IELTS Reading Section: Additional Practice

Academic Reading: Exam #1

Section 1:
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–13, which are based on
Reading Passage 1 below.

Electroreception

Open your eyes in sea water and it is difficult to see much more than a murky, bleary
green colour. Sounds, too, are garbled and difficult to comprehend. Without specialised
equipment humans would be lost in these deep sea habitats, so how do fish make it
seem so easy? Much of this is due to a biological phenomenon known as
electroreception – the ability to perceive and act upon electrical stimuli as part of the
overall senses. This ability is only found in aquatic or amphibious species because
water is an efficient conductor of electricity.

Electroreception comes in two variants. While all animals (including humans) generate
electric signals, because they are emitted by the nervous system, some animals have
the ability – known as passive electroreception – to receive and decode electric signals
generated by other animals in order to sense their location.

Other creatures can go further still, however. Animals with active electroreception
possess bodily organs that generate special electric signals on cue. These can be used
for mating signals and territorial displays as well as locating objects in the water. Active
electroreceptors can differentiate between the various resistances that their electrical
currents encounter. This can help them identify whether another creature is prey,
predator or something that is best left alone. Active electroreception has a range of
about one body length – usually just enough to give its host time to get out of the way or
go in for the kill.
D

One fascinating use of active electroreception – known as the Jamming Avoidance

Response mechanism – has been observed between members of some species known
as the weakly electric fish. When two such electric fish meet in the ocean using the
same frequency, each fish will then shift the frequency of its discharge so that they are
transmitting on different frequencies. Doing so prevents their electroreception faculties
from becoming jammed. Long before citizens’ band radio users first had to yell “Get off
my frequency!” at hapless novices cluttering the air waves, at least one species had
found a way to peacefully and quickly resolve this type of dispute.

Electroreception can also play an important role in animal defences. Rays are one such
example. Young ray embryos develop inside egg cases that are attached to the sea
bed. The embryos keep their tails in constant motion so as to pump water and allow
them to breathe through the egg’s casing. If the embryo’s electroreceptors detect the
presence of a predatory fish in the vicinity, however, the embryo stops moving (and in
so doing ceases transmitting electric currents) until the fish has moved on. Because
marine life of various types is often travelling past, the embryo has evolved only to react
to signals that are characteristic of the respiratory movements of potential predators
such as sharks.

Many people fear swimming in the ocean because of sharks. In some respects, this
concern is well grounded – humans are poorly equipped when it comes to
electroreceptive defence mechanisms. Sharks, meanwhile, hunt with extraordinary
precision. They initially lock onto their prey through a keen sense of smell (two thirds of
a shark’s brain is devoted entirely to its olfactory organs). As the shark reaches
proximity to its prey, it tunes into electric signals that ensure a precise strike on its
target; this sense is so strong that the shark even attacks blind by letting its eyes recede
for protection.

Normally, when humans are attacked it is purely by accident. Since sharks cannot
detect from electroreception whether or not something will satisfy their tastes, they tend
to “try before they buy”, taking one or two bites and then assessing the results (our
sinewy muscle does not compare well with plumper, softer prey such as seals). Repeat
attacks are highly likely once a human is bleeding, however; the force of the electric
field is heightened by salt in the blood which creates the perfect setting for a feeding
frenzy. In areas where shark attacks on humans are likely to occur, scientists are
exploring ways to create artificial electroreceptors that would disorient the sharks and
repel them from swimming beaches.

There is much that we do not yet know concerning how electroreception functions.
Although researchers have documented how electroreception alters hunting, defence
and communication systems through observation, the exact neurological processes that
encode and decode this information are unclear. Scientists are also exploring the role
electroreception plays in navigation. Some have proposed that salt water and magnetic
fields from the Earth’s core may interact to form electrical currents that sharks use for
migratory purposes.

Reading Passage 1 has eight paragraphs, A–H.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A–H, in boxes 1–6 on your answer sheet.

1. how electroreception can be used to help fish reproduce

2. a possible use for electroreception that will benefit humans

3. the term for the capacity which enables an animal to pick up but not send out
electrical signals

4. why only creatures that live in or near water have electroreceptive abilities

5. how electroreception might help creatures find their way over long distances

6. a description of how some fish can avoid disrupting each other’s electric signals
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 7–9 on your answer sheet.

Shark’s 7 ………………… alert the young ray to its presence

Embryo moves its 8 ………………… in order to breathe

Embryo stops sending 9 ………………… when predator close by

Complete the summary below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE words from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 10–13 on your answer sheet.

Shark Attack

A shark is a very effective hunter. Firstly, it uses its 10 ……………….. to smell its target.
When the shark gets close, it uses 11 ……………….. to guide it toward an accurate
attack. Within the final few feet the shark rolls its eyes back into its head. Humans are
not popular food sources for most sharks due to their 12 ………………... Nevertheless,
once a shark has bitten a human, a repeat attack is highly possible as salt from the
blood increases the intensity of the 13 ………………...

Remember, you have 60 minutes to complete the Reading test! You should spend
about 20 minutes on each of the three sections.

You have completed the first section of your Reading test. Now move on to Reading
passage 2.

Section 2:
This is the second section of your IELTS Academic Reading test. You should
spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14–27, which are based on Reading
Passage 2 below.

Fair games?

For seventeen days every four years the world is briefly arrested by the captivating,
dizzying spectacle of athleticism, ambition, pride and celebration on display at the
Summer Olympic Games. After the last weary spectators and competitors have
returned home, however, host cities are often left awash in high debts and costly
infrastructure maintenance. The staggering expenses involved in a successful Olympic
bid are often assumed to be easily mitigated by tourist revenues and an increase in
local employment, but more often than not host cities are short changed and their
taxpayers for generations to come are left settling the debt.

Olympic extravagances begin with the application process. Bidding alone will set most
cities back about $20 million, and while officially bidding only takes two years (for cities
that make the shortlist), most cities can expect to exhaust a decade working on their bid
from the moment it is initiated to the announcement of voting results from International
Olympic Committee members. Aside from the financial costs of the bid alone, the
process ties up real estate in prized urban locations until the outcome is known. This
can cost local economies millions of dollars of lost revenue from private developers who
could have made use of the land, and can also mean that particular urban quarters lose
their vitality due to the vacant lots. All of this can be for nothing if a bidding city does not
appease the whims of IOC members – private connections and opinions on government
conduct often hold sway (Chicago’s 2012 bid is thought to have been undercut by
tensions over U.S. foreign policy).

Bidding costs do not compare, however, to the exorbitant bills that come with hosting
the Olympic Games themselves. As is typical with large-scale, one-off projects,
budgeting for the Olympics is a notoriously formidable task. Los Angelinos have only
recently finished paying off their budget-breaking 1984 Olympics; Montreal is still in debt
for its 1976 Games (to add insult to injury, Canada is the only host country to have
failed to win a single gold medal during its own Olympics). The tradition of runaway
expenses has persisted in recent years. London Olympics managers have admitted that
their 2012 costs may increase ten times over their initial projections, leaving tax payers
20 billion pounds in the red.

Hosting the Olympics is often understood to be an excellent way to update a city’s

sporting infrastructure. The extensive demands of Olympic sports include aquatic
complexes, equestrian circuits, shooting ranges, beach volleyball courts, and, of course,
an 80,000 seat athletic stadium. Yet these demands are typically only necessary to
accommodate a brief influx of athletes from around the world. Despite the enthusiasm
many populations initially have for the development of world-class sporting complexes
in their home towns, these complexes typically fall into disuse after the Olympic fervour
has waned. Even Australia, home to one of the world’s most sportive populations, has
left its taxpayers footing a $32 million-a-year bill for the maintenance of vacant facilities.

Another major concern is that when civic infrastructure developments are undertaken in
preparation for hosting the Olympics, these benefits accrue to a single metropolitan
centre (with the exception of some outlying areas that may get some revamped sports
facilities). In countries with an expansive land mass, this means vast swathes of the
population miss out entirely. Furthermore, since the International Olympic Committee
favours prosperous “global” centres (the United Kingdom was told, after three failed bids
from its provincial cities, that only London stood any real chance at winning), the
improvement of public transport, roads and communication links tends to concentrate in
places already well-equipped with world-class infrastructures. Perpetually by-passing
minor cities creates a cycle of disenfranchisement: these cities never get an injection of
capital, they fail to become first-rate candidates, and they are constantly passed over in
favour of more secure choices.

Finally, there is no guarantee that an Olympics will be a popular success. The “feel
good” factor that most proponents of Olympic bids extol (and that was no doubt driving
the 90 to 100 per cent approval rates of Parisians and Londoners for their cities’
respective 2012 bids) can be an elusive phenomenon, and one that is tied to that
nation’s standing on the medal tables. This ephemeral thrill cannot compare to the
years of disruptive construction projects and security fears that go into preparing for an
Olympic Games, nor the decades of debt repayment that follow (Greece’s preparation
for Athens 2004 famously deterred tourists from visiting the country due to widespread
unease about congestion and disruption).

There are feasible alternatives to the bloat, extravagance and wasteful spending that
comes with a modern Olympic Games. One option is to designate a permanent host city
that would be re-designed or built from scratch especially for the task. Another is to
extend the duration of the Olympics so that it becomes a festival of several months.
Local businesses would enjoy the extra spending and congestion would ease
substantially as competitors and spectators come and go according to their specific
interests. Neither the “Olympic City” nor the extended length options really get to the
heart of the issue, however. Stripping away ritual and decorum in favour of
concentrating on athletic rivalry would be preferable.
Failing that, the Olympics could simply be scrapped altogether. International competition
could still be maintained through world championships in each discipline. Most of these
events are already held on non-Olympic years anyway – the International Association of
Athletics Federations, for example, has run a biennial World Athletics Championship
since 1983 after members decided that using the Olympics for their championship was
no longer sufficient. Events of this nature keep world-class competition alive without
requiring Olympic-sized expenses.

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A–K, below.

Write the correct letter, A–K, in boxes 14–18 on your answer sheet.

14. Bids to become a host city

15. Personal relationships and political tensions

16. Cost estimates for the Olympic Games

17. Purpose-built sporting venues

18. Urban developments associated with the Olympics

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

In boxes 19–25 on your answer sheet, write

True - if the statement agrees with the information

False - if the statement contradicts the information

Not Given - if there is no information on this

19. Residents of host cities have little use for the full range of Olympic facilities.

20. Australians have still not paid for the construction of Olympic sports facilities.

21. People far beyond the host city can expect to benefit from improved infrastructure.

22. It is difficult for small cities to win an Olympic bid.

23. When a city makes an Olympic bid, a majority of its citizens usually want it to win.

24. Whether or not people enjoy hosting the Olympics in their city depends on how
athletes from their country perform in Olympic events.

25. Fewer people than normal visited Greece during the run up to the Athens Olympics.

Choose TWO letters, A–E.

Write the correct letters in boxes 26 and 27 on your answer sheet.

Which TWO of the following does the author propose as alternatives to the current
Olympics?

A. The Olympics should be cancelled in favour of individual competitions for each sport.

B. The Olympics should focus on ceremony rather than competition.

C. The Olympics should be held in the same city every time.

D. The Olympics should be held over a month rather than seventeen days.

E. The Olympics should be made smaller by getting rid of unnecessary and unpopular
sports.

Section 3:

This is the third section of your IELTS Academic Reading test. You should spend
about 20 minutes on Questions 28–40, which are based on Reading Passage 3
below.

Time Travel

Time travel took a small step away from science fiction and toward science recently
when physicists discovered that sub-atomic particles known as neutrinos – progeny of
the sun’s radioactive debris – can exceed the speed of light. The unassuming particle –
it is electrically neutral, small but with a “non-zero mass” and able to penetrate the
human form undetected – is on its way to becoming a rock star of the scientific world.

Researchers from the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva
sent the neutrinos hurtling through an underground corridor toward their colleagues at
the Oscillation Project with Emulsion-Tracing Apparatus (OPERA) team 730 kilometres
away in Gran Sasso, Italy. The neutrinos arrived promptly – so promptly, in fact, that
they triggered what scientists are calling the unthinkable – that everything they have
learnt, known or taught stemming from the last one hundred years of the physics
discipline may need to be reconsidered.

The issue at stake is a tiny segment of time – precisely sixty nanoseconds (which is
sixty billionths of a second). This is how much faster than the speed of light the
neutrinos managed to go in their underground travels and at a consistent rate (15,000
neutrinos were sent over three years). Even allowing for a margin of error of ten
billionths of a second, this stands as proof that it is possible to race against light and
win. The duration of the experiment also accounted for and ruled out any possible lunar
effects or tidal bulges in the earth’s crust.

Nevertheless, there’s plenty of reason to remain sceptical. According to Harvard

University science historian Peter Galison, Einstein’s relativity theory has been “pushed
harder than any theory in the history of the physical sciences”. Yet each prior challenge
has come to no avail, and relativity has so far refused to buckle.

So is time travel just around the corner? The prospect has certainly been wrenched
much closer to the realm of possibility now that a major physical hurdle – the speed of
light – has been cleared. If particles can travel faster than light, in theory travelling back
in time is possible. How anyone harnesses that to some kind of helpful end is far
beyond the scope of any modern technologies, however, and will be left to future
generations to explore.

Certainly, any prospective time travellers may have to overcome more physical and
logical hurdles than merely overtaking the speed of light. One such problem, posited by
René Barjavel in his 1943 text Le Voyageur Imprudent is the so-called grandfather
paradox. Barjavel theorised that, if it were possible to go back in time, a time traveller
could potentially kill his own grandfather. If this were to happen, however, the time
traveller himself would not be born, which is already known to be true. In other words,
there is a paradox in circumventing an already known future; time travel is able to
facilitate past actions that mean time travel itself cannot occur.

Other possible routes have been offered, though. For Igor Novikov, astrophysicist
behind the 1980s’ theorem known as the self-consistency principle, time travel is
possible within certain boundaries. Novikov argued that any event causing a paradox
would have zero probability. It would be possible, however, to “affect” rather than
“change” historical outcomes if travellers avoided all inconsistencies. Averting the
sinking of the Titanic, for example, would revoke any future imperative to stop it from
sinking – it would be impossible. Saving selected passengers from the water and
replacing them with realistic corpses would not be impossible, however, as the historical
record would not be altered in any way.

A further possibility is that of parallel universes. Popularised by Bryce Seligman DeWitt

in the 1960s (from the seminal formulation of Hugh Everett), the many-worlds
interpretation holds that an alternative pathway for every conceivable occurrence
actually exists. If we were to send someone back in time, we might therefore expect
never to see him again – any alterations would divert that person down a new historical
trajectory.

A final hypothesis, one of unidentified provenance, reroutes itself quite efficiently around
the grandfather paradox. Non-existence theory suggests exactly that – a person would
quite simply never exist if they altered their ancestry in ways that obstructed their own
birth. They would still exist in person upon returning to the present, but any chain
reactions associated with their actions would not be registered. Their “historical identity”
would be gone.

So, will humans one day step across the same boundary that the neutrinos have?
World-renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking believes that once spaceships can
exceed the speed of light, humans could feasibly travel millions of years into the future
in order to repopulate earth in the event of a forthcoming apocalypse. This is because,
as the spaceships accelerate into the future, time would slow down around them
(Hawking concedes that bygone eras are off limits – this would violate the fundamental
rule that cause comes before effect).

Hawking is therefore reserved yet optimistic. “Time travel was once considered scientific
heresy, and I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a crank. These
days I’m not so cautious.”

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage
3?

In boxes 28–33 on your answer sheet, write

True - if the statement agrees with the information

False - if the statement contradicts the information

Not Given - if there is no information on this

28. It is unclear where neutrinos come from.

29. Neutrinos can pass through a person’s body without causing harm.

30. It took scientists between 50-70 nanoseconds to send the neutrinos from Geneva to
Italy.

31. Researchers accounted for effects the moon might have had on the experiment.

32. The theory of relativity has often been called into question unsuccessfully.

33. This experiment could soon lead to some practical uses for time travel
Complete the table below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 34–39 on your answer sheet.

Original Theory Principle

Theorist

René Grandfather Time travel would allow for 34

Barjavel paradox …………… that would actually
make time travel impossible.

Igor Self- It is only possible to alter history

Novikov consistency in ways that result in no 35
principle ………………… .

36 Many-worlds Each possible event has an 37

……………… interpretation …………………, so a time traveller
changing the past would simply
end up in a different branch of
history than the one he left.

Unknown 38 If a time traveller changed the

……………… past to prevent his future life, he
would not have a 39
………………… as the person
 never existed.

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

Write the correct letter in box 40 on your answer sheet.

Stephen Hawking has stated that

A. Human time travel is theoretically possible, but is unlikely to ever actually occur.

B. Human time travel might be possible, but only moving backward in time.

C. Human time travel might be possible, but only moving forward in time.

D. All time travel is impossible.

Academic Reading: Exam #1

This is the first section of your IELTS Reading test. You should spend about 20
minutes on Questions 1–13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
A bar at the folies (Un bar aux folies)

One of the most critically renowned paintings of the 19th-century modernist movement
is the French painter Edouard Manet’s masterwork, A Bar at the Folies. Originally
belonging to the composer Emmanuel Chabrier, it is now in the possession of The
Courtauld Gallery in London, where it has also become a favourite with the crowds.

The painting is set late at night in a nineteenth-century Parisian nightclub. A barmaid

stands alone behind her bar, fitted out in a black bodice that has a frilly white neckline,
and with a spray of flowers sitting across her décolletage. She rests her hands on the
bar and gazes out forlornly at a point just below the viewer, not quite making eye
contact. Also on the bar are some bottles of liquor and a bowl of oranges, but much of
the activity in the room takes place in the reflection of a mirror behind the barmaid.
Through this mirror we see an auditorium, bustling with blurred figures and faces: men
in top hats, a woman examining the scene below her through binoculars, another in long
gloves, even the feet of a trapeze artist demonstrating acrobatic feats above his adoring
crowd. In the foreground of the reflection a man with a thick moustache is talking with
the barmaid.

Although the Folies (-Bergère) was an actual establishment in late nineteenth-century

Paris, and the subject of the painting was a real barmaid who worked there, Manet did
not attempt to recapture every detail of the bar in his rendition. The painting was largely
completed in a private studio belonging to the painter, where the barmaid posed with a
number of bottles, and this was then integrated with quick sketches the artist made at
the Folies itself.

Even more confounding than Manet’s relaxed attention to detail, however, is the
relationship in the painting between the activity in the mirrored reflection and that which
we see in the unreflected foreground. In a similar vein to Diego Velazquez’ much earlier
work Las Meninas, Manet uses the mirror to toy with our ideas about which details are
true to life and which are not. In the foreground, for example, the barmaid is positioned
upright, her face betraying an expression of lonely detachment, yet in the mirrored
reflection she appears to be leaning forward and to the side, apparently engaging in
conversation with her moustachioed customer. As a result of this, the customer’s stance
is also altered. In the mirror, he should be blocked from view as a result of where the
barmaid is standing, yet Manet has re-positioned him to the side. The overall impact on
the viewer is one of a dreamlike disjuncture between reality and illusion.

Why would Manet engage in such deceit? Perhaps for that very reason: to depict two
different states of mind or emotion. Manet seems to be conveying his understanding of
the modern workplace, a place – from his perspective – of alienation, where workers
felt torn from their ‘true’ selves and forced to assume an artificial working identity. What
we see in the mirrored reflection is the barmaid’s working self, busy serving a customer.
The front-on view, however, bears witness to how the barmaid truly feels at work:
hopeless, adrift, and alone.

Ever since its debut at the Paris Salon of 1882, art historians have produced reams of
books and journal articles disputing the positioning of the barmaid and patron in A Bar
at the Folies. Some have even conducted staged representations of the painting in
order to ascertain whether Manet’s seemingly distorted point of view might have been
possible after all. Yet while academics are understandably drawn to the compositional
enigma of the painting, the layperson is always likely to see the much simpler, more
human story beneath. No doubt this is the way Manet would have wanted it.

Reading Passage 1 has six paragraphs, A–F.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A–F, in boxes 1–5 on your answer sheet.

1. a description of how Manet created the painting

2. aspects of the painting that scholars are most interested in

 3. the writer’s view of the idea that Manet wants to communicate

4. examples to show why the bar scene is unrealistic

5. a statement about the popularity of the painting

Reading Passage 1 has six paragraphs, A–F.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A–F, in boxes 1–5 on your answer sheet.

1. a description of how Manet created the painting

2. aspects of the painting that scholars are most interested in

3. the writer’s view of the idea that Manet wants to communicate

4. examples to show why the bar scene is unrealistic

 5. a statement about the popularity of the painting

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A–F, below.

Write the correct letter, A–F, in boxes 11–13 on your answer sheet.

11. Manet misrepresents the images in the mirror because he

12. Manet felt modern workers were alienated because they

13. Academics have re-constructed the painting in real life because they

A. wanted to find out if the painting’s perspective was realistic

B. felt they had to work very hard at boring and difficult jobs

C. wanted to understand the lives of ordinary people at the time

D. felt like they had to become different people

E. wanted to manipulate our sense of reality

F. wanted to focus on the detail in the painting

Section 2:
Miles Davis - Icon and iconoclast

An iconoclast is somebody who challenges traditional beliefs or customs

At the age of thirteen, Miles Davis was given his first trumpet, lessons were arranged
with a local trumpet player, and a musical odyssey began. These early lessons, paid for
and supported by his father, had a profound effect on shaping Davis’ signature sound.
Whereas most trumpeters of the era favoured the use of vibrato (a wobbly quiver in
pitch inflected in the instrument’s tone), Davis was taught to play with a long, straight
tone, a preference his instructor reportedly drilled into the young trumpeter with a rap on
the knuckles every time Davis began using vibrato. This clear, distinctive style never left
Davis. He continued playing with it for the rest of his career, once remarking, ‘If I can’t
get that sound, I can’t play anything.’

Having graduated from high school in 1944, Davis moved to New York City, where he
continued his musical education both in the clubs and in the classroom. His enrolment
in the prestigious Julliard School of Music was short-lived, however – he soon dropped
out, criticising what he perceived as an over-emphasis on the classical European
repertoire and a neglect of jazz. Davis did later acknowledge, however, that this time at
the school was invaluable in terms of developing his trumpet-playing technique and
giving him a solid grounding in music theory. Much of his early training took place in the
form of jam sessions and performances in the clubs of 52nd Street, where he played
alongside both up-and-coming and established members of the jazz pantheon such as
Coleman Hawkins, Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis, and Thelonious Monk.

In the late 1940s, Davis collaborated with nine other instrumentalists, including a French
horn and a tuba player, to produce The Birth of Cool, an album now renowned for the
inchoate sounds of what would later become known as ‘cool’ jazz. In contrast to popular
jazz styles of the day, which featured rapid, rollicking beats, shrieking vocals, and short,
sharp horn blasts, Davis’ album was the forerunner of a different kind of sound – thin,
light horn-playing, hushed drums and a more restrained, formal arrangement. Although
it received little acclaim at the time (the liner notes to one of Davis’ later recordings call
it a ‘spectacular failure’), in hindsight The Birth of Cool has become recognised as a
pivotal moment in jazz history, cementing – alongside his 1958 recording, Kind of Blue –
Davis’ legacy as one of the most innovative musicians of his era.

Though Davis’ trumpet playing may have sounded effortless and breezy, this ease
rarely carried over into the rest of his life. The early 1950s, in particular, were a time of
great personal turmoil. After returning from a stint in Paris, Davis suffered from
prolonged depression, which he attributed to the unravelling of a number of
relationships, including his romance with a French actress and some musical
partnerships that ruptured as a result of creative disputes. Davis was also frustrated by
his perception that he had been overlooked by the music critics, who were hailing the
success of his collaborators and descendants in the ‘cool’ tradition, such as Gerry
Mulligan and Dave Brubeck, but who afforded him little credit for introducing the cool
sound in the first place.

In the latter decades of his career, Davis broke out of exclusive jazz settings and began
to diversify his output across a range of musical styles. In the 1960s, he was influenced
by early funk performers such as Sly and the Family Stone, which then expanded into
the jazz-rock fusion genre – of which he was a frontrunner – in the 1970s. Electronic
recording effects and electric instruments were incorporated into his sound. By the
1980s, Davis was pushing the boundaries further, covering pop anthems such as Cyndi
Lauper’s Time After Time and Michael Jackson’s Human Nature, dabbling in hip hop,
and even appearing in some movies.

Not everyone was supportive of Davis’ change of tune. Compared to the recordings of
his early career, universally applauded as linchpins of the jazz oeuvre, trumpeter
Wynston Marsalis derided his fusion work as being ‘not true jazz’, and pianist Bill Evans
denounced the ‘corrupting influence’ of record companies, noting that rock and pop
‘draw wider audiences’. In the face of this criticism Davis remained defiant, commenting
that his earlier recordings were part of a moment in time that he had no ‘feel’ for any
more. He firmly believed that remaining stylistically inert would have hampered his
ability to develop new ways of producing music. From this perspective, Davis’ continual
revamping of genre was not merely a rebellion, but an evolution, a necessary path that
allowed him to release his full musical potential.

Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A–F.

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A–F from the list of headings below.

Write the correct number, i–ix, in boxes 14–19 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

14. Paragraph A

15. Paragraph B

16. Paragraph C
17. Paragraph D

18. Paragraph E

19. Paragraph F

Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading
Passage 2?

In boxes 20–26 on your answer sheet, write

Yes - if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

No - if the statement contradicts the views of the writer

Not Given - if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

20. Davis’ trumpet teacher wanted him to play with vibrato.

21. According to Davis, studying at Julliard helped him to improve his musical abilities.

22. Playing in jazz clubs in New York was the best way to become famous.

23. The Birth of Cool featured music that was faster and louder than most jazz at the
time.

24. Davis’ personal troubles had a negative effect on his trumpet playing.

25. Davis felt that his contribution to cool jazz had not been acknowledged.

26. Davis was a traditionalist who wanted to keep the jazz sound pure.

Section 3:
This is the third section of your IELTS Academic Reading test. You should spend
about 20 minutes on Questions 27–40, which are based on Reading Passage 3
below.

In the early days of mountaineering, questions of safety, standards of practice, and

environmental impact were not widely considered. The sport gained traction following
the successful 1786 ascent of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Western Europe, by two
French mountaineers, Jacques Balmat and Michel-Gabriel Paccard. This event
established the beginning of modern mountaineering, but the sole consideration over
the next hundred years was the success or failure of climbers in reaching the summit
and claiming the prestige of having made the first ascent.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, however, developments in technology

spurred debate regarding climbing practices. Of particular concern in this era was the
introduction of pitons (metal spikes that climbers hammer into the rock face for
leverage) and the use of belaying techniques. A few, such as Italian climber Guido Ray,
supported these methods as ways to render climbing less burdensome and more
‘acrobatic’. Others felt that they were only of value as a safety net if all else failed.
Austrian Paul Preuss went so far as to eschew all artificial aids, scaling astonishing
heights using only his shoes and his bare hands. Albert Mummery, a well known British
mountaineer and author who climbed the European Alps, and, more famously, the
Himalayas, where he died at the age of 39 attempting a notoriously difficult ascent,
developed the notion of ‘fair means’ as a kind of informal protocol by which the use of
‘walk-through’ guidebooks and equipment such as ladders and grappling hooks were
discouraged.

By the 1940s, bolts had begun to replace pitons as the climber’s choice of equipment,
and criticism surrounding their use was no less fierce. In 1948, when two American
climbers scaled Mount Brussels in the Canadian Rockies using a small number of
pitons and bolts, climber Frank Smythe wrote of their efforts: ‘I still regard Mount
Brussels as unclimbed, and my feelings are no different from those I should have were I
to hear that a helicopter had deposited its passenger on the summit of that mountain
just so that he could boast that he had trodden an untrodden mountain top.’
D

Climbing purists aside, it was not until the 1970s that the general tide began to turn
against bolting and pitons. The USA, and much of the western world, was waking up to
the damage it had been causing to the planet, and environmentalist campaigns and new
government policies were becoming widespread. This new awareness and sensitivity to
environmental issues spilled over into the rock climbing community. As a result, a
stripped-down style of rock climbing known as ‘clean climbing’ became widely adopted.
Clean climbing helped preserve rock faces and, compared with older approaches, it was
much simpler to practise. This was partly due to the hallmark of clean climbing – the use
of nuts – which were favoured over bolts because they could be placed into the rock
wall with one hand while climbers maintained their grip on the rock with the other.

Not everyone embraced the clean climbing movement, however. A decade later,
debates over two more developments were erupting. The first related to the practice of
chipping, in which climbers chip away pieces of rock in order to create tiny cracks in
which to insert their fingers. The other major point of contention was a process that
involves setting bolts in reverse from the top of the climb down. Rappel bolting makes
almost any rock face climbable with relative ease, and as a result of this new technique,
the sport has lost much of its risk factor and sense of pioneering spirit; indeed, it has
become more about muscle power and technical mastery than a psychological trial of
fearlessness under pressure. Because of this shift in focus, many amateur climbers
have flocked to indoor climbing gyms, where the risk of serious harm is negligible.

Given the environmental damage rock climbing can cause, this may be a positive
outcome. It is ironic that most rock climbers and mountaineers love the outdoors and
have great respect for the majesty of nature and the impressive challenges she poses,
but that in the pursuit of their goals they inevitably trample sensitive vegetation,
damaging and disturbing delicate flora and lichens which grow on ledges and cliff faces.
Two researchers from a Canadian university, Doug Larson and Michelle McMillan, have
found that rock faces that are regularly climbed have lost up to 80% of the coverage and
diversity of native plant species. If that were not bad enough, non-native species have
also been inadvertently introduced, having been carried in on climbers’ boots.

G
This leaves rock climbing with an uncertain future. Climbers are not the only user group
that wishes to enjoy the wilderness – hikers, mountain bikers and horseback riders visit
the same areas, and more importantly, they are much better organised, with long-
established lobby groups protecting their interests. With increased pressure on limited
natural resources, it has been suggested that climbers put aside their differences over
the ethics of various climbing techniques, and focus on the effect of their practices on
the environment and their relationship with other users and landowners.

In any event, there can be no doubt that the era of the rock climber as a lone wolf or
intrepid pioneer is over. Like many other forms of recreation, rock climbing has
increasingly come under the fold of institutional efforts to curb dangerous behaviour and
properly manage our natural environments. This may have spoiled the magic, but it has
also made the sport safer and more sustainable, and governing bodies would do well to
consider heightening such efforts in the future.

belaying: fastening or controlling of a climber’s rope by wrapping it around a metal

device or another person

Reading Passage 3 has eight paragraphs, A–H.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A–H, in boxes 27–32 on your answer sheet.

27. examples of the impact of climbers on ecosystems

28. an account of how politics affected rock climbing

29. a less dangerous alternative to climbing rock faces

30. a recommendation for better regulation

31. a reference to a climber who did not use any tools or ropes for assistance
32. examples of different types of people who use the outdoors for recreation

Complete the flow chart below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 33–39 on your answer sheet.

A rock climbing time line

Late 19th century

Some climbers discuss whether pitons and ropes should only be considered
33 ....................

34 ………….….. calls for guidelines based on unwritten rules which

discourage climbing aids.

1940s
 New equipment becomes controversial. Frank Smythe says that Mt Brussels
is effectively 35 ……………….. because of the techniques that were used in
order to scale the mountain.

1970s

36 ……………….. is more environmentally friendly. 37 ……………….. are

introduced as a climbing aid.

1980s – today

Climbers discuss the merits of new techniques for making hand holds, and
also of 38 ………………..... Many say that climbing is now a test of physical
strength and 39 ……………….., rather than of courage.

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

Write the correct letter in box 40 on your answer sheet.

Choose the most appropriate title for the reading passage.

A. A history of rock climbing

B. Ethics and issues in rock climbing

C. Current trends in rock climbing

D. Sport climbers versus traditional climbers