Practice Test - 21 | Reading Practice Tests for IELTS Academic PDF Download

(A) When people are faced with a foreign-language barrier, the usual way round it is to find someone to interpret or translate for them. The term 'translation', is the neutral term used for all tasks where the meaning or expressions in one language (the source language) is turned into the meaning of another (the ‘target’ language), whether the medium is spoken, written, or signed. In specific professional contexts, however, a distinction is drawn between people who work with the spoken or signed language (interpreters), and those who work with the written language (translators). There are certain tasks that blur this distinction, as when source speeches turned into target writing. But usually the two roles are seen as quite distinct, and it is unusual to find one person who is equally happy with both occupations. Some writers on translation, indeed, consider the interpreting task to be more suitable for extrovert personalities, and the translating task for introverts

(B) Interpreting is today widely known from its use in international political life. When senior ministers from different language backgrounds meet, the television record invariably shows a pair of interpreters hovering in the background. At major conferences, such as the United Nations General Assembly, the presence of headphones is a clear indication that a major linguistic exercise is taking place. In everyday circumstances, too, interpreters are frequently needed, especially in cosmopolitan societies formed by new reiterations of immigrants and Gastarbeiter. Often, the business of law courts, hospitals, local health clinics, classrooms, or industrial tribunals cannot be carried on without the presence of an interpreter. Given the importance and frequency of this task, therefore, it is remarkable that so little study has been made of what actually happens when interpreting takes place, and of how successful an exercise it is.

(C) There are two main kinds of oral translation consecutive and. In consecutive translation the translating starts after the original speech or some part of it has been completed. Here the interpreter’s strategy and the final results depend, to a great extent on the length of the segment to be translated. If the segment is just a sentence or two the interpreter closely follows the original speech. As often as not, however, the interpreter is expected to translate a long speech which has lasted for scores of minutes or even longer. In this case he has to remember a great number of messages; and keep them in mind until he begins his translation. To make this possible the interpreter has to take notes of the original messages, various systems of notation having been suggested for the purpose. The study of, and practice in, such notation is the integral part of the interpreter’s training as are special exercises to develop his memory.

(D) Doubtless the recency of developments in the field partly explains this neglect. One procedure, consecutive interpreting, is very old — and presumably dates from the Tower of Babel! Here, the interpreter translates after the speaker has finished speaking. This approach is widely practiced in informal situations, as well as in committees and small conferences. In larger and more formal settings, however, it has been generally replaced by simultaneous interpreting — a recent development that arose from the availability of modem audiological equipment and the advent of increased international interaction following the Second World War.

(E) Of the two procedures, it is the second that has attracted most interest, because of the complexity of the task and the remarkable skills required. In no other context of human communication is anyone routinely required to listen and speak at the same time, preserving an exact semantic correspondence between the two modes. Moreover, there is invariably a delay of a few words between the stimulus and the response, because of the time it takes to assimilate what is being said in the source language and to translate it into an acceptable form in the target language. This ‘ear-voice span’ is usually about 2 or 3 seconds, but it may be as much as 10 seconds or so, if the text is complex. The brain has to remember what has just been said, attend to what is currently being said, and anticipate the construction of what is about to be said. As you start a sentence you are taking a leap in the dark, you are mortgaging your grammatical future; the original sentence may suddenly be turned in such a way that your translation of its end cannot easily be reconciled with your translation of its start. Great is called for

(F) How it is all done is not at all clear. That it is done at all is a source of some wonder, given the often lengthy periods of interpreting required, the confined environment of an interpreting booth, the presence of background noise, and the awareness that major decisions may depend upon the accuracy of the work. Other consideration such as cultural background also makes it aim to pay full attention to the backgrounds of the authors and the recipients, and to take into account differences between source and target language.

(G) Research projects have now begun to look at these factors - to determine, for example, how far successful interpreting is affected by poor listening conditions, or the speed at which the source language is spoken. It seems that an input speed of between 100 and 120 words per minute is a comfortable rate for interpreting, with an upper limit of around 200 w.p.m. But even small increases in speed can dramatically affect the accuracy of output. In one controlled study, when speeds were gradually increased in a series of stages from 95 to 164 w.p.m., the earvoice span also increased with each stage, and the amount correctly interpreted showed a clear decline. Also, as the translating load increases, not only are there more errors of commission (mistranslations, cases of vagueness replacing precision), there are also more errors of omission, as words and segments of meaning are filtered out. These are important findings, given the need for accuracy in international communication. What is needed is a more detailed identification of the problem areas, and of the strategies speakers, listeners, and interpreters use to solve them. There is urgent need to expand what has so far been one of the most neglected fields of communication research.
Questions 1-5: Choose the correct letter, (a), (b), (c) or (d).
Write your answers in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.
Q.1. In which way does author state translation at the beginning of the passage?
(a) Abstract and concrete meaning
(b) General and specific meaning
(c) Several examples of translation's meaning
(d) Different meaning in various profession

Q.2. Application of headphone in a UN conference tells US that:
(a) TV show is being conducted
(b) Radio program is on the air
(c) two sides are debating
(d) language practice is in the process

Q.3. In the passage, what is author's purpose of citing Tower of Babel
(a) interpreting secret is stored in the Tower
(b) interpreter emerged exactly from time of Tower of Babel
(c) consecutive interpreting has a long history
(d) consecutive interpreting should be abandoned

Q.4. About simultaneous interpreting, which of the following is TRUE!
(a) it is an old and disposable interpretation method
(b) it doesn’t need outstanding professional ability
(c) it relies on professional equipment
(d) it takes less than two seconds ear-voice span

Q.5. In consecutive translation, if the section is longer than expected, what would an interpreter most probably do?
(a) he or she has to remember some parts ahead
(b) he or she has to break them down first
(c) he or she has to respond as quickly as possible
(d) he or she has to remember all parts ahead

Questions 6-9: Summary
Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using no more than two words or a number from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet.
The cycle from ear to voice normally lasts about_______6_______ which depends on sophistication of paper, for example, it could go up to_______7_______sometimes. When expert took close research on affecting elements, they found appropriate speaking speed is somehow among_______8_______w.p.m. In a specific experiment, the accuracy of interpretation dropped while the ear-voice span speed increased between 95 to 164 w.p.m. However, the maximum of speed was about_______9_______w.p.m.
Questions 10-13: Choose FOUR correct letters Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.
Which FOUR of the followings are the factors that affect interpreting?
(a) Mastery in structure and grammar of sentence in the script
(b) Speed of incoming sound source
(c) Noisy of background
(d) Emotional states of interpreter

(e) Culture of different backgrounds
(f) Understanding the significance of being precise
(g) Upper volume limit of speakers

Water Filter

(A) An ingenious invention is set to bring clean water to the third world, and while the science may be cutting edge, the materials are extremely down to earth. A handful of clay yesterday’s coffee grounds and some cow manure are the ingredients that could bring clean, safe drinking water to much of the third world.

(B) The simple new technology, developed by ANU materials scientist Mr. Tony Flynn, allows water filters to be made from commonly available materials and fired on the ground using cow manure as the source of heat, without the need for a kiln. The filters have been tested and shown to remove common pathogens (disease-producing organisms) including E-coli. Unlike other water filtering devices, the filters are simple and inexpensive to make. “They are very simple to explain and demonstrate and can be made by anyone, anywhere,” says Mr. Flynn. “They don’t require any western technology. All you need is terracotta clay, a compliant cow and a match.”

(C) The production of the filters is extremely simple. Take a handful of dry, crushed clay, mix it with a handful of organic material, such as used tea leaves, coffee grounds or rice hulls, add enough water to make a stiff biscuit-like mixture and form a cylindrical pot that has one end closed, then dry it in the sun. According to Mr. Flynn, used coffee grounds have given the best results to date. Next, surround the pots with straw; put them in a mound of cow manure, light the straw and then top up the burning manure as required. In less than 60 minutes the filters are finished. The walls of the finished pot should be about as thick as an adult’s index. The properties of cow manure are vital as the fuel can reach a temperature of 700 degrees in half an hour and will be up to 950 degrees after another 20 to 30 minutes. The manure makes a good fuel because it is very high in organic material that bums readily and quickly; the manure has to be dry and is best used exactly as found in the field, there is no need to break it up or process it any further.

(D) “A potter’s din is an expensive item and can could take up to four or five hours to get upto 800 degrees. It needs expensive or scarce fuel, such as gas or wood to heat it and experience to run it. With no technology, no insulation and nothing other than a pile of cow manure and a match, none of these restrictions apply,” Mr. Flynn says.

(E) It is also helpful that, like terracotta clay and organic material, cow dung is freely available across the developing world. “A cow is a natural fuel factory. My understanding is that cow dung as a fuel would be pretty much the same wherever you would find it.” Just as using manure as a fuel for domestic uses is not a new idea, the porosity of clay is something that potters have known about for years, and something that as a former ceramics lecturer in the ANU School of Art, Mr. Flynn is well aware of. The difference is that rather than viewing the porous nature of the material as a problem — after all not many people want a pot that won’t hold water — his filters capitalize on this property.

(F) Other commercial ceramic filters do exist, but, even if available, with prices starting at US$5 each, they are often outside the budgets of most people in the developing world. The filtration process is simple, but effective. The basic principle is that there are passages through the filter that are wide enough for water droplets to pass through, but too narrow for pathogens. Tests with the deadly E-coli bacterium have seen the filters remove 96.4 to 99.8 per cent of the pathogen — well within safe levels. Using only one filter it takes two hours to filter a litre of water. The use of organic material, which burns away after firing, helps produce the structure in which pathogens will become trapped. It overcomes the potential problems of finer clays that may not let water through and also means that cracks are soon halted. And like clay and cow dung, it is universally available.

(G) The invention was born out of a World Vision project involving the Manatuto community in East Timor The charity wanted to help set up a small industry manufacturing water filters, but initial research found the local clay to be too fine — a problem solved by the addition of organic material. While the AF problems of producing a working ceramic filter in East Timor were overcome, the solution was kiln-based and particular to that community’s materials and couldn’t be applied elsewhere. Manure firing, with no requirement for a kiln, has made this zero technology approach available anywhere it is needed. With all the components being widely available, Mr. Flynn says there is no reason the technology couldn’t be applied throughout the developing world, and with no plans to patent his idea, there will be no legal obstacles to it being adopted in any community that needs it. “Everyone has a right to clean water, these filters have the potential to enable anyone in the world to drink water safely,” says Mr. Flynn.
Questions 14-19: Complete the flow chart, using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.
Guide to Making Water Filters Step one: combination of 14_______and organic material, with sufficient 15_______to create a thick mixture sun dried Step two: pack 16_______around the cylinders place them in 17_______which is as burning fuel for firing (maximum temperature: 18_______ filter being baked in under 19_______.

Questions 20-23: Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?
In boxes 20-23 on your answer sheet, write TRUE if the statement is true FALSE if the statement is false NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage
Q.20. It takes half an hour for the manure to reach 950 degrees.
Q.21. Clay was initially found to be unsuitable for pot making.
Q.22. Coffee grounds are twice as effective as other materials.
Q.23. E-coli is the most difficult bacteria to combat.

Questions 24-26 Choose the correct letter, A, B, c or D. Write your answers in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet.
Q.24 When making the pot, the thickness of the wall
(a) is large enough to let the pathogens to pass.
(b) varied according to the temperature of the fuel,
(c) should be the same as an adult’s forefinger.
(d) is not mentioned by Mr. Flynn.

Q.25. what is true about the charity, it
(a) failed in searching the appropriate materials.
(b) successfully manufacture a kiln based ceramic filter to be sold worldwide
(c) found that the local clay are good enough.
(d) intended to help build a local filter production factory.

Q.26. Mr. Flynn’s design is purposely not being patented
(a) because he hopes it can be freely used around the world.
(b) because he doesn’t think the technology is perfect enough,
(c) because there are some legal obstacles.
(d) because the design has already been applied thoroughly.

Music: Language We All Speak

(A) Music is one of the human specie’s relatively few universal abilities. Without formal training, any individual, from Stone Age tribesman to suburban teenager has the ability to recognize music and, in some fashion, to make it. Why this should be so is a mystery. After all, music isn't necessary for getting through the day, and if it aids in reproduction, it does so only in highly indirect ways. Language, by contrast, is also everywhere-but for reasons that are more obvious. With language, you and the members of your tribe can organize a migration across Africa, build reed boats and cross the seas, and communicate at night even when you can’t see each other. Modem culture, in all its technological extravagance, springs directly from the human talent for manipulating symbols and syntax. Scientists have always been intrigued by the connection between music and language. Yet over the years, words and melody have acquired a vastly different status in the lab and the seminar room. While language has long been considered essential to unlocking the mechanisms of human intelligence, music is generally treated as an evolutionary frippery - mere’’auditory cheesecake,” as the Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker puts it.

(B) But thanks to a decade-long wave of neuroscience research, that tune is changing. A flurry of recent publications suggests that language and music may equally be able to tell US who we are and where we’re from - not just emotionally, but biologically. In July, the journal Nature Neuroscience devoted a special issue to the topic. And in an article in the August 6 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, David Schwartz, Catherine Howe, and Dale Purves of Duke University argued that the sounds of music and the sounds of language are intricately connected. To grasp the originality of this idea, it’s necessary to realize two things about how music has traditionally been understood. First, musicologists have long emphasized that while each culture stamps a special identity onto its music; music itself has some universal qualities. For example, in virtually all cultures sound is divided into some or all of the 12 intervals that make up the chromatic scale - that is, the scale represented by the keys on a piano. For centuries, observers have attributed this preference for certain combinations of tones to the mathematical properties of sound itself. Some 2,500 years ago, Pythagoras was the first to note a direct relationship between the harmoniousness of a tone combination and the physical dimensions of the object that produced it. For example, a plucked string will always play an octave lower than a similar string half its size, and a fifth lower than a similar string two-thirds its length. This link between simple ratios and harmony has influenced music theory ever since.

(C) This music-is-moth idea is often accompanied by the notion that music formally speaking at least, exists apart from the world in which it was created. Writing recently in The New York Review of Books, pianist and critic Charles Rosen discussed the long-standing notion that while painting and sculpture reproduce at least some aspects of the natural world, and writing describes thoughts and feelings we are all familiar with, music is entirely abstracted from the world in which we live. Neither idea is right, according to David Schwartz and his colleagues. Human musical preferences are fundamentally shaped not by elegant algorithms or ratios but by the messy sounds of real life, and of speech in particular -which in turn is shaped by our evolutionary heritage.” The explanation of music, like the explanation of any product of the mind, must be rooted in biology, not in numbers per se," says Schwartz. Schwartz, Howe, and Purves analyzed a vast selection of speech sounds from a variety of languages to reveal the underlying patterns common to all utterances. In order to focus only on the raw sound, they discarded all theories about speech and meaning and sliced sentences into random bites. Using a database of over 100,000 brief segments of speech, they noted which frequency had the greatest emphasis in each sound. The resulting set of frequencies, they discovered, corresponded closely to the chromatic scale. In short, the building blocks of music are to be found in speech Far from being abstract, music presents a strange analog to the patterns created by the sounds of speech. "Music, like the visual arts, is rooted in our experience of the natural world," says Schwartz. " It emulates our sound environment in the way that visual arts emulate the visual environment. " In music we hear the echo of our basic sound-making instrumentthe vocal tract. The explanation for human music is simple; still than Pythagoras’s mathematical equations. We like the sounds that are familiar to us-specifically, we like sounds that remind us of us. This brings up some chicken-or-egg evolutionary questions. It may be that music imitates speech directly, the researchers say, in which case it would seem that language evolved first. It’s also conceivable that music came first and language is in effect an Imitation of song - that in everyday speech we hit the musical notes we especially like. Alternately, it may be that music imitates the general products of the human sound-making system, which just happens to be mostly speech. "We can't know this," says Schwartz. "What we do know is that they both come from the same system, and it is this that shapes our preferences."

(D) Schwartz's study also casts light on the long-running question of whether animals understand or appreciate music. Despite the apparent abundance of "music" in the natural world- birdsong, whalesong, wolf howls, synchronized chimpanzee hooting previous studies have found that many laboratory animals don't show a great affinity for the human variety of music making. Marc Hauser and Josh McDermott of Harvard argued in the July issue of Nature Neuroscience that animals don't create or perceive music the way we do. The act that laboratory monkeys can show recognition of human tunes is evidence, they say, of shared general features of the auditory system, not any specific chimpanzee musical ability. As for birds, those most musical beasts, they generally recognize their own tunes - a narrow repertoire - but don't generate novel melodies like we do. There are no avian Mozarts. But what's been played to the animals, Schwartz notes, is human music. If animals evolve preferences for sound as we do - based upon the soundscape in which they live -then their "music" would be fundamentally different from ours. In the same way our scales derive from human utterances, a cat's idea of a good tune would derive from yowls and meows. To demonstrate that animals don't appreciate sounds the way we do, we'd need evidence that they don't respond to "music" constructed from their own sound environment.

(E) No matter how the connection between language and music is parsed, what is apparent is that our sense of music, even our love for it, is as deeply rooted in our biology and in our brains as language is. This is most obvious with babies, says Sandra Trehub at the University of Toronto, who also published a paper in the Nature Neuroscience special issue. For babies, music and speech are on a continuum. Mothers use musical speech to "regulate infants' emotional states." Trehub says. Regardless of what language they speak, the voice all mothers use with babies is the same: "something between speech and song." This kind of communication "puts the baby in a trance-like state, which may proceed to sleep or extended periods of rapture." So if the babies of the world could understand the latest research on language and music, they probably wouldn't be very surprised. The upshot, says Trehub, is that music may be even more of a necessity than we realize.
Questions 27-31: Reading Passage 3 has five sections A-E.
Choose the correct heading for each section from the of headings below.
List of Headings
(i) Animal sometimes make music.
(ii) Recent research on music
(iii) Culture embedded in music
(iv) Historical theories review
(v) Communication in music with animals
(vi) Contrast between music and language
(vii) Questions on a biological link with human and music
(viii) Music is good for babies.

Write the correct number i-viii in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.
Q.27. Section A
Q.28. Section B
Q.29. Section C
Q.30. Section D
Q.31. Section E

Questions 32-38: Look at the following people and list of statements below.
Match each person with the correct statement.
Write the correct letter A-Gin boxes 32-38 on your answer sheet.
List of Statements
(a) Music exists outside of the world in which it is created.
(b) Music has a common feature though cultural influences affect
(c) Humans need music.
(d) Music priority connects to the disordered sound around.
(e) Discovery of mathematical musical foundation.
(f) Music is not treated equally well compared with language
(g) Humans and monkeys have similar traits in perceiving sound.
Q.32. Steven Pinker
Q.33. Musicologists
Q.34. Greek philosopher Pythagoras
Q.35. Schwartz, Howe, and Purves
Q.36. Marc Hauser and Josh McDermott
Q.37. Charles Rosen
Q.38. Sandra Trehub

Questions 39-40: Choose the correct letter (a), (b), (c) or (d)
Write your answers in boxes 39-40 on your answer sheet.
Q.39. Why was the study of animal's music uncertain?
(a) Animals don't have the same auditory system as humans.
(b) Experiments on animal's music are limited.
(c) tunes are impossible for animal to make up.
(d) Animals don't have spontaneous ability for the tests.

Q.40. What is the main subject of this passage?
(a) Language and psychology.
(b) Music formation.
(c) Role of music in human society.
(d) Music experiments for animals.

Answers

Section  - 1

Section  - 2

Section  - 3