Practice Test - 27 | Reading Practice Tests for IELTS Academic PDF Download

Museum Blockbuster

A. Since the 1980s, the term "blockbuster" has become the fashionable word for special spectacular museum, art gallery or science centre exhibitions. These exhibitions have the ability to attract large crowds and often large corporate sponsors. Here is one of some existing definitions of blockbuster: Put by Elsen (1984), a blockbuster is a "... large scale loan exhibition that people who normally don't go to museums will stand in line for hours to see ..."James Rosenfield, writing in Direct Marketing in 1993, has described a successful blockbuster exhibition as a "... triumph of both curatorial and marketing skills ..." My own definition for blockbuster is "a popular, high profile exhibition on display for a limited period, that attracts the general public, who are prepared to both stand in line and pay a fee in order to partake in the exhibition." What both Elsen and Rosenfield omit in the ữ descriptions of blockbusters, is that people are prepared to pay a fee to see a blockbuster, and that the term blockbuster can just as easily apply to a movie or a museum exhibition.

B. Merely naming an exhibition or movie a blockbuster however, does not make it a blockbuster. The term can only apply when the item in question has had an overwhelmingly successful response from the public. However, in literature from both the UK and USA the other words that also start to appear in descriptions of blockbusters are "less scholarly", "non-elitist" and "popularist". Detractors argue that blockbusters are designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator, while others extol the virtues of encouraging scholars to cooperate on projects, and to provide exhibitions that cater for a broad selection of the community rather than an elite sector.

C. Maintaining and increasing visitor levels is paramount in the new museology. This requires continued product development. Not only the creation or hiring of blockbuster exhibitions, but regular exhibition changes and innovations. In addition, the visiting publics have become customers rather than visitors, and the skills that are valued in museums, science centres and galleries to keep the new customers coming through the door have changed. High on the list of requirements are commercial, business, marketing and entrepreneurial skills. Curators are now administrators. Being a director of an art gallery no longer requires an Art Degree. As succinctly summarised in the Economist in 1994 "business nous and public relation skills" were essential requirements for a director, and the ability to compete with other museums to stage travelling exhibitions which draw huge crowds.

D. The new museology has resulted in the convergence of museums, the heritage industry, and tourism, profit-making and pleasure-giving. This has given rise to much debate about the appropriateness of adapting the activities of institutions so that they more closely reflect the priorities of the market place and whether it is appropriate to see museums primarily as tourist attractions. At many institutions you can now hold office functions in the display areas, or have dinner with the dinosaurs. Whatever commentators may think, managers of museums, art galleries and science centres worldwide are looking for artful ways to blend culture and commerce, and blockbuster exhibitions are at the top of the list. But while blockbusters are all part of the new museology, there is proof that you don't need a museum, science centre or art gallery to benefit from the drawing power of a blockbuster or to stage a blockbuster.

E. But do blockbusters held in public institutions really create a surplus to fund other activities? If the bottom line is profit, then according to the accounting records of many major museums and galleries, blockbusters do make money. For some museums overseas, it may be the money that they need to update parts of their collections or to repair buildings that are in need of attention. For others in Australia, it may be the opportunity to illustrate that they are attempting to pay their way, by recovering part of their operating costs, or funding other operating activities with off-budget revenue. This makes the economic rationalists cheerful. However, not all exhibitions that are hailed to be blockbusters will be blockbusters, and some will not make money. It is also unlikely that the accounting systems of most institutions will recognise the real cost of either creating or hiring a blockbuster.

F. Blockbusters requ ừ e large capital expenditure, and draw on resources across all branches of an organisation; however, the costs don't end there. There is a Human Resource Management cost in addition to a measurable 'real' dollar cost. Receiving a touring exhibition involves large expenditure as well, and draws resources from across functional management structures in project management style. Everyone from a general labourer to a building servicing unit, the front of house, technical, promotion, education and administration staff, are required to perform additional tasks. Furthermore, as an increasing number of institutions in Australia fry their hand at increasing visitor numbers, memberships (and therefore revenue), by staging blockbuster exhibitions, it may be less likely that blockbusters will continue to provide a surplus to subsidise other activities due to the competitive nature of the market. There are only so many consumer dollars to go around, and visitors will need to choose between blockbuster products.

G. Unfortunately, when the bottom-line is the most important objective to the mounting of blockbuster exhibitions, this same objective can be hard to maintain. Creating, mounting or hiring blockbusters is exhausting for staff, with the real costs throughout an institution difficult to calculate. Although the direct aims may be financial, creating or hiring a blockbuster has many positive spinoffs; by raising their profile through a popular blockbuster exhibition, a museum will be seen in a more favorable light at budget time. Blockbusters mean crowds, and crowds are good for the local economy, providing increased employment for shops, hotels, restaurants, the transport industry and retailers. Blockbusters expose staff to the vagaries and pressures of the market place, and may lead to creative excellence. Either the success or failure of a blockbuster may highlight the need for managers and policy makers to rethink their strategies. However, the new museology and the apparent trend towards blockbusters make it likely that museums, art galleries and particularly science centres will be seen as part of the entertainment and tourism industry, rather than as cultural icons deserving of government and philanthropic support.

H. Perhaps the best pathway to take is one that balances both blockbusters and regular exhibitions. However, this easy middle ground may only work if you have enough space, and have alternate sources of funding to continue to support the regular less exciting fare. Perhaps the advice should be to make sure that your regular activities and exhibitions are more enticing, and find out what your local community wants from you. The question (trend) now at most museums and science centres, is "What blockbusters can we tour to overseas venues and will it be cost effective?"
Questions 1-4: The reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-H. Which paragraphs contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-H, in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use an letter more than once.
Q.1. A reason for changing the exhibition programs.
Q.2. The time people have to wait in a queue in order to enjoy exhibitions.
Q.3. Terms people used when referring to blockbuster
Q.4. There was some controversy over confining target groups of blockbuster

Questions 5-8: Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using no more than three words from the Reading Passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 5-8 on your answer sheet.
Instead of being visitors, people turned out to be____5_____, who require the creation or hiring of blockbuster exhibitions as well as regular exhibition changes and innovations. Business nous and ____6_____ simply summarized in a magazine are not only important factors for directors, but also an ability to attract a crowd of audiences. _____7_____ has contributed to the linking of museums, the heritage industry, tourism, profit-making and pleasure-giving. There occurs some controversy over whether it is proper to consider museums mainly as _____8______.

Questions 9-10: Choose TWO letters A-E.
Write your answer in boxes 9-10 on your answer sheet.
The list below gives some advantages of blockbuster.
Which TWO advantages are mentioned by the writer of the text?
A. To offer sufficient money to repair architectures.
B. To maintain and increase visitor levels.
C. Presenting the mixture in the culture and commerce of art galleries and science centres worldwide.
D. Being beneficial for the development of local business.
E. Being beneficial for the directors.

Questions 11 – 13: Choose THREE letters A-F.
Write your answer in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet.
The list below gives some disadvantages of blockbuster.
Which THREE disadvantages are mentioned by the writer of the text?
A. People felt hesitated to choose exhibitions.
B. Workers has become tired of workloads.
C. The content has become more entertaining rather than cultural.
D. General labourers are required to perform additional tasks
E. Huge amounts of capital invested in specialists.
F. Exposing staff to the fantasies and pressures of the market place.

A - How busy is too busy? For some it means having to miss the occasional long lunch; for others, it means missing lunch altogether. For a few, it is not being able to take a “sickie” once a month. Then there is a group of people for whom working every evening and weekend is normal, and frantic is the tempo of their lives. For most senior executives, workloads swing between extremely busy and frenzied. The vice-president of the management consultancy AT Kearney and its head of telecommunications for the Asia-Pacific region, Neil Plumridge, says his work weeks vary from a “manageable” 45 hours to 80 hours, but average 60 hours.

B - Three warning signs alert Plumridge about his workload: sleep, scheduling and family. He knows he has too much on when he gets less than six hours of sleep for three consecutive nights; when he is constantly having to reschedule appointments; “and the third one is on the family side”, says Plumridge, the father of a three-year-old daughter, and expecting a second child in October. “If I happen to miss a birthday or anniversary, I know things are out of control.” Being “too busy” is highly subjective. But for any individual, the perception of being too busy over a prolonged period can start showing up as stress: disturbed sleep, and declining mental and physical health. National workers’ compensation figures show stress causes the most lost time of any workplace injury. Employees suffering stress are off work an average of 16.6 weeks. The effects of stress are also expensive. Comcare, the Federal Government insurer, reports that in 2003-04, claim costs. Experts say the key to dealing with stress is not to focus on relief – a game of golf or a massage – but to reassess workloads. Neil Plumridge says he makes it a priority to work out what has to change; that might mean allocating extra resources to a job, allowing more time or changing expectations. The decision may take several days. He also relies on the advice of colleagues, saying his peers’ coach each other with business problems. “Just a fresh pair of eyes over an issue can help,” he says.

C - Executive stress is not confined to big organisations. Vanessa Stoykov has been running her own advertising and public relations business for seven years, specializing in work for financial and professional services firms. Evolution Media has grown so fast that it debuted on the BRW Fast 100 list of fastest-growing small enterprises last year – just after Stoykov had her first child. Stoykov thrives on the mental stimulation of running her own business. “Like everyone, I have the occasional day when I think my head’s going to blow off,” she says. Because of the growth phase, the business is in, Stoykov has to concentrate on short-term stress relief – weekends in the mountains, the occasional “mental health” day – rather than delegating more work. She says: “We’re hiring more people, but you need to train them, teach them about the culture and the clients, so it’s actually more work rather than less.”

D - Identify the causes: Jan Elsnera, Melbourne psychologist who specialises in executive coaching, says thriving on a demanding workload is typical of senior executives and other high-potential business people. She says there is no one-size-fits-all approach to stress: some people work best with high-adrenalin periods followed by quieter patches, while others thrive under sustained pressure. “We could take urine and blood hormonal measures and pass judgement of whether someone’s physiologically stressed or not,” she says. “But that’s not going to give us an indicator of what their experience of stress is, and what the emotional and cognitive impacts of stress are going to be.”

E - Elsner’s practice is informed by a movement known as positive psychology, a school of thought that argues “positive” experiences – feeling engaged, challenged, and that one is making a contribution to something meaningful – do not balance out negative ones such as stress; instead, they help people increase their resilience over time. Good stress, or positive experiences of being challenged and rewarded, is thus cumulative in the same way as bad stress. Elsner says many of the senior business people she coaches are relying more on regulating bad stress through methods such as meditation and yoga. She points to research showing that meditation can alter the biochemistry of the brain and actually help people “retrain” the way their brains and bodies react to stress. “Meditation and yoga enable you to shift the way that your brain reacts, so if you get proficient at it you’re in control.” ieltsxpress

F - The Australian vice-president of AT Kearney, Neil Plumridge, says: “Often stress is caused by our setting unrealistic expectations of ourselves. I’ll promise a client I’ll do something tomorrow, and the [promise] another client the same thing, when I really know it’s not going to happen. I’ve put stress on myself when I could have said to the clients: ‘Why don’t I give that to you in 48 hours?’ The client doesn’t care.” Overcommitting is something people experience as an individual problem. We explain it as the result of procrastination or Parkinson’s law: that work expands to fill the time available. New research indicates that people may be hard-wired to do it.

G - A study in the February issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology shows that people always believe they will be less busy in the future than now. This is a misapprehension, according to the authors of the report, Professor Gal Zauberman, of the University of North Carolina, and Professor John Lynch, of Duke University. “On average, an individual will be just as busy two weeks or a month from now as he or she is today. But that is not how it appears to be in everyday life,” they wrote. “People often make commitments long in advance that they would never make if the same commitments required immediate action. That is, they discount future time investments relatively steeply.” Why do we perceive a greater “surplus” of time in the future than in the present? The researchers suggest that people underestimate completion times for tasks stretching into the future and that they are bad at imagining the future competition for their time.
Questions 14-18: Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed A-D) with opinions or deeds below.
Write the correct letter A-D, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
A. Jan Elsnera
B. Vanessa Stoykov
C. Gal Zauberman
D. Neil Plumridge
Q.14. Work stress usually happens in the high level of a business.
Q.15. More people’s ideas involved would be beneficial for stress relief
Q.16. Temporary holiday sometimes doesn’t mean less work.
Q.17. Stress leads to the wrong direction when trying to satisfy customers.
Q.18. It is not correct that stress in the future will be eased more than now.

Questions 19-21: Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write your answers in boxes 19-21 on your answer sheet.
Q.19. Which of the following workplace stress is NOT mentioned according to Plumridge in the following option?
A. Not enough time spend on family
B. Unable to concentrate on work
C. Inadequate time of sleep
D. Alteration of appointment
Q.20. Which of the following solution is NOT mentioned in helping reduce the work pressure according to Plumridge?
A. Allocate more personnel
B. Increase more time
C. Lower expectation
D. Do sports and massage
Q.21. What is the point of view of Jan Elsnera towards work stress?
A. Medical test can only reveal part of the data needed to cope with stress
B. Index somebody samples will be abnormal in a stressful experience
C. Emotional and cognitive affection is superior to a physical one
D. One well a designed solution can release all stress

Questions 22-27: Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage Using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 22-27 on your answer sheet.
Statistics from National worker’s compensation indicate stress plays the most important role in 22__________ which cause the time losses. Staffs take about 23__________ for absence from work caused by stress. Not just time is our main concern but great expenses generated consequently. An official insurer wrote sometime that about 24__________ of all claims were mental issues whereas nearly 27% costs in all claims. Sports such as 25__________, as well as 26__________ could be a treatment to release stress; However, specialists recommended another practical way out, analyse 27__________ once again.

A - In a scruffy office in midtown Manhattan, a team of 30 artificial-intelligence programmers is trying to simulate the brains of an eminent sexologist, a well-known dietician, a celebrity fitness trainer and several other experts. Umagic Systems is a young firm, setting up websites that will allow clients to consult the virtual versions of these personalities. Subscribers will feed in details about themselves and their goals; Umagic’s software will come up with the advice that the star expert would give. Although few people have lost money betting on the neuroses of the American consumer, Umagic’s prospects are hard to gauge (in ten years’ time, consulting a computer about your sex life might seem natural, or it might seem absurd). But the company and others like it are beginning to spook large American firms because they see such half-barmy “innovative” ideas as the key to their own future success.

B - Innovation has become the buzz-word of American management. Firms have found that most of the things that can be outsourced or re-engineered have been (worryingly, by their competitors as well). The stars of American business tend today to be innovators such as Dell, Amazon and Wal-Mart, which have produced ideas or products that have changed their industries.

C - A new book by two consultants from Arthur D. Little records that, over the past 15 years, the top 20% of firms in an annual innovation poll by Fortune magazine have achieved double the shareholder returns of their peers.

Much of today’s merger boom is driven by a desperate search for new ideas. So is the fortune now spent on licensing and buying others’ intellectual property. According to the Pasadena-based Patent & Licence Exchange, trading in intangible assets in the United States has risen from $15 billion in 1990 to $100 billion in 1998, with an increasing proportion of the rewards going to small firms and individuals.

D - And therein lies the terror for big companies: that innovation seems to work best outside them. Several bigs established “ideas factories”, including 3M, Procter & Gamble and Rubbermaid, have had dry spells recently. Gillette spent ten years and $1 billion developing its new Mach 3 razor; it took a British supermarket only a year or so to produce a reasonable imitation. “In the management of creativity, size is your enemy,” argues Peter Chernin, who runs the Fox TV and film empire for News Corporation. One person managing 20 movies is never going to be as involved as one doing five movies. He has thus tried to break down the studio into smaller units – even at the risk of incurring higher costs.

E - It is easier for ideas to thrive outside big firms these days. In the past, if a clever scientist had an idea he wanted to commercialise, he would take it first to a big company. 

Now, with plenty of cheap venture capital, he is more likely to set up on his own. Umagic has already raised $5m and is about to raise $25m more. Even in capital-intensive businesses such as pharmaceuticals, entrepreneurs can conduct early-stage research, selling out to the big firms when they reach expensive, risky clinical trials. Around a third of drug firms’ total revenue now comes from licensed-in technology.

F - Some giants, including General Electric and Cisco, have been remarkably successful at snapping up and integrating scores of small companies. But many others worry about the prices they have to pay and the difficulty in hanging on to the talent that dreamt up the idea. Everybody would like to develop more ideas in-house. Procter & Gamble is now shifting its entire business focus from countries to products; one aim is to get innovations accepted across the company. Elsewhere, the search for innovation has led to a craze for “intrapreneurship” – devolving power and setting up internal ideas-factories and tracking stocks so that talented staff will not leave.

G - Some people think that such restructuring is not enough. In a new book, Clayton Christensen argues that many things which established firms do well, such as looking after their current customers, can hinder the sort of innovative behaviour needed to deal with disruptive technologies. Hence the fashion for cannibalization – setting up businesses that will actually fight your existing ones. Bank One, for instance, has established Wingspan, an Internet bank that competes with its real branches (see article). Jack Welch’s Internet initiative at General Electric is called “Destroyyourbusines.com”.

H - Nobody could doubt that innovation matters. But need large firms to be quite so pessimistic? A recent survey of the top 50 innovations in America, by Industry Week, a journal, suggested that ideas are as likely to come from big firms as from small ones. Another sceptical note is sounded by Amar Bhidé, a colleague of Mr Christensen’s at the Harvard Business School and the author of another book on entrepreneurship. Rather than having to reinvent themselves, big companies, he believes, should concentrate on projects with high costs and low uncertainty, leaving those with low costs and high uncertainty to small entrepreneurs. As ideas mature and the risks and rewards become more quantifiable, big companies can adopt them.

I - At Kimberly-Clark, Mr Sanders had to discredit the view that jobs working on new products were for “those who couldn’t hack it in the real business.” He has tried to change the culture not just by preaching fuzzy concepts but also by introducing hard incentives, such as increasing the rewards for those who come up with successful new ideas and, particularly, not punishing those whose experiments fail. The genesis of one of the firm’s current hits, Depend, a more dignified incontinence garment, lay in a previous miss, Kotex Personals, a form of disposable underwear for menstruating women.

J - Will all this creative destruction, cannibalization and culture tweaking make big firms more creative? David Post, the founder of Umagic, is skeptical: “The only successful intrapreneurs are ones who leave and become entrepreneurs.” He also recalls with glee the looks of total incomprehension when he tried to hawk his “virtual experts” idea three years ago to the idea labs of firms such as IBM – though, as he cheerfully adds, “of course, they could have been right.” Innovation – unlike, apparently, sex, parenting and fitness – is one area where a computer cannot tell you what to do.
Questions 28-33: The Reading Passage has ten paragraphs A-J.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-J, in boxes 28-33 on your answer sheet.
NB  You may use any letter more than once.
Q.28. Approach to retain the best employees
Q.29. Safeguarding expenses on an innovative idea
Q.30. Integrating outside firms might produce a certain counter effect
Q.31. Example of three famous American companies’ innovation
Q.32. Example of one company changing its focus
Q.33. Example of a company resolving financial difficulties itself 

Questions 34-37: Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 34-37 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.34. Umagic is the most successful innovative company in this new field.
Q.35. Amazon and Wal-Mart exchanged their innovation experience.
Q.36. New idea holder had already been known to take it to a small company in the past.
Q.37. IBM failed to understand Umagic’s proposal for one new idea. 

Questions 38-40: Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write your answers in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.
Q.38. What is the author’s opinion on the effect of innovation in paragraph C?
A. It only works for big companies
B. Fortune magazine has a huge influence globally
C. It is getting more important
D. Effect on American companies is more evident
Q.39. What is Peter Chernin’s point of view on innovation?
A. Small company is more innovative than the big one
B. Film industry needs more innovation than other industries
C. We need to cut the cost when risks occur
D. New ideas are more likely going to big companies
Q.40. What is the author’s opinion on innovation at the end of this passage?
A. Umagic success lies on the accidental “virtual experts”
B. Innovation is easy and straightforward
C. IBM sets a good example of innovation
D. The author’s attitude is uncertain on innovation

Answers:

Section - 2

Section - 3