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IELTS READING – THE LOST CITY S23AT2

IELTS Reading THE LOST CITY reading practice test has 10 questions belongs to 🏛️ History & Archaeology subject..

An explorer’s encounter with the ruined city of Machu Picchu, the most famous icon of the Inca civilisation

A. When the US explorer and academic Q21 Hiram Bingham arrived in South America in 1911, he was ready for what was to be the greatest achievement of his life: the Q21 exploration of the remote hinterland to the west of Cusco, the old capital of the Inca empire in the Andes mountains of Peru. Q14 His goal was to locate the remains of a city called Vitcos, the last capital of the Inca civilisation. Cusco lies on a high plateau at an elevation of more than 3,000 metres, and Bingham’s plan was to descend from this plateau along the valley of the Urubamba river, which takes a circuitous route down to the Amazon and passes through an area of dramatic canyons and mountain ranges.

B. When Bingham and his team set off down the Urubamba in late July, they had an advantage over travellers who had preceded them: Q15&22 a track had recently been blasted down the valley canyon to Q25 enable rubber to be brought up by mules from the jungle. Q15&22 Almost all previous travellers had left the river at Ollantaytambo and taken a high pass across the mountains to rejoin the river lower down, thereby cutting a substantial corner, but also therefore never passing through the area around Machu Picchu.

C. On 24 July they were a few days into their descent of the valley. The day began slowly, with Bingham trying to arrange sufficient mules for the next stage of the trek. His companions showed no interest in accompanying him Q26 up the nearby hill to see some ruins that a local farmer, Melchor Arteaga, had told them about the night before. The morning was dull and damp, Q16 and also seems to have been less than keen on the prospect of climbing the hill. In his book Lost City of the Incas, he relates that he made the ascent without having the least expectation that he would find anything at the top.

D. Q17 Bingham writes about the approach in vivid style in his book. First, as he climbs up the hill, he describes the ever-present possibility of deadly snakes, ‘capable of making considerable springs when in pursuit of their prey’; not that he sees any. Then there’s a sense of mounting discovery as he comes across great sweeps of terraces, then a mausoleum, followed by monumental staircases and, finally, the grand ceremonial buildings of Machu Picchu. ‘It seemed like an unbelievable dream the sight held me spellbound‘, he wrote.

E. We should remember, however, that Lost City of the Incas is a work of hindsight, not written until 1948, many years after his journey. Q18 His journey entries of the time reveal a much more gradual appreciation of his achievement. He spent the afternoon at the ruins noting down the dimensions of some of the buildings, then descended and rejoined his companions, to whom he seems to have said little about his discovery. Q23 At this stage didn’t realise the extent or the importance of the site, nor did he realise what use he could make of the discovery.

F. However, soon after returning it occurred to him that he could make a name for himself from this discovery. Q19 When he came to write the National Geographic magazine article that broke the story to the world in April 1913, he knew he had to produce a big idea. He wondered whether it could have been the birthplace of the very first Inca, Manco the Great and whether it could also have been what chroniclers described as ‘the last city of the Incas’. This term refers to Vilcabamba the settlement where the Incas had fled from Spanish invaders in the 1530s. Bingham made desperate attempts to prove this belief for nearly 40 years. Sadly, his vision of the site as both the beginning and end of the Inca civilisation, while a magnificent one, is inaccurate. We now know, that Vilcabamba actually lies 65 kilometres away in the depths of the jungle.

G. One question that has perplexed visitors, historians and archaeologists alike ever since Bingham, is why the site seems to have been abandoned before the Spanish Conquest. There are no references to it by any of the Spanish chroniclers – and if they had known of its existence so close to Cusco they would certainly have come in search of gold. Q20 An idea which has gained wide acceptance over the past few years is that was, a country estate built by an Inca emperor to escape the cold winters of Cusco, where the elite could enjoy monumental architecture and spectacular views. Furthermore, the particular architecture of Machu Picchu suggests that it was constructed at the time of the greatest of all the Incas, the emperor Pachacuti (1438-71). By custom, Pachacuti’s descendants built other similar estates for their own use, and so Machu Picchu would have been abandoned after his death, some 50 years before the Spanish Conquest.

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IELTS READING – WHAT’S THE PURPOSE OF GAINING KNOWLEDGE? S22AT3

 IELTS Reading WHAT’S THE PURPOSE OF GAINING KNOWLEDGE reading practice test has 10 questions belongs to 🎓 Education & Philosophy subject..

A. ‘I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any subject’ That was the founders motto for Cornell University, and it seems an apt characterization of the different university, also in the USA, where I currently teach philosophy. A student can prepare for a career in resort management, engineering, interior design, accounting, music, law enforcement, you name it. Q27 But what would the founders of these two institutions have thought of a course called Arson for Profit’? I kid you not: we have it on the books. Any undergraduates who have met the academic requirements can sign up for the course in our program in Q33 ‘fire science’.

B. Naturally, Q28&34 the course is intended for prospective arson investigators, who can learn all the tricks of the trade for detecting whether a fire was deliberately set, discovering who did it, and establishing a chain of Q35 evidence for effective Q36 prosecution in a court of law. Q28 But wouldn’t this also be the perfect course for prospective arsonists to sign up for? My point is not to criticize academic Q39 programs in fire science: they are highly welcome as part of the increasing professionalization of this and many other occupations. However, it’s not unknown for a firefighter to torch a building. This example suggests how dishonest and illegal behavior, with the help of higher education, can creep into every aspect of public and business life.

C. I realized this anew when I was invited to speak before a class in marketing, which is another of our degree programs. The regular instructor is a colleague who appreciates the kind of ethical perspective I can bring as a philosopher. Q29 There are endless ways I could have approached this assignment, but I took my cue from the title of the course: ‘Principles of Marketing’. It made me think to ask the students, ‘Is marketing principled?’ After all, a subject matter can have principles in the sense of being codified, having rules, as with football or chess, without being principled in the sense of being ethical. Many of the students immediately assumed that the answer to my question about marketing principles was obvious: no. Just look at the ways in which everything under the sun has been marketed; obviously, it need not be done in a principled (=ethical) fashion.

D. Is that obvious? I made the suggestion, Q30 which may sound downright crazy in light of the evidence, that perhaps marketing is by definition principled. My inspiration for this judgement is the philosopher Immanuel Kant, who argued that any body of knowledge consists of an end (or purpose) and a means.

E. Let us apply both the terms ‘means’ and ‘end’ to marketing. The students have signed up for a course in order to learn how to market effectively. But to what end? There seem to be two main attitudes toward that question. One is that the answer is obvious: the purpose of marketing is to sell things and to make money. The other attitude is that the purpose of marketing is irrelevant: Each person comes to the program and course with his or her own plans, and these need not even concern the acquisition of marketing expertise as such. My proposal, which I believe would also be Kant’s, is that neither of these attitudes captures the significance of the end to the means for marketing. Q31 A field of knowledge or a professional endeavor is defined by both the means and the end; hence both deserve scrutiny. Students need to study both how to achieve X, and also what X is.

F. It is at this point that ‘Arson for Profit’ becomes supremely relevant. That course is presumably all about means: how to detect and prosecute criminal activity. It is therefore assumed that the end is good in an ethical sense. When I ask fire science students to articulate the end, or purpose, of their field, they eventually generalize to something like, Q40 ‘The safety and welfare of society,’ which seems right. Q38 As we have seen, someone could use the very same knowledge of means to achieve a much less noble end, such as personal profit via destructive, dangerous, reckless activity. But we would not call that firefighting. We have a separate word for it: arson. Q32 Similarly, if you employed the ‘principles of marketing’ in an unprincipled way, you would not be doing marketing. We have another term for it: fraud. Kant gives the example of a doctor and a poisoner, who use the identical knowledge to achieve their divergent ends. We would say that one is practicing medicine, the other, murder.

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IELTS READING – COLLECTING AS A HOBBY S22AT2

 IELTS Reading COLLECTING AS A HOBBY reading practice test has 10 questions belongs to 🧠 Psychology & Hobbies subject..

Many forms of collecting have been dignified with a technical name: an archtophilist collects teddy bears, a philatelist collects postage stamps, and a deltiologist collects postcards. Amassing hundreds or even thousands of postcards, chocolate wrappers, or whatever, takes time, energy, and money that could surely to much more productive use. And yet there are millions of collectors around the world. Why do they do it?

There are the people who collect because they want to make money – this could be called an instrumental reason for collecting; that is, collecting as a means to an end. They’ll look for, say, Q14 antiques that they can buy cheaply and expect to be able to sell at a profit. But there may well be a psychological element, too – buying cheap and selling dear can give the collector a sense of Q15 triumph. And as selling online is so easy, more and more people are joining in.

Many collectors collect to develop their social life, attending meetings of a group of collectors and exchanging Q16 information on items. This is a variant on joining a bridge club or a gym and similarly brings them into Q17 contact with like-minded people. Another motive for collecting is the Q18 desire to find something special, or a particular example of the collected item, such as a rare early recording by a particular singer.

Some may spend their whole lives in a hunt for this. Psychologically, this can give a purpose to a life that otherwise feels Q19 aimless. There is a danger, though, that if the individual is ever lucky enough to find what they’re looking for, rather than celebrating their success, they may feel empty, now that the goal that drove them on has gone.

If you think about collecting postage stamps another potential reason for it – Or, perhaps, a result of collecting is its Q20 educational value. Stamp collecting opens a window to other countries, and to the plants, animals, or famous people shown on their stamps.

Similarly, in the 19th century, many collectors amassed fossils, animals, and plants from around the globe, and their collections provided a vast amount of information about the natural world. Without those collections, our understanding would be greatly inferior to what it is.

In the past – and nowadays, too, though to a lesser extent – a popular form of collecting, particularly among boys and men, was Q21 trainspotting. This might involve trying to see every locomotive of a particular type, using published data that identifies each one, and ticking off each engine as it is seen. Trainspotters exchange information, these days often by mobile phone, so they can work out where to go to, to see a particular engine. As a by-product, many practitioners of the hobby become very knowledgeable about railway operations, or the technical specifications of different engine types.

Similarly, Q22 people who collect dolls may go beyond simply enlarging their collection, and develop an interest in the way that dolls are made, or the materials that are used. Q23 These have changed over the centuries from the wood that was standard in 16th century Europe, through the wax and porcelain of later centuries, to the plastics of today’s dolls. Or collectors might be inspired to study how dolls reflect notions of what children like, or ought to like.

Not all collectors are interested in learning from their hobby, though, so what we might call a psychological reason for collecting is the need for a sense of control, perhaps as a way of dealing with insecurity. Stamp collectors, for instance, arrange their stamps in albums, usually very neatly, organising their collection according to certain commonplace principles-perhaps by country in alphabetical order, or grouping stamps by what they depict -people, birds, maps, and so on.

Q25 One reason, conscious or not, for what someone chooses to collect is to show the collector’s individualism. Someone who decides to collect something as unexpected as dog collars, for instance, may be conveying their belief that they must be interesting themselves. And believe it or not, there is at least one dog collar museum in existence, and it grew out of a personal collection.

Of course, all hobbies give pleasure, but the common factor in collecting is usually passion: pleasure is putting it far too mildly. Q26 More than most other hobbies, collecting can be totally engrossing and can give a strong sense of personal fulfillment. To non-collectors, it may appear an eccentric, if harmless, way of spending time, but potentially, collecting has a lot going for it.

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IELTS READING – THE RISKS AGRICULTURE FACES IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES S23AT1

 IELTS Reading The risks agriculture faces in developing countries reading practice test has 10 questions belongs to 🌾 Agriculture / Environment subject..

Synthesis of an online debate

A. Q1 Two things distinguish food production from all other productive activities: first, every single person needs food each day and has a right to it; and second, it is hugely dependent on nature. These two unique aspects, one political, the other natural, make food production highly vulnerable and different from any other business. At the same time, cultural values are highly entrenched in food and agricultural systems worldwide.

B. Farmers everywhere face major risks; including extreme weather, long-term climate change, and price volatility in input and product markets. However, Q2 smallholder farmers in developing countries must in addition deal with adverse environments, both natural, in terms of soil quality, rainfall, etc. and human, in terms of infrastructure, financial systems, markets, knowledge, and technology. Counter-intuitively, hunger is prevalent among many smallholder farmers in the developing world.

C. Participants in the online debate argued that our biggest challenge is to address the underlying causes of the agricultural system’s inability to ensure sufficient food for all, and they identified as drivers of this problem our dependency on fossil fuels and unsupportive government policies.

D. On the question of mitigating the risks farmers face, most essayists called for greater state intervention. In his essay, Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, argued that Q9 governments can significantly reduce risks for farmers by providing basic services like roads to get produce more efficiently to markets, or water and food storage facilities to reduce losses. Sophia Murphy, senior advisor to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, suggested that Q8 the procurement and holding of stocks by governments can also help mitigate wild swings in food prices by alleviating uncertainties about market supply.

E. Shenggen Fan, Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute, held up social safety nets and public welfare programmes in Ethiopia, Brazil, and Mexico as valuable ways to Q6 address poverty among farming families and reduce their vulnerability to agriculture shocks. However, some commentators responded that cash transfers to poor families do not necessarily translate into increased food security, as these programmes do not always strengthen food production or raise incomes. Regarding state subsidies for agriculture, Rokeya Kabir, Executive Director of Bangladesh Nari Progati Sangha, commented in her essay that these ‘have not compensated for the stranglehold exercised by private traders. In fact, studies show that Q4 sixty percent of beneficiaries of subsidies are not poor, but rich landowners and non-farmer traders.

F. Nwanze, Murphy, and Fan argued that private risk management tools, like private insurance, commodity futures markets, and rural finance can help small-scale producers mitigate risk and allow for investment in improvements. Kabir warned that financial support schemes often encourage the adoption of high-input agricultural practices, which in the medium term may raise production costs beyond the value of their harvests. Murphy noted that when futures markets become excessively financialised they can contribute to short-term price volatility, which increases farmers’ food insecurity. Many participants and commentators emphasised that greater transparency in markets is needed to mitigate the impact of volatility and make evident whether adequate stocks and supplies are available. Others contended that agribusiness companies should be held responsible for paying for negative side effects.

G. Many essayists mentioned Q10 climate change and its consequences for small-scale agriculture. Fan explained that in addition to reducing crop yields, climate change increases the magnitude and the frequency of extreme weather events, which increase smallholder vulnerability. The growing unpredictability of weather patterns increases farmers’ difficulty in managing weather-related risks. According to this author, one solution would be to develop crop varieties that are more resilient to new climate trends and extreme weather patterns. Accordingly, Pat Mooney, co-founder and executive director of the ETC Group, suggested that ‘if we are to survive climate change, we must adopt policies that let peasants diversify the plant and animal species and varieties/breeds that make up our menus.

H. Some participating authors and commentators argued in favour of community-based and autonomous risk management strategies through collective action groups, co-operatives, or producers’ groups. Such groups enhance market opportunities for small-scale producers, reduce marketing costs, and synchronise buying and selling with seasonal price conditions. According to Murphy, ‘Q5 collective action offers an important way for farmers to strengthen their political and economic bargaining power, and to reduce their business risks. One commentator, Giel Ton, warned that collective action does not come as a free good. Q3 It takes time, effort, and money to organise, build trust, and to experiment. Others, like Marcel Vernooij and Marcel Beukeboom, suggested that in order to ‘apply what we already know’, Q12 all stakeholders, including business, government, scientists, and civil society, must work together, starting at the beginning of the value chain.

I. Some participants explained that market price volatility is often worsened by Q11 the presence of intermediary purchasers who, taking advantage of farmers’ vulnerability, dictate prices. One commentator suggested farmers can gain greater control over prices and minimise price volatility by selling directly to consumers. Similarly, Sonali Bisht, founder, and advisor to the Institute of Himalayan Environmental Research and Education (INHERE), India, wrote that Q7 community-supported agriculture, where consumers invest in local farmers by subscription and guarantee producers a fair price, is a risk-sharing model worth more attention. Direct food distribution systems not only encourage small-scale agriculture but also give consumers more control over the food they consume, she wrote.

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