reading Passage 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 138 Reading Passage British Architecture 2 below.

British Architecture 2

{A} Architecture is about evolution, not revolution. It used to be thought that once the Romans pulled out of Britain in the fifth century, their elegant villas, carefully-planned towns and engineering marvels like Hadrian’s Wall simply fell into decay as British culture was plunged into the Dark Ages. It took the Norman Conquest of 1066 to bring back the light, and the Gothic cathedral-builders of the Middle Ages played an important part in the revival of British culture. However, the truth is not as simple as that Romano-British culture – and that included architecture along with language, religion, political organization and the arts – survived long after the Roman withdrawal. And although the Anglo-Saxons had a sophisticated building style of their own, little survives to bear witness to their achievements as the vast majority of Anglo-Saxon buildings were made of wood.

{B} Even so, the period between the Norman landing at Pevensey in 1066 and the day in 1485 when Richard III lost his horse and his head at Bosworth, ushering in the Tudors and the Early Modern period, marks a rare flowering of British building. And it is all the more remarkable because the underlying ethos of medieval architecture was ‘fitness for purpose. The great cathedrals and parish churches that lifted up their towers to heaven were not only acts of devotion in stone; they were also fiercely functional buildings. Castles served their particular purpose and their battlements and turrets were for use rather than ornament. In a sense, the buildings of the 16th century were also governed by fitness for purpose – only now, the purpose was very different. In domestic architecture, in particular, buildings were used to display status and wealth.

{C} This stately and curious workmanship showed itself in various ways. A greater sense of security led to more outward-looking buildings, as opposed to the medieval arrangement where the need for defence created houses that faced inward onto a courtyard or series of courtyards. This allowed for much more in the way of exterior ornament. The rooms themselves tended to be bigger and lighter – as an expensive commodity, the use of great expanses of glass was in itself a statement of wealth. There was also a general move towards balanced and symmetrical exteriors with central entrances.

{D} With the exception of Inigo Jones (1573-1652), whose confident handling of classical detail and proportion set him apart from all other architects of the period, most early 17th century buildings tended to take the innocent exuberance of late Tudor work one step further. But during the 1640s and 50s the Civil War and its aftermath sent many gentlemen and nobles to the Continent either to escape the fighting or, when the war was lost, to follow Charles II into exile. There they came into contact with French, Dutch and Italian architecture and, with Charles’s restoration in 1660, there was a flurry of building activity as royalists reclaimed their property and built themselves houses reflecting the latest European trends. The British Baroque was a reassertion of authority, an expression of absolutist ideology by men who remembered a world turned upside down during the Civil War. The style is heavy and rich, sometimes overblown and melodramatic. The politics which underpin it are questionable, but its products are breathtaking.

{E} The huge glass-and-iron Crystal Palace, designed by Joseph Paxton to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, shows another strand to 19th-century architecture – one which embraced new industrial processes. But it wasn’t long before even this confidence in progress came to be regarded with suspicion. Mass production resulted in buildings and furnishings that were too perfect, as the individual craftsman no longer had a major role in their creation. Railing against the dehumanising effects of industrialisation, reformers like John Ruskin and William Morris made a concerted effort to return to hand-crafted, pre-industrial manufacturing techniques. Morris’s influence grew from the production of furniture and textiles, until by the 1880s a generation of principled young architects was following his call for good, honest construction.

{F} The most important trends in early 20th century architecture simply passed Britain by. Whilst Gropius was working on cold, hard expanses of glass, and Le Corbusier was experimenting with the use of reinforced concrete frames, we had staid establishment architects like Edwin Lutyens producing Neo-Georgian and Renaissance country houses for an outmoded landed class. In addition there were slightly batty architect-craftsmen, the heirs of William Morris, still trying to turn the clock back to before the Industrial Revolution by making chairs and spurning new technology. Only a handful of Modern Movement buildings of any real merit were produced here during the 1920s and 1930s, and most of these were the work of foreign architects such as Serge Chermayeff, Berthold Lubetkin and Erno Goldfinger who had settled in this country.

{G} After the Second World War the situation began to change. The Modern Movement’s belief in progress and the future struck a chord with the mood of post-war Britain and, as reconstruction began under Attlee’s Labour government in 1945, there was a desperate need for cheap housing which could be produced quickly. The use of prefabricated elements, metal frames, concrete cladding and the absence of decoration – all of which had been embraced by Modernists abroad and viewed with suspicion by the British – were adopted to varying degrees for housing developments and schools. Local authorities, charged with the task of rebuilding city centers, became important patrons of architecture. This represented a shift away from the private individuals who had dominated the architectural scene for centuries.

{H} Since the War it has been corporate bodies like these local authorities, together with national and multinational companies, and large educational institutions, which have dominated British architecture. By the late 1980s the Modern Movement, unfairly blamed for the social experiments implicit in high-rise housing, had lost out to irony and spectacle in the shape of postmodernism, with its cheerful borrowings from anywhere and any period. But now, in the new Millennium, even postmodernism is showing signs of age. What comes next? Post-post-modernism?

Questions 28-34

Complete the sentences below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 138 passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 28-34 on your answer sheet.

(28) The Anglo-Saxon architecture failed to last because the buildings were constructed in ………..

(29) Different from medieval architecture, the buildings of the 16th century represent ………….

(30) The costly glass was applied widely as an …………… in that years

(31) Inigo Jones was skilled at handling ………… style.

(32) William Morris favored the production of ………. made in pre-industrial manufacturing techniques.

(33) The architects such as …………… provided the landlord with conservative houses.

(34) After World War Two, the architect commission shifted from individual to ………. 

Questions 35-40

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

Write the correct letter in boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet.

Question 35 The feature of medieval architecture was

(A) immense 

(B) useful 

(C) decorative 

(D) bizarre

Question 36 What contributed to the outward-looking buildings in the 16th century?

(A) safety 

(B) beauty 

(C) quality 

(D) technology

Question 37 Why were the buildings in the 1660s influenced by the latest European trends?

(A) Because the war was lost. 

(B) Because the craftsmen came from all over Europe. 

(C) Because the property belongs to the gentlemen and nobles. 

(D) Because the monarch came back from the continent.

Question 38 What kind of sense did the British Baroque imply?

(A) tough 

(B) steady 

(C) mild 

(D) conservative

Question 39 The individual craftsman was no more the key to creation for the appearance of

(A) Crystal Palace 

(B) pre-industrial manufacturing return 

(C) industrial process in scale 

(D) Dornament

Question 40 The building style changed after World War Two as a result of

(A) abundant materials 

(B) local authority

(C) shortage of cheap housing 

(D) conservative views

For Answers Academic IELTS Reading Test 138 Answers

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