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IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 153

IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 153 With Answers Seed vault guards resources for the future, The Face of Modern man?, Variations on a theme

IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 153 ( Passage 1 Seed vault guards resources for the future, Passage 2 The Face of Modern man?, Passage 3 Variations on a theme ) we prefer you to work offline, download the test paper, and blank answer sheet.

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For Answers Academic IELTS Reading Test 153 Answers

Reading Passage 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 153 Reading Passage Seed vault guards resources for the future below.

Seed vault guards resources for the future

Fiona Harvey paid a visit to a building whose contents are very precious.

About 1,000 km from the North Pole, Svalbard is one of the most remote places on earth. For this reason, it is the site of a vault that will safeguard a priceless component of our common heritage – the seeds of our staple crops. Here, seeds from the world’s most vital food crops will be locked away for hundreds or even thousands of years. If something goes wrong in the world, the vault will provide the means to restore farming. We, or our descendants, will not have to retread thousands of years of agriculture from scratch.

Deep in the vault at the end of a long tunnel, are three storage vaults which are lined with insulated panels to help maintain the cold temperatures. Electronic transmitters linked to a satellite system monitor temperature, etc. and pass the information back to the appropriate authorities at Longyearbyen and the Nordic Gene Bank which provide the technical information for managing the seed vaults. The seeds are placed in scaled boxes and stored on shelves in the vaults. The minimal moisture level and low temperature ensure low metabolic activity. The remote location, as well as the rugged structure, provide unparalleled security for the world’s agricultural heritage.

The three vaults are buried deep in the hillside. To reach them, it is necessary to proceed down a long and surprisingly large corridor. At 93.3 metres in length, it connects the 26-metre long entrance building to the three vaults, each of which extends a further 27 metres into the mountain. Towards the end of this tunnel, after about 80 metres, there are several small rooms on the right-hand side. One is a transformer room to which only the power company officials have access – this houses the equipment needed to transform the incoming electrical current down to 220 volts. A second is an electrical room housing controls for the compressor and other equipment. I he oilier room is an office which can be heated to provide comfortable working conditions for those who will make an inventory of the samples in and out of the vault.

Anyone seeking access to the seeds has to pass through four locked doors: the heavy steel entrance doors, a second door approximately 90 metres down the tunnel and finally the two keyed doors separated by an airlock, from which it is possible to proceed directly into the seed vaults. Keys are coded to allow access to different levels of the facility. A work of art will make the vault visible for miles with reflective sheets of steel and mirrors which form an installation acting as a beacon. It reflects polar light in the summer months, while in the winter, a network of 200 fibre-optic cables will give the piece a muted greenish-turquoise and white light. Cary Fowler, the mastermind behind the vault, stands inside the echoing cavern. For him, this is the culmination of nearly 30 years of work. ‘It’s an insurance policy,’ he explains, ‘a very cheap insurance policy when you consider what we’re insuring – the earth’s biological diversity.’

Seeds are being brought here from all over the world, from seed banks created by governments, universities and private institutions. Soon, there will be seed varieties from at least 100 crops in the Svalbard vault – extending to examples of all of the 1.5 million known crop seed varieties in the world. If any more are unearthed. either in the wild or found in obscure collections, they can be added, too – the vault has room for at least 4.5 million samples. Inside the entrance area it is more than 10® C below freezing, but in the chambers where the seeds are kept, refrigerators push down the temperature even further, to -18oC. At this temperature, which will be kept constant to stop the seeds germinating or rotting, the wheat seeds will remain viable for an estimated 1.700 vears. the years.

Svalbard’s Arctic conditions will keep the seeds cold. In order to maintain the temperature at a constant -10° C to -20® C, the cold Arctic air will be drawn into the vault during the winter, automatically and without human intervention. The surrounding rock will maintain the temperature requirements during the extremely cold season and, during warmer periods, refrigeration equipment will engage. Looking out across the snow-covered mountains of Svalbard, it is hard not to feel respect for the 2,300 or so people who live here, mainly in Longyearbyen, a village a few miles away. There are three months without light in winter.

Svalbard is intended 3s the seed bank of last resort. Each sample is made up of a few hundred seeds, sealed inside a watertight package which will never be tampered with while it is in the vault. The packages of seeds remain the property of the collections they have come from. Svalbard will disburse samples ‘only if all the other seeds in other collections around the world are gone,’ explains Fowler. If seeds do have to be given out, those who receive them are expected to germinate them and generate new samples, to be returned to the vault.

Questions 1-6

Label the diagram below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS OR A NUMBER from the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 153 passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.

Question 7-13

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

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 vault has the capacity to accommodate undiscovered types of seed at a later date.

(8)  There are different levels of refrigeration according to the kinds of seeds stored.

(9) During winter, the flow of air entering the vault is regularly monitored by staff.

(10) There is a back-up refrigeration system ready to be switched on if the present one fails.

(11) The people who work at Svalbard are mainly locals.

(12) Once a seed package Is In the vault, it remains unopened.

(13) If seeds are sent from Svalbard to other banks, there is an obligation for the recipient to send replacements back.

Reading Passage 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 153 Reading Passage The Face of Modern man? below.

The Face of Modern man?

{A}.In response to the emergence of the ‘metrosexual’ male, In other words, an urban, sophisticated man who is fashionable, well-groomed and unashamedly committed to ensuring his appearance is the best it can be, a whole new industry has developed. According to research conducted on behalf of a leading health and beauty retailer in the UK, the market for male cosmetics and related products has grown by 800% since the year 2000 and is expected to continue to increase significantly. The male grooming products market has become the fastest-growing sector within the beauty and cosmetics industry, currently equivalent to around 1.5 billion pounds per annum.

{B}.Over the last decade, a large number of brands and companies catering for enhancement of the male image have been successfully established, such operations ranging from male-only spas, boutiques, personal hygiene products, hair and skincare ranges, and male magazines with a strong leaning towards men’s fashion.

Jamie Cawley, a proprietor of a successful chain of London-based male grooming boutiques, holds that his company’s success in this highly competitive market can be attributed to the ‘exclusivity’ tactics they have employed, in that their products and services are clearly defined as male- orientated and distinctly separate to feminine products offered by other organizations. However, market analyst, Kim Sawyer, believes that future growth in the market can also be achieved through the sale of unisex products marketed to both genders, this strategy becoming increasingly easy to implement as men’s interest in appearance and grooming has become more of a social norm.

{C}.Traditionalists such as journalist Jim Howard contend that the turn-around in male attitudes which has led to the success of the industry would have been inconceivable a decade ago, given the conventional male role, psyche, and obligation to exude masculinity; however, behavioural scientist Professor Ruth Chesterton argues that the metro-sexual man of today is in fact a modern incarnation of the ‘dandy’ of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. British dandies of that period, who were often of middle-class backgrounds but imitated aristocratic lifestyles, were devoted to the cultivation of their physical appearance, development of a refined demeanour and hedonistic pursuits. In France, she adds, dandyism, in contrast, was also strongly linked to political ideology and embraced by youths wishing to clearly define themselves from members of the working class revolutionary social groups of the period.

{D}.Over recent decades, according to sociologist Ben Cameron, gender roles for both sexes have become less defined. According to research, he says, the achievement of status and success have become less important in younger generations of men, as has the need to repress emotions. Cameron defines the traditional masculine role within western societies – hegemonic masculinity – as an expectation that males demonstrate physical strength and fitness, be decisive, self-assured, rational, successful and in control.

Meeting this list of criteria and avoiding situations of demonstrating weakness, being overly emotional or in any way ’inferior’, he says, has placed a great deal of pressure on many members of the male population. So restrictive can society’s pressure to behave in a ‘masculine’ fashion on males be, Professor Chesterton, states that in many situations men may respond in a way they deem acceptable to society, given their perceived gender role, rather than giving what they may actually consider being the best and most objective response.

{E}.Jim Howard says that learning and acquiring gender identity makes up a huge component of a child’s socialization and that a child who exhibits non-standard behavioural characteristics often encounters social and self-image difficulties due to the adverse reactions of their peers. According to Kim Sawyer, media images and messages also add to pressures associated with the male image, stating that even in these modern and changing times, hegemonic masculinity is often idolized and portrayed as the definitive male persona. Whilst male stereotypes and ideals vary from culture to culture, according to Professor Chesterton, a universal trait in stereotypical male behaviour is an increased likelihood to take risks than is generally found in female behaviour patterns.

{F}.For this reason, she attributes such behaviour to the influence of genetic predisposition as opposed to socially learned behaviour. Men, she says, are three times more likely to die due to accidents than females, a strong indication he says of their greater willingness to involve themselves in precarious situations. Ben Cameron also says that an attitude of invincibility is more dominant in males and is a predominant factor in the trend for fewer medical checkups in males and late diagnosis of chronic and terminal illness than in their more cautious and vigilant female counterparts.

Jamie Cawley, however, remains optimistic that the metro-sexual culture will continue and that what society accepts as the face of masculinity will continue to change. He attributes this to a male revolt against the strict confines of gender roles, adding that such changes of attitudes have led and will continue to lead to the establishment of greater equality between the sexes.

Questions 14-18

Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs A-G.

Write the correct number i to viii in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B-D and F-G from the list of headings below.

List of Headings

(i). Basis and predictions

(ii). Revolution or recurrence?

(iii). Servicing a growing demand

(iv). The surfacing of a new phenomenon

(v). A long-held mindset and its downsides

(vi). Influence on minors

(vii). Hereditary predilection

(viii). Effects of external pressures

Example: Paragraph E; Answer: viii

(14). Paragraph B

(15). Paragraph C

(16). Paragraph D

(17). Paragraph F

(18). Paragraph G

Questions 19-22

Do the following statements agree with the information given in IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 153 Reading Passage 2? 

In boxes 19-22 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

(19). Sales in the female health and beauty market have slightly declined over recent years.

(20). The rise of ‘dandyism’ in England and France is attributed to similar factors.

(21). An emotional reaction is contradictory to hegemonic masculine behaviour.

(22). There is a correlation between men’s belief that they are indestructible and their decreased likelihood to seek medical advice.

Questions 23-27

Look at the following list of statements (Questions 23-27) based on changes in male image and behaviour.

Match each statement with the correct person A-E.

Write the correct letters A-E in boxes 23-27 on your answer sheet.

(23). Male behaviour patterns have changed in a way that would have been considered implausible in the past.

(24). Traditional benchmarks of masculinity are often exacerbated by the press.

(25). Metro-sexual culture has developed as a response to modern men’s dissatisfaction with traditional images.

(26). The need to conform to society’s expectations of male behaviour may impede men’s decision-making and judgment.

(27). There is potential in a market which makes no differentiation between products for males and females.

List of Contributors

(A). Jamie Cawley

(B). Kim Sawyer

(C). Jim Howard

(D). Professor Ruth Chesterton

(E). Ben Cameron

Reading Passage 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 153 Reading Passage Variations on a theme: the sonnet form in English poetry below.

Variations on a theme: the sonnet form in English poetry 

{A} The form of lyric poetry known as ‘the sonnet’, or ‘little song’, was introduced into the English poetic corpus by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder and his contemporary Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, during the first half of the sixteenth century. It originated, however, in Italy three centuries earlier, with the earliest examples known being those of Giacomo de Lentino, ‘The Notary’ in the Sicilian court of Emperor Frederick II, dating from the third decade of the thirteenth century. The Sicilian sonneteers are relatively obscure, but the form was taken up by the two most famous poets of the Italian Renaissance, Dante, and Petrarch, and indeed the latter is regarded as the master of the form. 

{B} The Petrarchan sonnet form, the first to be introduced into English poetry, is a complex poetic structure. It comprises fourteen lines written in a rhyming metrical pattern of iambic pentameter, that into say each line is ten syllables long, divided into five ‘feet’ or pairs of syllables (hence ‘pentameter’), with a stress pattern where the first syllable of each foot is unstressed and the second stressed (an iambic foot). This can be seen if we look at the first line of one of Wordsworth’s sonnets, ‘After-Thought’: 

‘I thought of thee my partner and my guide’. 

If we break down this line into its constituent syllabic parts, we can see the five feet and the stress pattern (in this example each stressed syllable is underlined), thus: ‘I thought/ of thee/ my partner and/ my guide’. 

{C} The rhyme scheme for the Petrarchan sonnet is equally as rigid. The poem is generally divided into two parts, the octave (eight lines) and the sestet (six lines), which is demonstrated through rhyme rather than an actual space between each section. The octave is usually rhymed abbaabba with the first, fourth, fifth and eighth lines rhyming with each other, and the second, third, sixth and seventh also rhyming. The sestet is more varied: it can follow the patterns cdecde, cdccdc, or cdedce. Perhaps the best interpretation of this division in the Petrarchan sonnet is by Charles Gayley, who wrote: “The octave bears the burden; a doubt, a problem,. a reflection, a query, an historical statement, a cry of indignation or desire, a vision of the ideal. The sestet eases the load, resolves the problem or doubt, answers the query or doubt, solaces the yearning, realises the vision.” Thus, we can see that the rhyme scheme demonstrates a twofold division in the poem, providing a structure for the development of themes and ideas. 

{D} Early on, however, English poets began to vary and experiment with this structure. The first major development was made by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, altogether an indifferent poet, but was taken up and perfected by William Shakespeare, and is named after him. The Shakespearean sonnet also has fourteen lines in iambic pentameter, but rather than the division into octave and sestet, the poem is divided into four parts: three quatrains and a final rhyming couplet. Each quatrain has its own internal rhyme scheme, thus a typical Shakespearean sonnet would rhyme abab cdcd efef gg. Such a structure naturally allows greater flexibility for the author and it would be hard, if not impossible, to enumerate the different ways in which it has been employed, by Shakespeare and others. For example, an idea might be introduced in the first quatrain, complicated in the second, further complicated in the third, and resolved in the final couplet — indeed, the couplet is almost always used as a resolution to the poem, though often in a surprising way. 

{E} These, then, are the two standard forms of the sonnet in English poetry, but it should be recognized that poets rarely follow rules precisely and a number of other sonnet types have been developed, playing with the structural. elements. Edmund Spenser, for example, more famous for his verse epic ‘The Faerie Queene’, invented a variation on the Shakespearean form by interlocking the rhyme schemes between the quatrains, thus: abab bcbc cdcd ee, while in the twentieth century Rupert Brooke reversed his sonnet, beginning with the couplet. John Milton, the seventeenth-century poet, was unsatisfied with the fourteen-line format and wrote a number of ‘Caudate’ sonnets, or ‘sonnets with the regular fourteen lines (on the Petrarchan model) with a ‘coda’ or ‘tail’ of a further six lines. A similar notion informs George Meredith’s sonnet sequence ‘Modern Love’, where most sonnets in the cycle have sixteen lines. 

{F} Perhaps the most radical of innovators, however, has been Gerard Manley Hopkins, who developed what he called the ‘Curtal’ sonnet. This form varies the length of the poem, reducing it in effect to eleven and a half lines, the rhyme scheme and the number of feet per line. Modulating the Petrarchan form, instead of two quatrains in the octave, he has two tercets rhyming abc abc, and in place of the sestet he has four and a half lines, with a rhyme scheme dcbdc. As if this is not enough, the tercets are no longer in iambic pentameter, but have six stresses instead of five, as does the final quatrain, with the exception of the last line, which has three. Many critics, however, are sceptical as to whether such a major variation can indeed be classified as a sonnet, but as verse forms and structures become freer, and poets less satisfied with convention, it is likely that even more experimental forms will out. 

Questions 28-32 

IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 153 Reading Passage 3 has six paragraphs labelled A-F. 

Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below. 

Write the appropriate numbers (i-xiii) in boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet. 

Any heading may be used more than once. 

Note: There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use all of them. 

List of Headings 

(i) Octave develops sestet 

(ii) The Faerie Queene and Modern Love 

(iii) The origins of the sonnet 

(iv) The Shakespearean sonnet form 

(v) The structure of the Petrarchan sonnet form 

(vi) A real sonnet? 

(vii) Rhyme scheme provides structure developing themes and ideas 

(viii) Dissatisfaction with format 

(ix) The Sicilian sonneteers 

(x) Howard v. Shakespeare 

(xi) Wordsworth’s sonnet form 

(xii) Future breaks with convention 

(xiii) The sonnet form: variations and additions 

Example Paragraph A Heading iii 

(28) Paragraph B 

(29) Paragraph C 

(30) Paragraph D 

(31) Paragraph E 

(32) Paragraph F 

Questions 33-37 

Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage, complete the sentences below. 

(33) Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder and Henry Howard were . 

(34) It was in the third decade of the thirteenth century that this was introduced. 

(35) Among poets of the Italian Renaissance was considered to be the better sonneteer. 

(36) The Petrarchan sonnet form consists of . 

(37) In comparison with the octave, the rhyming scheme of the sestet is . 

Questions 38-40 

Choose the correct letters A-D and write them in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet. 

Question 38 According to Charles Gayley, 

(A) the octave is longer than the sestet. 

(B) the octave develops themes and ideas. 

(C) the sestet provides answers and solutions. 

(D) the sestet demonstrates a twofold division. 

Question 39 The Shakespearean sonnet is 

(A) an indifferent development. 

(B) more developed than the Petrarchan sonnet. 

(C) more flexible than the Petrarchan sonnet. 

(D) enumerated in different ways. 

Question 40 According to the passage, whose sonnet types are similar? 

(A) Spenser and Brooke 

(B) Brooke and Milton 

(C) Hopkins and Spenser 

(D) Milton and Meredith 

For Answers Academic IELTS Reading Test 153 Answers

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