IELTS Academic 14 » Test 2

SECTION 1: Questions 1–10

Complete the notes below.

Write ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

TOTAL HEALTH CLINIC

PATIENT DETAILS

Personal information

Example
Name                Julie Anne Garcia

Contact phone1_____
Date of birth2_____, 1992
Occupationworks as a 3_____
Insurance company4_____ Life Insurance
Details of the problem
Type of problempain in her left 5_____
When it began6_____ ago
Action already takenhas taken painkillers and applied ice
Other information
Sports playedbelongs to a 7_____ club
goes 8_____ regularly
Medical historyinjured her 9_____. last year
no allergies
no regular medication apart from 10_____
CARL:Hi, come and take a seat.
JULIE:Thank you.
CARL:My name's Carl Rogers and I'm one of the doctors here at the Total Health Clinic. So I understand this is your first visit to the clinic?
JULIE:Yes, it is.
CARL:OK, well I hope you'll be very happy with the service you receive here. So if it's alright with you I'll take a few details to help me give you the best possible service.
JULIE:Sure.
CARL:So can I check first of all that we have the correct personal details for you? So your full name is Julie Anne Garcia?
JULIE:That's correct.
CARL:Perfect. And can I have a contact phone number?
JULIE:It's 219 442 9785.
CARL:OK, and then can I just check that we have the correct date of birth?
JULIE:October tenth, 1992.
CARL:Oh, I actually have 1991, I'll just correct that now. Right, so that's all good. Now I just need just a few more personal details ... do you have an occupation, either full-time or part-time?
JULIE:Yes, I work full-time in Esterhazy’s — you know, the restaurant chain. I started off as a waitress there a few years ago and I'm a manager now.
CARL:Oh I know them, yeah, they're down on 114th Street, aren't they?
JULIE:That's right.
JULIE:Yeah, I've been there a few times. I just love their salads.
CARL:That's good to hear.
JULIE:Right, so one more thing I need to know before we talk about why you're here, Julie, and that's the name of your insurance company.
CARL:It's Cawley Life Insurance, that's C-A-W-L-E-Y.
JULIE:Excellent, thank you so much.
................................................................
CARL:Now Julie, let's look at how we can help you. So tell me a little about what brought you here today.
JULIE:Well, I've been getting a pain in my knee, the left one. Not very serious at first, but it's gotten worse, so I thought I ought to see someone about it.
CARL:That's certainly the right decision. So how long have you been aware of this pain? Is it just a few days, or is it longer than that?
JULIE:Longer. It's been worse for the last couple of days, but it's three weeks since I first noticed it. It came on quite gradually though, so I kind of ignored it at first.
CARL:And have you taken any medication yourself, or treated it in anyway?
JULIE:Yeah, I've been taking medication to deal with the pain, Tylenol, and that works OK for a few hours. But I don’t like to keep taking it.
CARL:OK. And what about heat treatment? Have you tried applying heat at all?
JULIE:No, but I have been using ice on it for the last few days.
CARL:And does that seem to help the pain at all?
JULIE:A little, yes.
CARL:Good. Now you look as if you're quite fit normally?
JULIE:I am, yes.
CARL:So do you do any sport on a regular basis?
JULIE:Yes, I play a lot of tennis. I belong to a club so I go there a lot. I'm quite competitive so I enjoy that side of it as well as the exercise. But I haven't gone since this started.
CARL:Sure. And do you do any other types of exercise?
JULIE:Yeah, I sometimes do a little swimming, but usually just when I'm on vacation. But normally I go running a few times a week, maybe three or four times.
CARL:Hmm. So your legs are getting quite a pounding. But you haven't had any problems up to now?
JULIE:No, not with my legs. I did have an accident last year when I slipped and hurt my shoulder, but that’s better now.
CARL:Excellent. And do you have any allergies?
JULIE:No, none that I'm aware of.
CARL:And do you take any medication on a regular basis?
JULIE:Well, I take vitamins but that's all. I'm generally very healthy.
CARL:OK, well let's have a closer look and see what might be causing this problem. If you can just get up ...

 

SECTION 2: Questions 11–20

Questions 11 - 15

Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.

Visit to Branley Castle

  1. Before Queen Elizabeth I visited the castle in 1576,
    • A     repairs were carried out to the guest rooms.
    • B     a new building was constructed for her.
    • C     a fire damaged part of the main hall.
  2. In 1982, the castle was sold to
    • A     the government.
    • B     the Fenys family.
    • C     an entertainment company.
  3. In some of the rooms, visitors can
    • A     speak to experts on the history of the castle.
    • B     interact with actors dressed as famous characters.
    • C     see models of historical figures moving and talking.
  4. In the castle park, visitors can
    • A     see an 800-year-old tree.
    • B     go to an art exhibition.
    • C     visit a small zoo.
  5. At the end of the visit, the group will have
    • A     afternoon tea in the conservatory.
    • B     the chance to meet the castle’s owners.
    • C     a photograph together on the Great Staircase.

 

Questions 16-20

Label the plan below.

Write the correct letter, A—H, next to Questions 16-20.

Branley Castle

  1. Starting point for walking the walls _____
  2. Bow and arrow display _____
  3. Hunting birds display _____
  4. Traditional dancing _____
  5. Shop _____

We'll be arriving at Branley Castle in about five minutes, but before we get there I'll give you a little information about the castle and what our visit will include.

Soin fact there's been a castle on this site for over eleven hundred years. The first building was a fort constructed in 914 AD for defence against Danish invaders by King Alfred the Great's daughter, who ruled England at the time. In the following century, after the Normans conquered England, the land was given to a nobleman called Richard de Vere, and he built a castle there that stayed in the de Vere family for over four hundred years.

However, when Queen Elizabeth I announced that she was going to visit the castle in 1576 it was beginning to look a bit run down, and it was decided that rather than repair the guest rooms, they'd make a new house for her out of wood next to the main hall. She stayed there for four nights and apparently it was very luxurious, but unfortunately it was destroyed a few years later by fire.

In the seventeenth century the castle belonged to the wealthy Fenys family, who enlarged it and made it more comfortable. However, by 1982 the Fenys family could no longer afford to maintain the castle, even though they received government support, and they put it on the market. It was eventually taken over by a company who owned a number of amusement parks, but when we get there I think you'll see that they've managed to retain the original atmosphere of the castle.

When you go inside, you'll find that in the state rooms there are life-like moving wax models dressed in costumes of different periods in the past, which even carry on conversations together. As well as that, in every room there are booklets giving information about what the room was used for and the history of the objects and furniture it contains.

The castle park's quite extensive. At one time sheep were kept there, and in the nineteenth century the owners had a little zoo with animals like rabbits and even a baby elephant. Nowadays the old zoo buildings are used for public displays of paintings and sculpture. The park also has some beautiful trees, though the oldest of all, which dated back 800 years, was sadly blown down in 1987.

Now, you're free to wander around on your own until 4.30, but then at the end of our visit we'll all meet together at the bottom of the Great Staircase. We'll then go on to the long gallery, where there's a wonderful collection of photographs showing the family who owned the castle a hundred years ago having tea and cakes in the conservatory — and we'll then take you to the same place, where afternoon tea will be served to you.

................................................................

Now if you can take a look at your plans you'll see Branley Castle has four towers, joined together by a high wall, with the river on two sides.

Don’t miss seeing the Great Hall. That's near the river in the main tower, the biggest one, which was extended and redesigned in the eighteenth century.

If you want to get a good view of the whole castle, you can walk around the walls. The starting point's quite near the main entrance — walk straight down the path until you get to the south gate, and it's just there. Don’t go on to the north gate — there’s no way up from there.

There'll shortly be a show in which you can see archers displaying their skill with a bow and arrow. The quickest way to get there is to take the first left after the main entrance and follow the path past the bridge, then you'll see it in front of you at the end.

If you like animals there's also a display of hunting birds — falcons and eagles and so on. If you go from the main entrance in the direction of the south gate, but turn right before you get there instead of going through it. you'll see it on your right past the first tower.

At 3 pm there's a short performance of traditional dancing on the outdoor stage. That's right at the other side of the castle from the entrance, and over the bridge. It's about ten minutes’ walk or so.

And finally the shop. It's actually inside one of the towers, but the way in is from the outside. Just take the first left after the main entrance, go down the path and take the first right. It's got some lovely gifts and souvenirs.

Right, so we're just arriving ...

 

SECTION 3: Questions 21–30

Questions 21–24

Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.

Woolly mammoths on St Paul’s Island

  1. How will Rosie and Martin introduce their presentation?
    • A     with a drawing of woolly mammoths in their natural habitat
    • B     with a timeline showing when woolly mammoths lived
    • C     with a video clip about woolly mammoths
  2. What was surprising about the mammoth tooth found by Russell Graham?
    • A     It was still embedded in the mammoth’s jawbone.
    • B     It was from an unknown species of mammoth.
    • C     It was not as old as mammoth remains from elsewhere.
  3. The students will use an animated diagram to demonstrate how the mammoths
    • A     became isolated on the island.
    • B     spread from the island to other areas.
    • C     coexisted with other animals on the island.
  4. According to Martin, what is unusual about the date of the mammoths’ extinction on the island?
    • A     how exact it is
    • B     how early it is
    • C     how it was established

 

Questions 25 - 30

What action will the students take for each of the following sections of their presentation?

Choose SIX answers from the box and write the correct letter, A—H, next to Questions 25-30.

Actions
  1. A    make it more interactive
  2. B    reduce visual input
  3. C    add personal opinions
  4. D    contact one of the researchers
  5. E    make detailed notes
  6. F    find information online
  7. G    check timing
  8. H    organise the content more clearly

Sections of presentation

  1. Introducton ........
  2. Discovery of the mammoth tooth ........
  3. Initial questions asked by the researchers ........
  4. Further research carried out on the island ........
  5. Findings and possible explanations ........
  6. Relevance to the present day ........
tutor:So, Rosie and Martin, let's look at what you've got for your presentation on woolly mammoths.
MARTIN:OK, we've got a short outline here.
tutor:Thanks. So it's about a research project in North America?
MARTIN:Yes. But we thought we needed something general about woolly mammoths in our introduction, to establish that they were related to our modern elephant, and they lived thousands of years ago in the last ice age.
ROSIE:Maybe we could show a video clip of a cartoon about mammoths. But that'd be a bit childish. Or we could have a diagram, it could be a timeline to show when they lived, with illustrations?
MARTIN:Or we could just show a drawing of them walking in the ice? No, let's go with your last suggestion.
TUTOR:Good. Then you're describing the discovery of the mammoth tooth on St Paul's Island in Alaska, and why it was significant.
ROSIE:Yes. The tooth was found by a man called Russell Graham. He picked it up from under a rock in a cave. He knew it was special — for a start it was in really good condition, as if it had been just extracted from the animal's jawbone. Anyway, they found it was 6,500 years old.
TUTOR:So why was that significant?
ROSIE:Well the mammoth bones previously found on the North American mainland were much less recent than that. So this was really amazing.
MARTIN:Then we're making an animated diagram to show the geography of the area in prehistoric times. So originally, St Paul's Island wasn't an island, it was connected to the mainland, and mammoths and other animals like bears were able to roam around the whole area.
ROSIE:Then the climate warmed up and the sea level began to rise, and the island got cut off from the mainland. So those mammoths on the island couldnt escape; they had to stay on the island.
MARTIN:And in fact the species survived there for thousands of years after they'd become extinct on the mainland.
TUTOR:So why do you think they died out on the mainland?
ROSIE:No one’s sure.
MARTIN:Anyway, next we'll explain how Graham and his team identified the date when the mammoths became extinct on the island. They concluded that the extinction happened 5.600 years ago. which is a very precise time for a prehistoric extinction. It's based on samples they took from mud at the bottom of a lake on the island. They analysed it to find out what had fallen in over time — bits of plants, volcanic ash and even DNA from the mammoths themselves. It's standard procedure, but it took nearly two years to do.
................................................................
TUTOR:So why don't you quickly go through the main sections of your presentation and discuss what action’s needed for each part?
MARTIN:OK. So for the introduction, we're using a visual, so once we've prepared that we're done.
ROSIE:I’m not sure. I think we need to write down all the ideas we want to include here, not just rely on memory. How we begin the presentation is so important ...
MARTIN:You're right.
ROSIE:The discovery of the mammoth tooth is probably the most dramatic part, but we don't have that much information, only what we got from the online article. I thought maybe we could get in touch with the researcher who led the team and ask him to tell us a bit more.
MARTIN:Great idea. What about the section with the initial questions asked by the researchers? We've got a lot on that but we need to make it interesting.
ROSIE:We could ask the audience to suggest some questions about it and then see how many of them we can answer. I don't think it would take too long.
TUTOR:Yes that would add a bit of variety.
MARTIN:Then the section on further research carried out on the island — analysing the mud in the lake. I wonder if we've actually got too much information here, should we cut some?
ROSIE:I don't think so, but it's all a bit muddled at present.
MARTIN:Yes, maybe it would be better if it followed a chronological pattern.
ROSIE:I think so. The findings and possible explanations section is just about ready, but we need to practise it so we're sure it won't overrun.
MARTIN:I think it should be OK, but yes, let's make sure.
TUTOR:In the last section, relevance to the present day, you've got some good ideas but this is where you need to move away from the ideas of others and give your own viewpoint.
MARTIN:OK, we'll think about that. Now shall we ...

 

SECTION 4: Questions 31–40

Complete the notes below.

Write ONE WORD ONLY for each answer.

The history of weather forecasting

Ancient cultures

  • many cultures believed that floods and other disasters were involved in the creation of the world
  • many cultures invented 31_____ and other ceremonies to make the weather gods friendly
  • people needed to observe and interpret the sky to ensure their 32_____
  • around 650 BC, Babylonians started forecasting, using weather phenomena such as 33_____
  • by 300 BC, the Chinese had a calendar made up of a number of 34_____ connected with the weather

Ancient Greeks

  • a more scientific approach
  • Aristotle tried to explain the formation of various weather phenomena
  • Aristotle also described haloes and 35_____

Middle Ages

  • Aristotle’s work considered accurate
  • many proverbs, e.g. about the significance of the colour of the 36_____, passed on accurate information.

15th—19th centuries

  • 15th century: scientists recognised value of 37_____ for the first time
  • Galileo invented the 38_____.
  • Pascal showed relationship between atmospheric pressure and altitude
  • from the 17th century, scientists could measure atmospheric pressure and temperature
  • 18th century: Franklin identified the movement of 39_____
  • 19th century: data from different locations could be sent to the same place by 40_____

In this series of lectures about the history of weather forecasting, I'll start by examining its early history — that'll be the subject of today’s talk.

OK, so we'll start by going back thousands of years. Most ancient cultures had weather gods, and weather catastrophes, such as floods, played an important role in many creation myths. Generally, weather was attributed to the whims of the gods, as the wide range of weather gods in various cultures shows. For instance, there's the Egyptian sun god Ra, and Thor, the Norse god of thunder and lightning. Many ancient civilisations developed rites such as dances in order to make the weather gods look kindly on them.

But the weather was of daily importance: observing the skies and drawing the correct conclusions from these observations was really important, in fact their survival depended on it. It isn’t known when people first started to observe the skies, but at around 650 BC, the Babylonians produced the first short-range weather forecasts, based on their observations of clouds and other phenomena. The Chinese also recognised weather patterns, and by 300 BC, astronomers had developed a calendar which divided the year into 24 festivals, each associated with a different weather phenomenon.

The ancient Greeks were the first to develop a more scientific approach to explaining the weather. The work of the philosopher and scientist Aristotle, in the fourth century BC, is especially noteworthy, as his ideas held sway for nearly 2,000 years. In 340 BC, he wrote a book in which he attempted to account for the formation of rain, clouds, wind and storms. He also described celestial phenomena such as haloes — that is, bright circles of light around the sun, the moon and bright stars — and comets. Many of his observations were surprisingly accurate. For example, he believed that heat could cause water to evaporate. But he also jumped to quite a few wrong conclusions, such as that winds are breathed out by the Earth. Errors like this were rectified from the Renaissance onwards.

................................................................

For nearly 2,000 years, Aristotle’s work was accepted as the chief authority on weather theory. Alongside this, though, in the Middle Ages weather observations were passed on in the form of proverbs, such as ‘Red sky at night, shepherd's delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning’. Many of these are based on very good observations and are accurate, as contemporary meteorologists have discovered.

For centuries, any attempt to forecast the weather could only be based on personal observations, but in the fifteenth century scientists began to see the need for instruments. Until then, the only ones available were weather vanes — to determine the wind direction — and early versions of rain gauges. One of the first, invented in the fifteenth century, was a hygrometer, which measured humidity. This was one of many inventions that contributed to the development of weather forecasting.

In 1592, the Italian scientist and inventor Galileo developed the world's first thermometer. His student Torricelli later invented the barometer, which allowed people to measure atmospheric pressure. In 1648, the French philosopher Pascal proved that pressure decreases with altitude. This discovery was verified by English astronomer Halley in 1686; and Halley was also the first person to map trade winds.

This increasing ability to measure factors related to weather helped scientists to understand the atmosphere and its processes better, and they started collecting weather observation data systematically. In the eighteenth century, the scientist and politician Benjamin Franklin carried out work on electricity and lightning in particular, but he was also very interested in weather and studied it throughout most of his life. It was Franklin who discovered that storms generally travel from west to east.

In addition to new meteorological instruments, other developments contributed to our understanding of the atmosphere. People in different locations began to keep records, and in the mid-nineteenth century, the invention of the telegraph made it possible for these records to be collated. This led, by the end of the nineteenth century, to the first weather services.

It was not until the early twentieth century that mathematics and physics became part of meteorology, and we’ll continue from that point next week.

 

READING PASSAGE 1

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

Alexander Henderson (1831-1913)

Born in Scotland, Henderson emigrated to Canada in 1855 and became a well-known landscape photographer

Alexander Henderson was born in Scotland in 1831 and was the son of a successful merchant. His grandfather, also called Alexander, had founded the family business, and later became the first chairman of the National Bank of Scotland. The family had extensive landholdings in Scotland. Besides its residence in Edinburgh, it owned Press Estate, 650 acres of farmland about 35 miles southeast of the city. The family often stayed at Press Castle, the large mansion on the northern edge of the property, and Alexander spent much of his childhood in the area, playing on the beach near Eyemouth or fishing in the streams nearby.

Even after he went to school at Murcheston Academy on the outskirts of Edinburgh, Henderson returned to Press at weekends. In 1849 he began a three-year apprenticeship to become an accountant. Although he never liked the prospect of a business career, he stayed with it to please his family. In October 1855, however, he emigrated to Canada with his wife Agnes Elder Robertson and they settled in Montreal.

Henderson learned photography in Montreal around the year 1857 and quickly took it up as a serious amateur. He became a personal friend and colleague of the Scottish—Canadian photographer William Notman. The two men made a photographic excursion to Niagara Falls in 1860 and they cooperated on experiments with magnesium flares as a source of artificial light in 1865. They belonged to the same societies and were among the founding members of the Art Association of Montreal. Henderson acted as chairman of the association’s first meeting, which was held in Notman’s studio on 11 January 1860.

In spite of their friendship, their styles of photography were quite different. While Notman’s landscapes were noted for their bold realism, Henderson for the first 20 years of his career produced romantic images, showing the strong influence of the British landscape tradition. His artistic and technical progress was rapid and in 1865 he published his first major collection of landscape photographs. The publication had limited circulation (only seven copies have ever been found), and was called Canadian Views and Studies. The contents of each copy vary significantly and have proved a useful source for evaluating Henderson’s early work.

In 1866, he gave up his business to open a photographic studio, advertising himself as a portrait and landscape photographer. From about 1870 he dropped portraiture to specialize in landscape photography and other views. His numerous photographs of city life revealed in street scenes, houses, and markets are alive with human activity, and although his favourite subject was landscape he usually composed his scenes around such human pursuits as farming the land, cutting ice on a river, or sailing down a woodland stream. There was sufficient demand for these types of scenes and others he took depicting the lumber trade, steamboats and waterfalls to enable him to make a living. There was little competing hobby or amateur photography before the late 1880s because of the time-consuming techniques involved and the weight of the equipment. People wanted to buy photographs as souvenirs of a trip or as gifts, and catering to this market, Henderson had stock photographs on display at his studio for mounting, framing, or inclusion in albums.

Henderson frequently exhibited his photographs in Montreal and abroad, in London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Paris, New York, and Philadelphia. He met with greater success in 1877 and 1878 in New York when he won first prizes in the exhibition held by E and H T Anthony and Company for landscapes using the Lambertype process. In 1878 his work won second prize at the world exhibition in Paris.

In the 1870s and 1880s Henderson travelled widely throughout Quebec and Ontario, in Canada, documenting the major cities of the two provinces and many of the villages in Quebec. He was especially fond of the wilderness and often travelled by canoe on the Blanche, du Liévre, and other noted eastern rivers. He went on several occasions to the Maritimes and in 1872 he sailed by yacht along the lower north shore of the St Lawrence River. That same year, while in the lower St Lawrence River region, he took some photographs of the construction of the Intercolonial Railway. This undertaking led in 1875 to a commission from the railway to record the principal structures along the almost-completed line connecting Montreal to Halifax. Commissions from other railways followed. In 1876 he photographed bridges on the Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa and Occidental Railway between Montreal and Ottawa. In 1885 he went west along the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) as far as Rogers Pass in British Columbia, where he took photographs of the mountains and the progress of construction.

In 1892 Henderson accepted a full-time position with the CPR as manager of a photographic department which he was to set up and administer. His duties included spending four months in the field each year. That summer he made his second trip west, photographing extensively along the railway line as far as Victoria. He continued in this post until 1897, when he retired completely from photography.

When Henderson died in 1913, his huge collection of glass negatives was stored in the basement of his house. Today collections of his work are held at the National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, and the McCord Museum of Canadian History, Montreal.

________________
This text is taken, for the most part, verbatim from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Volume XIV (1911-19820). For design purposes, quotation marks have been omitted. Source: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/henderson_alexander_1831_1913_14E. html. Reproduced with permission

 

Questions 1–8

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

In boxes 1-8 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

  1. Henderson rarely visited the area around Press estate when he was younger.
    • True
    • False
    • Not given
  2. Henderson pursued a business career because it was what his family wanted.
    • True
    • False
    • Not given
  3. Henderson and Notman were surprised by the results of their 1865 experiment.
    • True
    • False
    • Not given
  4. There were many similarities between Henderson's early landscapes and those of Notman.
    • True
    • False
    • Not given
  5. The studio that Henderson opened in 1866 was close to his home.
    • True
    • False
    • Not given
  6. Henderson gave up portraiture so that he could focus on taking photographs of scenery.
    • True
    • False
    • Not given
  7. When Henderson began work for the Intercolonial Railway, the Montreal to Halifax line had been finished.
    • True
    • False
    • Not given
  8. Henderson's last work as a photographer was with the Canadian Pacific Railway.
    • True
    • False
    • Not given

 

Questions 9–13

Complete the notes below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet.

Alexander Henderson

Early life

  • was born in Scotland in 1831 — father was a 9_____
  • trained as an accountant, emigrated to Canada in 1855

Start of a photographic career

  • opened up a photographic studio in 1866
  • took photos of city life, but preferred landscape photography
  • people bought Henderson's photos because photography took up considerable time and the 10_____ was heavy
  • the photographs Henderson sold were 11_____ or souvenirs

Travelling as a professional photographer

  • travelled widely in Quebec and Ontario in 1870s and 1880s
  • took many trips along eastern rivers in a 12_____
  • worked for Canadian railways between 1875 and 1897
  • worked for CPR in 1885 and photographed the 13_____ and the railway at Rogers Pass

 

READING PASSAGE 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.

Back to the future of skyscraper design

Answers fo the problem of excessive electricity use by skyscrapers and large public buildings can be found in ingenious but forgotten architectural designs of the 19th and early-20th centuries

  1. The Recovery of Natural Environments in Architecture by Professor Alan Short is the culmination of 30 years of research and award-winning green building design by Short and colleagues in Architecture, Engineering, Applied Maths and Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge.

    ‘The crisis in building design is already here,’ said Short. ‘Policy makers think you can solve energy and building problems with gadgets. You can’t. As global temperatures continue to rise, we are going to continue to squander more and more energy on keeping our buildings mechanically cool until we have run out of capacity.’
     
  2. Short is calling for a sweeping reinvention of how skyscrapers and major public buildings are designed — to end the reliance on sealed buildings which exist solely via the ‘life support’ system of vast air conditioning units.

    Instead, he shows it is entirely possible to accommodate natural ventilation and cooling in large buildings by looking into the past, before the widespread introduction of air conditioning systems, which were ‘relentlessly and aggressively marketed’ by their inventors.
     
  3. Short points out that to make most contemporary buildings habitable, they have to be sealed and air conditioned. The energy use and carbon emissions this generates is spectacular and largely unnecessary. Buildings in the West account for 40-50% of electricity usage, generating substantial carbon emissions, and the rest of the world is catching up at a frightening rate. Short regards glass, steel and air-conditioned skyscrapers as symbols of status, rather than practical ways of meeting our requirements.’
     
  4. Short’s book highlights a developing and sophisticated art and science of ventilating buildings through the 19th and earlier-20th centuries, including the design of ingeniously ventilated hospitals. Of particular interest were those built to the designs of John Shaw Billings, including the first Johns Hopkins Hospital in the US city of Baltimore (1873-1889).

    ‘We spent three years digitally modelling Billings’ final designs,’ says Short. ‘We put pathogens’ in the airstreams, modelled for someone with tuberculosis (TB) coughing in the wards and we found the ventilation systems in the room would have kept other patients safe from harm.
     
  5. ‘We discovered that 19th-century hospital wards could generate up to 24 air changes an hour — that’s similar to the performance of a modern-day, computer-controlled operating theatre. We believe you could build wards based on these principles now.

    Single rooms are not appropriate for all patients. Communal wards appropriate for certain patients — older people with dementia, for example — would work just as well in today’s hospitals, at a fraction of the energy cost.’

    Professor Short contends the mindset and skill-sets behind these designs have been completely lost, lamenting the disappearance of expertly designed theatres, opera houses, and other buildings where up to half the volume of the building was given over to ensuring everyone got fresh air.
     
  6. Much of the ingenuity present in 19th-century hospital and building design was driven by a panicked public clamouring for buildings that could protect against what was thought to be the lethal threat of miasmas — toxic air that spread disease. Miasmas were feared as the principal agents of disease and epidemics for centuries, and were used to explain the spread of infection from the Middle Ages right through to the cholera outbreaks in London and Paris during the 1850s. Foul air, rather than germs, was believed to be the main driver of ‘hospital fever’, leading to disease and frequent death. The prosperous steered clear of hospitals.

    While miasma theory has been long since disproved, Short has for the last 30 years advocated a return to some of the building design principles produced in its wake.
     
  7. Today, huge amounts of a building's space and construction cost are given over to air conditioning. ‘But I have designed and built a series of buildings over the past three decades which have tried to reinvent some of these ideas and then measure what happens.

    `To go forward into our new low-energy, low-carbon future, we would be well advised to look back at design before our high-energy, high-carbon present appeared. What is surprising is what a rich legacy we have abandoned.’
     
  8. Successful examples of Short’s approach include the Queen's Building at De Montfort University in Leicester. Containing as many as 2,000 staff and students, the entire building is naturally ventilated, passively cooled and naturally lit, including the two largest auditoria, each seating more than 150 people. The award-winning building uses a fraction of the electricity of comparable buildings in the UK.

    Short contends that glass skyscrapers in London and around the world will become a liability over the next 20 or 30 years if climate modelling predictions and energy price rises come to pass as expected.
     
  9. He is convinced that sufficiently cooled skyscrapers using the natural environment can be produced in almost any climate. He and his team have worked on hybrid buildings in the harsh climates of Beijing and Chicago — built with natural ventilation assisted by back-up air conditioning — which, surprisingly perhaps, can be switched off more than half the time on milder days and during the spring and autumn.

    Short looks at how we might reimagine the cities, offices and homes of the future. Maybe it's time we changed our outlook.
     

________________
* pathogens: microorganisms that can cause disease

 

Questions 14—18

Reading Passage 2 has nine sections, A—l.

Which section contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A—l, in boxes 14—18 on your answer sheet.

  1. why some people avoided hospitals in the 19th century
    • A
    • B
    • C
    • D
    • E
    • F
    • G
    • I
  2. a suggestion that the popularity of tall buildings is linked to prestige
    • A
    • B
    • C
    • D
    • E
    • F
    • G
    • I
  3. a comparison between the circulation of air in a 19th-century building and modern standards
    • A
    • B
    • C
    • D
    • E
    • F
    • G
    • I
  4. how Short tested the circulation of air in a 19th-century building
    • A
    • B
    • C
    • D
    • E
    • F
    • G
    • I
  5. an implication that advertising led to the large increase in the use of air conditioning
    • A
    • B
    • C
    • D
    • E
    • F
    • G
    • I

 

Questions 19-26

Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 19-26 on your answer sheet.

Ventilation in 19th-century hospital wards

Professor Alan Short examined the work of John Shaw Billings, who influenced the architectural 19_____ of hospitals to ensure they had good ventilation. He calculated that 20_____ in the air coming from patients suffering from 21_____ would not have harmed other patients. He also found that the air in 22_____ in hospitals could change as often as in a modern operating theatre. He suggests that energy use could be reduced by locating more patients in 23_____ areas.

a major reason for improving ventilation in 19th-century was the demand from the 24_____ for protection against bad air, known as 25_____. These were blamed for the spread of disease for hundreds of years, including epidemics of 26_____ in London and Paris in the middle of the 19th century.

 

READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27–40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 on pages 47 and 48.

Questions 27—34

Reading Passage 3 has eight sections, A—H.

Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.

Write the correct number, i—ix, in boxes 27-34 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings
  1. i    Complaints about the impact of a certain approach
  2. ii    Fundamental beliefs that are in fact incorrect
  3. iii    Early recommendations concerning business activities
  4. iv    Organisations that put a new approach into practice
  5. v    Companies that have suffered from changing their approach
  6. vi    What people are increasingly expected to do
  7. vii    How to achieve outcomes that are currently impossible
  8. viii    Neither approach guarantees continuous improvement
  9. ix    Evidence that a certain approach can have more disadvantages than advantages
  1. Section A 
  2. Section B
  3. Section C
  4. Section D
  5. Section E
  6. Section F
  7. Section G
  8. Section H

Why companies should welcome disorder

  1. Organisation is big business. Whether it is of our lives — all those inboxes and calendars — or how companies are structured, a multi-billion dollar industry helps to meet this need.

    We have more strategies for time management, project management and self-organisation than at any other time in human history. We are told that we ought to organise our company, our home life, our week, our day and even our sleep, all as a means to becoming more productive. Every week, countless seminars and workshops take place around the world to tell a paying public that they ought to structure their lives in order to achieve this.

    This rhetoric has also crept into the thinking of business leaders and entrepreneurs, much to the delight of self-proclaimed perfectionists with the need to get everything right. The number of business schools and graduates has massively increased over the past 50 years, essentially teaching people how to organise well.
     
  2. Ironically, however, the number of businesses that fail has also steadily increased. Work-related stress has increased. A large proportion of workers from all demographics claim to be dissatisfied with the way their work is structured and the way they are managed.

    This begs the question: what has gone wrong? Why is it that on paper the drive for organisation seems a sure shot for increasing productivity, but in reality falls well short of what is expected?
     
  3. This has been a problem for a while now. Frederick Taylor was one of the forefathers of scientific management. Writing in the first half of the 20th century, he designed a number of principles to improve the efficiency of the work process, which have since become widespread in modern companies. So the approach has been around for a while.
     
  4. New research suggests that this obsession with efficiency is misguided. The problem is not necessarily the management theories or strategies we use to organise our work; it’s the basic assumptions we hold in approaching how we work. Here it’s the assumption that order is a necessary condition for productivity. This assumption has also fostered the idea that disorder must be detrimental to organisational productivity. The result is that businesses and people spend time and money organising themselves for the sake of organising, rather than actually looking at the end goal and usefulness of such an effort.
     
  5. What's more, recent studies show that order actually has diminishing returns. Order does increase productivity to a certain extent, but eventually the usefulness of the process of organisation, and the benefit it yields, reduce until the point where any further increase in order reduces productivity. Some argue that in a business, if the cost of formally structuring something outweighs the benefit of doing it, then that thing ought not to be formally structured. Instead, the resources involved can be better used elsewhere.
     
  6. In fact, research shows that, when innovating, the best approach is to create an environment devoid of structure and hierarchy and enable everyone involved to engage as one organic group. These environments can lead to new solutions that, under conventionally structured environments (filled with bottlenecks in terms of information flow, power structures, rules, and routines) would never be reached.
     
  7. In recent times companies have slowly started to embrace this disorganisation. Many of them embrace it in terms of perception (embracing the idea of disorder, as opposed to fearing it) and in terms of process (putting mechanisms in place to reduce structure).

    For example, Oticon, a large Danish manufacturer of hearing aids, used what it called a ‘spaghetti’ structure in order to reduce the organisation’s rigid hierarchies. This involved scrapping formal job titles and giving staff huge amounts of ownership over their own time and projects. This approach proved to be highly successful initially, with clear improvements in worker productivity in all facets of the business.

    In similar fashion, the former chairman of General Electric embraced disorganisation, putting forward the idea of the ‘boundaryless’ organisation. Again, it involves breaking down the barriers between different parts of a company and encouraging virtual collaboration and flexible working. Google and a number of other tech companies have embraced (at least in part) these kinds of flexible structures, facilitated by technology and strong company values which glue people together.
     
  8. A word of warning to others thinking of jumping on this bandwagon: the evidence so far suggests disorder, much like order, also seems to have diminishing utility, and can also have detrimental effects on performance if overused. Like order, disorder should be embraced only so far as it is useful. But we should not fear it — nor venerate one over the other. This research also shows that we should continually question whether or not our existing assumptions work.
     

 

Questions 35–37

Complete the sentences below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 35-37 on your answer sheet.

  1. Numerous training sessions are aimed at people who feel they are not _____ enough.
  2. Being organised appeals to people who regard themselves a _____.
  3. Many people feel _____ with aspects of their work.

 

Questions 38–40

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

In boxes 38-40 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

  1. Both businesses and people aim at order without really considering its value.
    • True
    • False
    • Not given
  2. Innovation is most successful if the people involved have distinct roles.
    • True
    • False
    • Not given
  3. Google was inspired to adopt flexibility by the success of General Electric.
    • True
    • False
    • Not given

WRITING TASK 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The chart below shows the value of one country’s exports in various categories during 2015 and 2016. The table shows the percentage change in each category of exports in 2016 compared with 2015.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Write at least 150 words.

 Export Earnings (2015-2016)

_____

 

WRITING TASK 2

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

Some people say that the main environmental problem of our time is the loss of particular species of plants and animals. Others say that there are more important environmental problems.

Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Write at least 250 words. 

_____

PART 1

The examiner asks the candidate about him/herself, his/her home, work or studies and other familiar topics.

EXAMPLE

Social media

  • Which social media websites do you use?
  • How much time do you spend on social media sites? [Why/Why not?]
  • What kind of information about yourself have you put on social media? [Why/Why not?]
  • Is there anything you don't like about social media? [Why?]

 

PART 2

 

Describe something you liked very much which you bought for your home.

You should say:
          what you bought
          when and where you bought it
          why you chose this particular thing
and explain why you liked it so much.

You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes. You have one minute to think about what you are going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish.

 

PART 3

Discussion topics:

Creating a nice home

Example questions:
Why do some people buy lots of things for their home?
Do you think it is very expensive to make a home look nice?
Why don’t some people care about how their home looks?

Different types of home

Example questions:
In what ways is living in a flat/apartment better than living in a house?
Do you think homes will look different in the future?
Do you agree that the kinds of homes people prefer change as they get older?

Answer Key
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IELTS consists of four components. All candidates take the same Listening and Speaking tests. There is a choice of Reading and Writing tests according to whether a candidate is taking the Academic or General Training module.

Read more

IELTS consists of four components. All candidates take the same Listening and Speaking tests. There is a choice of Reading and Writing tests according to whether a candidate is taking the Academic or General Training module.

Read more

IELTS consists of four components. All candidates take the same Listening and Speaking tests. There is a choice of Reading and Writing tests according to whether a candidate is taking the Academic or General Training module.

Read more
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