ESSENTIAL READING
ILP Examination
FINAL
READING TEST
Time: 60 minutes
The test is divided into 3 sections:
• Section 1 (Questions 1-13)
• Section 2 (Questions 14-26)
• Section 3 (Questions 27-40)
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
The way the brain buys
Supermarkets take great care over the way the goods they sell are arranged. This is because they know a lot
about how to persuade people to buy things.
When you enter a supermarket, it takes some time for the mind to get into a shopping mode. This is why the
area immediately inside the entrance of a supermarket is known as the ‘decompression zone’. People need to
slow down and take stock of the surroundings, even if they are regulars. Supermarkets do not expect to sell
much here, so it tends to be used more for promotion. So the large items piled up here are designed to suggest
that there are bargains further inside the store, and shoppers are not necessarily expected to buy them.
Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, famously employs ‘greeters’ at the entrance to its stores. A friendly
welcome is said to cut shoplifting. It is harder to steal from nice people.
Immediately to the left in many supermarkets is a ‘chill zone’, where customers can enjoy browsing magazines,
books and DVDs. This is intended to tempt unplanned purchases and slow customers down. But people who
just want to do their shopping quickly will keep walking ahead, and the first thing they come to is the fresh fruit
and vegetables section. However, for shoppers, this makes no sense. Fruit and vegetables can be easily
damaged, so they should be bought at the end, not the beginning, of a shopping trip. But psychology is at work
here: selecting these items makes people feel good, so they feel less guilty about reaching for less healthy food
later on.
Shoppers already know that everyday items, like milk, are invariably placed towards the back of a store to
provide more opportunity to tempt customers to buy things which are not on their shopping list. This is why
pharmacies are also generally at the hack. But supermarkets know shoppers know this, so they use other tricks,
like placing popular items halfway along a section so that people have to walk all along the aisle looking for
them. The idea is to boost ‘dwell time’: the length of time people spend in a store.
Having walked to the end of the fruit-and-vegetable aisle, shoppers arrive at counters of prepared food, the
fishmonger, the butcher and the deli. Then there is the in-store bakery, which can be smelt before it is seen.
Even small supermarkets now use in store bakeries. Mostly these bake pre- prepared items and frozen
ingredients which have been delivered to the supermarket previously, and their numbers have increased, even
though central bakeries that deliver to a number of stores are much more efficient. They do it for the smell of
freshly baked bread, which arouses people’s appetites and thus encourages them to purchase not just bread but
also other food, including ready meals.
Retailers and producers talk a lot about the ‘moment of truth’. This is not a philosophical idea, but the point
when people standing in the aisle decide to buy something and reach to get it. At the instant coffee section, for
example, branded products from the big producers are arranged at eye level while cheaper ones are lower
down, along with the supermarket’s own label products.
But shelf positioning is fiercely fought over, not just by those trying to sell goods, but also by those arguing over
how best to manipulate shoppers. While many stores reckon eye level is the top spot, some think a little higher
is better. Others think goods displayed at the end of aisles sell the most because they have the greatest visibility.
To be on the right-hand side of an eye-level selection is often considered the very best place, because most
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people are right-handed and most people’s eyes drift rightwards. Some supermarkets reserve that for their most
expensive own-label goods.
Scott Bearse, a retail expert with Deloitte Consulting in Boston, Massachusetts, has led projects observing and
questioning tens of thousands of customers about how they feel about shopping. People say they leave shops
empty-handed more often because they are ‘unable to decide’ than because prices are too high, says Mr Bearse.
Getting customers to try something is one of the best ways of getting them to buy, adds Mr Bearse. Deloitte
found that customers who use fitting rooms in order to try on clothes buy the product they are considering at
a rate of 85% compared with 58% for those that do not do so.
Often a customer struggling to decide which of two items is best ends up not buying either. In order to avoid a
situation where a customer decides not to buy either product, a third ‘decoy’ item, which is not quite as good
as the other two, is placed beside them to make the choice easier and more pleasurable. Happier customers are
more likely to buy.
Questions 1-4
Label the diagram below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Layout of typical supermarket
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Questions 5 - 10
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage?
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
5. The ‘greeters’ at Walmart increase sales.
6. People feel better about their shopping if they buy fruit and vegetables before they buy other food.
7. In-store bakeries produce a wider range of products than central bakeries.
8. Supermarkets find right-handed people easier to persuade than left-handed people.
9. The most frequent reason for leaving shops without buying something is price.
10. ‘Decoy’ items are products which the store expects customers to choose.
Questions 11-13
Complete the flow chart below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
In-store bread production process
The supermarket is sent 11. ______________ and other
items which have been prepared earlier.
Baking bread in-store produces an aroma.
Shoppers' 12. ______________ are stimulated.
They are then keener to buy food, including bread and 13.
______________
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READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
Questions 14-19
The reading passage has six paragraphs, A-F.
Choose the correct headings for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
List of Headings
i. Some of the things liars really do
ii. When do we begin to lie?
iii. How wrong is it to lie?
iv. Exposing some false beliefs
v. Which form of communication best exposes a lie?
vi. Do only humans lie?
vii. Dealing with known liars
viii. A public test of our ability to spot a lie
14. Paragraph A
15. Paragraph B
16. Paragraph C
17. Paragraph D
18. Paragraph E
19. Paragraph F
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THE TRUTH ABOUT LYING
Over the years Richard Wiseman has tried to unravel the truth about deception - investigating the
signs that give away a liar.
A In the 1970s, as part of a large-scale research programme exploring the area of interspecies
communication, Dr Francine Patterson from Stanford University attempted to teach two lowland
gorillas called Michael and Koko a simplified version of Sign Language. According to Patterson, the
great apes were capable of holding meaningful conversations, and could even reflect upon profound
topics, such as love and death. During the project, their trainers believe they uncovered instances
where the two gorillas’ linguistic skills seemed to provide reliable evidence of intentional deceit. In
one example, Koko broke a toy cat, and then signed to indicate that the breakage had been caused
by one of her trainers. In another episode, Michael ripped a jacket belonging to a trainer and, when
asked who was responsible for the incident, signed ‘Koko’. When the trainer expressed some
scepticism, Michael appeared to change his mind, and indicated that Dr Patterson was actually
responsible, before finally confessing.
B Other researchers have explored the development of deception in children. Some of the most
interesting experiments have involved asking youngsters not to take a peek at their favourite toys.
During these studies, a child is led into a laboratory and asked to face one of the walls. The
experimenter then explains that he is going to set up an elaborate toy a few feet behind them. After
setting up the toy, the experimenter says that he has to leave the laboratory, and asks the child not
to turn around and peek at the toy. The child is secretly filmed by hidden cameras for a few minutes,
and then the experimenter returns and asks them whether they peeked. Almost all three-year-olds
do, and then half of them tie about it to the experimenter. By the time the children have reached the
age of five, all of them peek and all of them lie. The results provide compelling evidence that lying
starts to emerge the moment we learn to speak. So what are the tell-tale signs that give away a lie?
In 1994, the psychologist Richard Wiseman devised a large-scale experiment on a TV programme
called Tomorrow’s World.
C As part of the experiment, viewers watched two interviews in which Wiseman asked a presenter in
front of the cameras to describe his favourite film. In one interview, the presenter picked Some Like
It Hot and he told the truth; in the other interview, he picked Gone with the Wind and lied. The viewers
were then invited to make a choice – to telephone in to say which film he was lying about. More than
30,000 calls were received, but viewers were unable to tell the difference and the vote was a 50/50
split. In similar experiments, the results have been remarkably consistent – when it comes to lie
detection, people might as well simply toss a coin. It doesn’t matter if you are male or female, young
or old; very few people are able to detect deception.
D Why is this? Professor Charles Bond from the Texas Christian University has conducted surveys into
the sorts of behaviour people associate with lying. He has interviewed thousands of people from more
than 60 countries, asking them to describe how they set about telling whether someone is lying.
People’s answers are remarkably consistent. Almost everyone thinks liars tend to avert their gaze,
nervously wave their hands around and shift about in their seats. There is, however, one small
problem. Researchers have spent hour upon hour carefully comparing films of liars and truth-tellers.
The results are clear. Liars do not necessarily look away from you; they do not appear nervous and
move their hands around or shift about in their seats. People fail to detect lies because they are
basing their opinions on behaviours that are not actually associated with deception.
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E So what are we missing? It is obvious that the more information you give away, the greater the
chances of some of it coming back to haunt you. As a result, liars tend to say less and provide fewer
details than truth-tellers. Looking back at the transcripts of the interviews with the presenter, his lie
about Gone with the Wind contained about 40 words, whereas the truth about Some Like It Hot was
nearly twice as long. People who lie also try psychologically to keep a distance from their falsehoods,
and so tend to include fewer references to themselves in their stories. In his entire interview about
Gone with the Wind, the presenter only once mentioned how the film made him feel, compared with
the several references to his feelings when he talked about Some like It Hot.
F The simple fact is that the real clues to deceit are in the words that people use, not the body language.
So do people become better lie detectors when they listen to a liar, or even just read a transcript of
their comments? The interviews with the presenter were also broadcast on radio and published in a
newspaper, and although the lie-detecting abilities of the television viewers were no better than
chance, the newspaper readers were correct 64% of the time, and the radio listeners scored an
impressive 73% accuracy rate.
Questions 20-23
Look at the following statements and the list of experiments below.
Match each statement with the correct experiment, A-C.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
20. Someone who was innocent was blamed for something.
21. Those involved knew they were being filmed.
22. Some objects were damaged.
23. Some instructions were ignored.
List of Experiments
A the gorilla experiment
B the experiment with children
C the TV experiment
Questions 24-26
Complete the sentences below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
24. Filming liars has shown that they do not display _____________ behaviour.
25. Liars tend to avoid talking about their own _____________.
26. Signs of lying are exposed in people’s _____________ rather than their movements.
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READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.
Examining the placebo effect
The fact that taking a fake drug can powerfully improve some people's health-the so-called placebo effect-
-was long considered an embarrassment to the serious practice of pharmacology, but now things have
changed.
Several years ago, Merck, a global pharmaceutical company, was falling behind its rivals in sales. To
make matters worse, patents on five blockbuster drugs were about to expire, which would allow cheaper
generic products to flood the market. In interviews with the press. Edward Scolnick, Merck’s Research
Director, presented his plan to restore the firm to pre-eminence. Key to his strategy was expanding the
company’s reach into the anti-depressant market, where Merck had trailed behind, while competitors like
Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline had created some of the best-selling drugs in the world. “To remain dominant
in the future,” he told one media company, “we need to dominate the central nervous system.”
His plan hinged on the success of an experimental anti-depressant codenamed MK-869. Still, in clinical
trials, it was a new kind of medication that exploited brain chemistry in innovative ways to promote feelings
of well-being. The drug tested extremely well early on, with minimal side effects. Behind the scenes,
however, MK-869 was starting to unravel. True, many test subjects treated with the medication felt their
hopelessness and anxiety lift. But so did nearly the same number who took a placebo, a look-alike pill
made of milk sugar or another inert substance given to groups of volunteers in subsequent clinical trials
to gauge the effectiveness of the real drug by comparison. Ultimately, Merck’s venture into the anti-
depressant market failed. In the jargon of the industry, the trials crossed the “futility boundary”.
MK-869 has not been the only much-awaited medical breakthrough to be undone in recent years by the
placebo effect. And it’s not only trials of new drugs that are crossing the futility boundary. Some products
that have been on the market for decades are faltering in more recent follow-up tests. It’s not that the old
medications are getting weaker, drug developers say. It’s as if the placebo effect is somehow getting
stronger. The fact that an increasing number of medications are unable to beat sugar pills has thrown the
industry into crisis. The stakes could hardly be higher. To win FDA* approval, a new medication must
beat placebo in at least two authenticated trials. In today’s economy, the fate of a well-established
company can hang on the outcome of a handful of tests.
Why are fake pills suddenly overwhelming promising new drugs and established medicines alike? The
reasons are only just beginning to be understood. A network of independent researchers is doggedly
uncovering the inner workings and potential applications of the placebo effect.
A psychiatrist, William Potter, who knew that some patients really do seem to get healthier for reasons
that have more to do with a doctor’s empathy than with the contents of a pill, was baffled by the fact that
drugs he had been prescribing for years seemed to be struggling to prove their effectiveness. Thinking
that a crucial factor may have been overlooked, Potter combed through his company’s database of
published and unpublished trials – including those that had been kept secret because of high placebo
response. His team aggregated the findings from decades of anti-depressant trials, looking for patterns
and trying to see what was changing over time. What they found challenged some of the industry’s basic
assumptions about its drug-vetting process.
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Assumption number one was that if a trial were managed correctly, a medication would perform as well
or badly in a Phoenix hospital as in a Bangalore clinic. Potter discovered, however, that geographic
location alone could determine the outcome. By the late 1990s, for example, the anti-anxiety drug
Diazepam was still beating placebo in France and Belgium. But when the drug was tested in the U.S., it
was likely to fail. Conversely, a similar drug, Prozac, performed better in America than it did in western
Europe and South Africa. It was an unsettling prospect FDA approval could hinge on where the company
chose to conduct a trial.
Mistaken assumption number two was that the standard tests used to gauge volunteers’ improvement in
trials yielded consistent results. Potter and his colleagues discovered that ratings by trial observers varied
significantly from one testing site to another. It was like finding out that the judges in a tight race each
had a different idea about the placement of the finish line.
After some coercion by Potter and others, the National Institute of Health (NIH) focused on the issue in
2000, hosting a three-day conference in Washington, and this conference launched a new wave of
placebo research in academic laboratories in the U.S. and Italy that would make significant progress
toward solving the mystery of what was happening in clinical trials.
In one study last year, Harvard Medical School researcher Ted Kaptchuk devised a clever strategy for
testing his volunteers’ response to varying levels of therapeutic ritual. The study focused on a common
but painful medical condition that costs more than $40 billion a year worldwide to treat. First, the
volunteers were placed randomly in one of three groups. One group was simply put on a waiting list;
researchers know that some patients get better just because they sign up for a trial. Another group
received placebo treatment from a clinician who declined to engage in small talk. Volunteers in the third
group got the same fake treatment from a clinician who asked them questions about symptoms, outlined
the causes of the illness, and displayed optimism about their condition.
Not surprisingly, the health of those in the third group improved most. In fact, just by participating in the
trial, volunteers in this high-interaction group got as much relief as did people taking the two leading
prescription drugs for the condition. And the benefits of their “bogus” treatment persisted for weeks
afterward, contrary to the belief – widespread in the pharmaceutical industry – that the placebo response
is short-lived.
Studies like this open the door to hybrid treatment strategies that exploit the placebo effect to make real
drugs safer and more effective. As Potter says, “To really do the best for your patients, you want the best
placebo response plus the best drug response”
*The Food and Drugs Administration (an agency in the United States responsible for protecting public
health by assuring the safety of human drugs)
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Questions 27-31
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage?
Write
• YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
• NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
• NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
27. Merck’s experience with MK-869 was unique.
28. These days, a small number of unsuccessful test results can ruin a well-established drugs company.
29. Some medical conditions are more easily treated by a placebo than others.
30. It was to be expected that the third group in Kaptchuk’s trial would do better than the other two
groups.
31. Kaptchuk’s research highlights the fact that combined drug and placebo treatments should be
avoided.
Questions 32-36
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-I, below.
Merck and MK-869
As a result of concerns about increasing 32. ___________ in the drugs industry, the pharmaceutical
company Merck decided to increase its 33. ___________ in the anti-depressant market. The
development of the drug MK-869 was seen as the way forward.
Initially, MK-869 had some 34. ___________, but later trials revealed a different picture. Although key
35. ___________ could be treated with the drug, a sugar pill was proving equally effective. In the end,
the 36. ___________ indicated that it was pointless continuing with the development of the drug.
A activity B prices C success
D patients E tests F diseases
G symptoms H competition I criticism
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Questions 37-40
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D
37. Which of the following is true of William Potter’s research?
A It was based on recently developed drugs that he had recommended.
B It included trial results from a range of drugs companies.
C Some of the trial results he investigated had not been made public.
D Some of his findings were not accepted by the drugs industry.
38. What did William Potter’s research reveal about the location of drugs trials?
A The placebo effect was weakest in the US.
B Results were not consistent around the world.
C Results varied depending on the type of hospital.
D The FDA preferred drugs to be tested in different countries.
39. What does the tight race refer to in line 80?
A the standard tests
B consistent results
C ratings by trial observers
D testing sites
40. What significant discovery was made by Ted Kaptchuk?
A The effects of a placebo can last longer than previously thought.
B Patients’ health can improve while waiting to undergo a trial.
C Patients respond better to a placebo if they are treated by the same clinician throughout the trial.
D Those conducting a placebo trial need to know the subjects’ disorder well.
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THIS IS THE END OF
THE READING TEST
THANK YOU!
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