IELTS Reading Passages with Answers and Explanations
Browse IELTS reading passages with full answer keys, per-question explanations, and exam-style practice links.
- Risk taking
Read Risk taking and check the IELTS Reading answers. We run risks. Most of the time we ignore them; sometimes we stop and decide how to deal with them. That's life. Risks arise in sports, in business, in personal relationships; they are present in the laboratory, in political calculations, everywh…
- Health In The Wild
Read Health In The Wild and check the IELTS Reading answers. For the past decade Dr Engel, a lecturer in environmental sciences at Britain's Open University, has been collating examples of self-medicating behavior in wild animals. She recently published a book on the subject. In a talk at the Edinb…
- Research into the effects of different teaching styles
Read Research into the effects of different teaching styles and check the IELTS Reading answers. Prior to 1960, most inquiries into pupils' learning skills explored the relationship between factors such as children's social background, personality or measured intelligence and their achievement in v…
- Health In The Wild
Read Health In The Wild and check the IELTS Reading answers. For the past decade Dr Engel, a lecturer in environmental sciences at Britain's Open University, has been collating examples of self-medicating behavior in wild animals. She recently published a book on the subject. In a talk at the Edinb…
- Research into the effects of different teaching styles
Read Research into the effects of different teaching styles and check the IELTS Reading answers. Prior to 1960, most inquiries into pupils' learning skills explored the relationship between factors such as children's social background, personality or measured intelligence and their achievement in v…
- The Baobabs of Madagascar
Read The Baobabs of Madagascar and check the IELTS Reading answers. The island of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean is the best place in the world to see baobabs. These spectacular trees, with their massive trunks and distinctive horizontal root-like branches, can live over 800 years. Of the eight kno…
- Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time
Read Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time and check the IELTS Reading answers. At our company, the Energy Project, we have worked with thousands of executives and, with remarkable consistency, they tell us they're pushing themselves harder than ever to keep up. The problem with working longer hours is…
- Creative Problem-Solving
Read Creative Problem-Solving and check the IELTS Reading answers. In a recent study, researchers at Northwestern University in the United States found that people were more likely to solve word puzzles with sudden insight when they were amused, having just seen a short comedy routine. 'What we thi…
- Decision Fatigue
Read Decision Fatigue and check the IELTS Reading answers. No matter how rational people try to be, they can't make decision after decision without paying a biological price. This 'decision fatigue' is different from ordinary physical fatigue. People are not conscious of being tired, but neverthele…
- The History of Pencil
Read The History of Pencil and check the IELTS Reading answers. The beginning of the story of pencils started with lightning. Graphite, the main material for producing pencil, was discovered in 1564 in Borrowdale in England when lightning struck a local tree during a thunderstorm. Local people foun…
- What is social history?
Read What is social history? and check the IELTS Reading answers. Ever since its elevation to the status of an academic discipline, history has been very largely concerned with problems of its own making. These may be gaps which the young researcher is advised by supervisors to fill; or established…
- Nanotechnology: the science of the very small
Read Nanotechnology: the science of the very small and check the IELTS Reading answers. Nanoscience and nanotechnology have become very fashionable in recent times. Their prominence has inspired science fiction and raised a lot of hope and hype about the possibilities. But what exactly is nanotechn…
- Linguistic diversity
Read Linguistic diversity and check the IELTS Reading answers. More than half of the world's languages are at risk, but an unlikely saviour is at hand. What is an endangered language? As a rough guide, any language with fewer than 10,000 speakers is in danger. However, the total number of speakers…
- Who wrote Shakespeare's plays?
Read Who wrote Shakespeare's plays? and check the IELTS Reading answers. Even today, almost 400 years after his death, the works of the famous English dramatist William Shakespeare have lost none of their appeal, nor have questions about the source of his genius. For is it really credible that an o…
- Termite Mounds
Read Termite Mounds and check the IELTS Reading answers. To most of us, termites are destructive insects which can cause damage on a devastating scale. But according to Dr Rupert Soar of Loughborough University’s School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, these pests may serve a useful pur…
- Early Approaches to Organisational Design
Read Early Approaches to Organisational Design and check the IELTS Reading answers. Determining the ‘best’ type of organisational structure for a particular situation has long been an important task for managers in all types of organisations. All structures have advantages and disadvantages and man…
- Father of modern management
Read Father of modern management and check the IELTS Reading answers. Peter Drucker was one of the most important management thinkers of the past hundred years. He wrote about 40 book and thousands of articles and he never rested in his mission to persuade the world that management matters. “Manage…
- How tennis rackets have changed
Read How tennis rackets have changed and check the IELTS Reading answers. In 2016, the British professional tennis player Andy Murray was ranked as the world’s number one. It was an incredible achievement by any standard – made even more remarkable by the fact that he did this during a period consi…
- The Placebo Effect
Read The Placebo Effect and check the IELTS Reading answers. Want to devise a new form of alternative medical treatment? No problem. Here’s the recipe. As a practitioner, be warm, sympathetic, reassuring and enthusiastic. Your treatment should involve physical contact, and each session with your pa…
- Antarctic research
Read Antarctic research and check the IELTS Reading answers. New Zealand’s contribution to International Polar Year was a 52-day voyage by the ship Tangaroa in order to conduct research in Antarctica’s Ross Sea. Lead scientist Mary Livingston emphasises just what a multi-faceted expedition this was…
- The Impact of the Potato
Read The Impact of the Potato and check the IELTS Reading answers. The potato was first cultivated in South America between three and seven thousand years ago, though scientists believe they may have grown wild in the region as long as 13,000 years ago. The genetic patterns of potato distribution i…
- Insect-inspired robots
Read Insect-inspired robots and check the IELTS Reading answers. A tiny insect navigates its way across featureless salt-pans. A cockroach successfully works out how to scramble over an obstacle. The mantis shrimp scans its aquatic world through hyperspectral eyes. Using the most basic of equipment…
- The Slow Food Organization
Read The Slow Food Organization and check the IELTS Reading answers. Slow Food began when Carlo Petrini, an Italian journalist, was dismayed by the opening of a fast food restaurant on the famous Piazza di Spagna in Rome. He decided it was time to celebrate the fast-disappearing virtues of the slow…
- The dingo debate
Read The dingo debate and check the IELTS Reading answers. A plane flies a slow pattern over Carlton Hill station, a 3,600 square kilometre ranch in the Kimberley region in northwest Australia. As the plane circles, those aboard drop 1,000 small pieces of meat, one by one, onto the scrubland below,…
- Chocolate for the masses
Read Chocolate for the masses and check the IELTS Reading answers. For almost three thousand years, chocolate was a drink of the elite and the wealthy, originally in South America and later on in Europe. In the early 19th century, however, chocolate became far more widely available, and consumption…
- The Fruit Book
Read The Fruit Book and check the IELTS Reading answers. *It’s not every scientist who writes books for people who can’t read. And how many scientists want their books to look as dog-eared as possible? But Patricia Shanley, an ethnobotanist, wanted to give something back. After the poorest people o…
- Should we stop eating meat?
Read Should we stop eating meat? and check the IELTS Reading answers. The call for people to eat less meat to save the planet is growing louder, so if less is good, wouldn't none be better? To find out, let's imagine what would happen if the world eliminated meat, milk and eggs from its diet, then…
- The history of the bar code
Read The history of the bar code and check the IELTS Reading answers. The first step toward today's bar codes came in 1948, when Bernard Silver, a graduate student in the USA, overheard a conversation in the halls of Philadelphia's Drexel Institute of Technology. The president of a food chain was p…
- Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art
Read Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art and check the IELTS Reading answers. As an eighteen-year-old living in the small Australian island state of Tasmania, moving to the ‘mainland’ could not happen soon enough. Now, ten years later, I look forward to going home. This is probably because I’ve gr…
- Travelling Plants
Read Travelling Plants and check the IELTS Reading answers. In an English woodland, the blackberry puts out exploratory stems, which curve upwards , waving slowly as though searching. If they touch another plant, they begin to advance directly and purposefully. To us, their motion is invisible, but…
- Bird Migration
Read Bird Migration and check the IELTS Reading answers. Birds have many unique design features that enable them to perform such amazing feats of endurance. They are equipped with lightweight, hollow bones, intricately designed feathers providing both lift and thrust for rapid flight, navigation sy…
- Pantomime
Read Pantomime and check the IELTS Reading answers. A pantomime performance is a unique blend of eccentricity and absurdity, a wild mixture of songs, jokes, outrageous costumes and slapstick physical humour. For many British children, their first family trip to see a pantomime in the Christmas holi…
- The Oldest Leather Shoe
Read The Oldest Leather Shoe and check the IELTS Reading answers. Archeologists discovered in 2010 what is said to be the world's oldest known leather shoe. The 5,500-year-old shoe, some 1,000 years older than the Egyptian pyramids, was found by scientists excavating a huge cave, designated Areni-1…
- Wood: a valuable resource in New Zealand's economy
Read Wood: a valuable resource in New Zealand's economy and check the IELTS Reading answers. During the settlement of New Zealand by European immigrants, natural timbers played a major role. Wood was easily accessible and relatively cheap. A tradition of wooden houses arose, supported by the recogn…
- Living dunes
Read Living dunes and check the IELTS Reading answers. Armies of giant sand dunes are advancing across the world's deserts, engulfing anything that crosses their path. They are tens of metres tall and hundreds of metres long. Fortunately, they aren't going very fast. Even the smallest, speediest du…
- Roller coaster: the great fairground attraction
Read Roller coaster: the great fairground attraction and check the IELTS Reading answers. Like a passenger train, a roller coaster consists of a series of connected cars that move on a track. But unlike a passenger train, it has no engine or power source of its own. For most of the ride, it is move…
- The Myth of the Eight-hour Sleep
Read The Myth of the Eight-hour Sleep and check the IELTS Reading answers. We often worry about lying awake in the middle of the night – but it could be good for you. Indications from both science and history suggest that the eight-hour sleep may not be a natural or inborn pattern for humans. In th…
- Neanderthal Technology
Read Neanderthal Technology and check the IELTS Reading answers. We think of our prehistoric ancestors as people of the ice and snow, living in caves, and for many of the west European Neanderthalers that is a just picture of their life. But where there were no caves, further to the east on the Rus…
- How Does Watching Sport Influence the Brain?
Read How Does Watching Sport Influence the Brain? and check the IELTS Reading answers. During the epoch when the poet Homer unveiled his grand epic, the ancient Greeks initiated a festival where men contended in a race of roughly 200 metres. The victor would be rewarded with a symbolic olive branch…
- The tuatara – past and future
Read The tuatara – past and future and check the IELTS Reading answers. The New Zealand species of lizard, the tuatara, is firmly embedded in the national psyche: an icon for today which dates from the age of dinosaurs; an ancient reptile commemorated on the back of the five cent coin. New Zealande…
- Deep sea discovery
Read Deep sea discovery and check the IELTS Reading answers. Nico Michiels is an ecologist from the University of Tubingen in Germany who spends part of each year in Egypt, where he dives in the Red Sea, observing fish life and gathering data on its coral reefs. In September 2007 he decided to find…
- Playing soccer
Read Playing soccer and check the IELTS Reading answers. Street soccer, as its name implies, is an informal variation of the sport, often played on the street, particularly in urban areas. There are many reasons for the widespread popularity of street soccer. Unlike youth soccer, its more formally…
- Rubber
Read Rubber and check the IELTS Reading answers. The plants that produce rubber are spread right across the globe, and grow in many different habitats. One might think it likely, therefore, that humankind has known about rubber for thousands of years. Yet, unlike other crops of economic importance,…
- The History of Chocolate
Read The History of Chocolate and check the IELTS Reading answers. Chocolate is now perceived as a ubiquitous indulgence, whether consumed as confectionery or a beverage, readily accessible in global markets. However, it may come as a surprise that chocolate was once regarded as a commodity of extr…
- Reef fish study
Read Reef fish study and check the IELTS Reading answers. It is a widely held belief among those who study animals that larger size conveys some form of advantage throughout life. The idea that certain body characteristics may influence a prey's ability to survive when being attacked by a predator…
- Does Class Size Matter?
Read Does Class Size Matter? and check the IELTS Reading answers. Of all the ideas for improving education, few are as simple or attractive as reducing the number of pupils per teacher. Unlike competing proposals for reform, class-size reductions rarely elicit huge outcries or involve structural ch…
- Will Eating Less Make You Live Longer?
Read Will Eating Less Make You Live Longer? and check the IELTS Reading answers. Calorie restriction, or ‘semi-starvation' as some refer to it, has been proven to extend lifespan in many living organisms from yeast to mice, but the picture for primates, including humans, is not so clear. Research p…
- Biology of Bitterness
Read Biology of Bitterness and check the IELTS Reading answers. There is a reason why grapefruit juice is served in little glasses: most people don't want to drink more than a few ounces at a time. Naringin, a natural chemical compound found in grapefruit, tastes bitter. Some people like that bitte…
- Lean Production innovation – in manufacturing systems
Read Lean Production innovation – in manufacturing systems and check the IELTS Reading answers. After the First World War, car makers Henry Ford and Arthur Sloan of General Motors moved world manufacturing from centuries of craft production into the age of mass production. Largely as a result of th…
- Chilli Peppers
Read Chilli Peppers and check the IELTS Reading answers. For thousands of years, humans have taken painful pleasure from adding chillies (also known as peppers or chilli peppers) to their food. A study published in the British Medical Journal in 2015 indicated that a diet filled with spices – inclu…
- Drawing Lessons from History
Read Drawing Lessons from History and check the IELTS Reading answers. Numerous ancient civilisations collapsed or disappeared, leaving behind grand ruins reminiscent of what poet Shelley described in his sonnet Ozymandias. The term 'collapse' refers to a significant reduction in population and/or…
- Biophilic Design
Read Biophilic Design and check the IELTS Reading answers. Biophilic design, a movement related to green architecture, has gained much momentum within the building community in recent years. The premise of biophilic design seeks both to avoid or minimize harmful impacts on the natural environment,…
- Saving the Skink
Read Saving the Skink and check the IELTS Reading answers. New Zealand's reptiles come in three forms: the tuatara, the geckos and the skinks. With their gleaming scales, long bodies and often surprisingly short limbs, skinks are instantly recognisable. There are more than 90 species, half of which…
- Dolls through the ages
Read Dolls through the ages and check the IELTS Reading answers. What is today a simple children's toy has a surprisingly rich history. Dolls have been a part of humankind for thousands of years. Often depicting religious figures, or used as playthings, early dolls were probably made from primitive…
- The fluoridation controversy
Read The fluoridation controversy and check the IELTS Reading answers. The long-standing debate about whether to fluoridate our drinking water continues Fluoridation is the addition of fluorine to public water supplies with the aim of reducing tooth decay. The fluorine, when mixed with water, becom…
- STRESS LESS
Read STRESS LESS and check the IELTS Reading answers. How busy is too busy? For some it means sometimes having to have a short lunch; for others it may mean missing lunch altogether. For a few, it is not being able to take a day off once a month. Then there is a group of people for whom working eve…
- Playing with science
Read Playing with science and check the IELTS Reading answers. The connection between science and play is not often discussed, perhaps because scientists take it for granted, or because they are a little self-conscious about it and therefore try to hide it. In this context, play might describe a nu…
- Jean Piaget 1896 – 1980
Read Jean Piaget 1896 – 1980 and check the IELTS Reading answers. Jean Piaget spent much of his professional life listening to children, watching children and poring over reports of researchers around the world who were doing the same. He found, to put it most succintly, that children don't think l…
- The Pirahã people of Brazil
Read The Pirahã people of Brazil and check the IELTS Reading answers. The Pirahã tribe live deep in Brazil's Amazon forest, and their language is hotly debated by linguists. Since 1977, the ethnologist Daniel Everett has spent a total of seven years living with the Pirahã and has committed his care…
- Intelligent behaviour in birds
Read Intelligent behaviour in birds and check the IELTS Reading answers. For centuries, many scholars maintained that humans were the only intelligent organism on Earth. Many traits were considered to be exclusively human examples of acumen for example, language, tool use, deception, awareness of s…
- Jellyfish – The Dominant Species
Read Jellyfish – The Dominant Species and check the IELTS Reading answers. Jellyfish have become the curse of beach holidays, permeating every ocean on the globe, thriving in the Arctic and the tropics. In an ever-changing world where other species struggle to endure, jellyfish populations are on t…
- Robert Louis Stevenson
Read Robert Louis Stevenson and check the IELTS Reading answers. It is more than 100 years since the death of the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson on the South Pacific Island of Samoa, and it seems that time has not been kind to Stevenson's memory. Immediately after his death, his family and…
- Dust and the American West
Read Dust and the American West and check the IELTS Reading answers. Images of deserts in the United States show dusty, barren landscapes, but the land may not always have been this way. Ever since settlers moved west across the US there has been dust-clouds of it everywhere. It was part of the lan…
- Tulip Mania
Read Tulip Mania and check the IELTS Reading answers. A Centuries before anyone ever heard of high-tech stocks such as Qualcomm, CMGI, or Cisco Systems, a tulip in 17th century Holland caused quite the stir. The Semper Augustus was a tulip of extraordinary grandeur, with midnight blue petals topped…
- The early history of olive oil
Read The early history of olive oil and check the IELTS Reading answers. Olive oil is produced from the fruit of the olive tree, which is a member of the Oleaceae plant family. The trees require some cold weather during the year, but also tolerate hot, dry conditions, and do not like moisture when…
- Urban Regeneration: an award-winning redevelopment project in Berlin
Read Urban Regeneration: an award-winning redevelopment project in Berlin and check the IELTS Reading answers. Just over a kilometer south of Berlin's Potsdamer Platz, near the left bank of the Landwehr Canal, an extensive, triangular-shaped area of waste ground once separated the neighbourhoods of…
- Carnivorous plant
Read Carnivorous plant and check the IELTS Reading answers. The naturalist and author of Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, was fascinated by carnivorous plants. In 1860, soon after he came across his first carnivorous plant — the sundew, Drosera — he wrote, 'I care more about Drosera than the orig…
- The development of plastics
Read The development of plastics and check the IELTS Reading answers. The first plastics were developed as a substitute for natural rubber. Chemically, rubber is a polymer-a compound containing large molecules that are formed by the bonding of many smaller, simpler units, repeated over and over aga…
- Look – who was talking
Read Look – who was talking and check the IELTS Reading answers. When did we start talking to each other and how long did it take us to become so good at it? One view of language development, held by linguists such as Noam Chomsky and anthropologists such as Richard Klein, is that language, specifi…
- The history of the guitar
Read The history of the guitar and check the IELTS Reading answers. The earliest stringed instruments currently known to archaeologists are bowl harps. For millennia, people made bowl harps using, for example, tortoise shells as resonators, with a bent stick for a neck and one or more gut or silk s…
- Antonio Stradivari - violin maker supreme
Read Antonio Stradivari - violin maker supreme and check the IELTS Reading answers. From the 1670s onwards, the violin maker Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737) successfully applied his inspired vision and enormous attention to detail to the artistic and commercial challenges of running an international…
- The Tasmanian Tiger
Read The Tasmanian Tiger and check the IELTS Reading answers. The Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, was a carnivorous marsupial (a meat-eating mammal which carries its young in a pouch). It was given the name ‘tiger’ because it had striped fur, and because it was ferocious. Between 24 million and 15 m…
- Katherine Mansfield
Read Katherine Mansfield and check the IELTS Reading answers. Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp Murry was born in 1888, into a prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand. She became one of New Zealand’s best-known writers, using the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. The daughter of a banker, and born i…
- The Robbers Cave Study
Read The Robbers Cave Study and check the IELTS Reading answers. Group self-centredness seems to occur the minute people are divided into groups. It doesn’t matter what the group is, or on what basis it was formed, we perceive the group we belong to as being superior to other groups and we develop…
- Keeping the water away
Read Keeping the water away and check the IELTS Reading answers. Recently, winter floods on the rivers of central Europe have been among the worst for 600 to 700 years, and dams and dykes (protective sea walls) have failed to solve the problem. Traditionally, river engineers have tried to get rid o…
- Traditional Maori Medicine
Read Traditional Maori Medicine and check the IELTS Reading answers. The Maori are the indigenous people of the islands of New Zealand. Their traditional medicine, which is believed to date back as far as the 13th century, was a system of healing that was passed down through the generations orally.…
- Listening to the Ocean
Read Listening to the Ocean and check the IELTS Reading answers. The oceans cover more than 70 per cent of the planet’s surface, yet until quite recently we knew less about their depths than about the surface of the Moon. The Moon has been far more accessible to study because astronomers have long…
- Yawning
Read Yawning and check the IELTS Reading answers. When Robert R. Provine began studying yawning in the 1960s, it was difficult for him to convince research students of the merits of ‘yawning science’. Although it may appear quirky to some, Provine’s decision to study yawning was a logical extension…
- The plan to bring an asteroid to Earth
Read The plan to bring an asteroid to Earth and check the IELTS Reading answers. Send a robot into space, catch an asteroid and bring it back to Earth’s orbit. This may sound a ridiculous plan, but it was discussed quite seriously recently by a group of scientists and engineers at the California In…
- Fishbourne Roman Palace
Read Fishbourne Roman Palace and check the IELTS Reading answers. Fishbourne Roman Palace is in the village of Fishbourne in West Sussex, England. This large palace was built in the 1st century AD, around thirty years after the Roman conquest of Britain, on the site of Roman army grain stores that…
- An important language development
Read An important language development and check the IELTS Reading answers. Cuneiform, the world's first known system of handwriting, originated some 6,000 years ago in Sumer in what is now southern Iraq. It was most often inscribed on palm-sized, rectangular clay tablets measuring several centimet…
- A closer examination of a study on verbal and non-verbal messages
Read A closer examination of a study on verbal and non-verbal messages and check the IELTS Reading answers. The findings of a study on verbal and non-verbal messages in communication by Albert Mehrabian and his colleagues at UCLA in 1967 have been quoted so frequently that they are now often regard…
- The women scientists of Bologna
Read The women scientists of Bologna and check the IELTS Reading answers. The 18th century was a time of logic and experimentation and many of the sciences had their beginnings at that time. But throughout most of Europe, these studies were reserved exclusively for men. Few options were available t…
- The Role of Mothers in the Origins of Music
Read The Role of Mothers in the Origins of Music and check the IELTS Reading answers. In a recent lecture Richard Parncutt, a professor of systematic musicology at the University of Graz, Austria, discussed the idea that music originated from 'motherese' - the playful voices mothers adopt when spea…
- Mapping the Mind
Read Mapping the Mind and check the IELTS Reading answers. The often used phrase 'I'll believe it when I see it' betrays a very intimate fact of human nature. We are visual creatures and we rely on sight to serve as a judge of what is real and what is not. When discussing the intricacies of the hum…
- Sydney Opera House
Read Sydney Opera House and check the IELTS Reading answers. In 1956 the Premier of New South Wales, Australia, announced an international competition for the design of an opera house for Sydney. It attracted more than 200 entries from around the world and was won by Jørn Utzon, a relatively little…
- Pacific Navigation and Voyaging
Read Pacific Navigation and Voyaging and check the IELTS Reading answers. The many tiny islands of the Pacific Ocean had no human population until ancestors of today’s islanders sailed from Southeast Asia in ocean-going canoes approximately 2,000 years ago. At the present time, the debate continues…
- The Significant Role of Mother Tongue in Education
Read The Significant Role of Mother Tongue in Education and check the IELTS Reading answers. One consequence of population mobility is an increasing diversity within schools. To illustrate, in the city of Toronto in Canada, 58% of kindergarten pupils come from homes where English is not the usual l…
- Born to Trade
Read Born to Trade and check the IELTS Reading answers. Humans are born to trade and we don’t need shops or money to do it—the heart of commerce is an instinctive ability for what anthropologists call “reciprocity”. This is an ability to exchange goods of equal worth, and it evolved as the brains o…
- Rubber
Read Rubber and check the IELTS Reading answers. The plants that produce rubber are spread right across the globe, and grow in many different habitats. One might think it likely, therefore, that humankind has known about rubber for thousands of years. Yet, unlike other crops of economic importance,…
- Investment in Shares vs. Investment in Other Assets
Read Investment in Shares vs. Investment in Other Assets and check the IELTS Reading answers. It all began in 1958 with a phone call from Louis Engel, a banker at Merrill Lynch, a US-based financial management company, who wanted to know how investors in shares had performed relative to investors i…
- When people are ‘deaf’ to music
Read When people are ‘deaf’ to music and check the IELTS Reading answers. Music has long been considered a uniquely human concept. In fact, most psychologists agree that music is a universal human instinct. Like any ability, however, there is great variation in people’s musical competence. For ever…
- Some views on the use of headphones
Read Some views on the use of headphones and check the IELTS Reading answers. To visit a typical modern office today is to walk into a room with possibly a dozen songs playing simultaneously but to hear none of them. Up to half of younger workers listen to music on their headphones, and nearly all…
- Footprints in the Mud
Read Footprints in the Mud and check the IELTS Reading answers. Everybody knows that the dinosaurs became extinct as a result of a large asteroid; something big hit the Earth 65 million years ago and, when the dust had fallen, so had the great reptiles. There is thus a nice, if ironic, symmetry in…
- Petrol power: an eco-revolution?
Read Petrol power: an eco-revolution? and check the IELTS Reading answers. Laura Ingalls Wilder's semi-autobiographical novel *The Long Winter* describes how the inhabitants of a small town called De Smet in the American Midwest narrowly avoided starvation during the severe winter of 1880-1881. Ove…
- How are deserts formed
Read How are deserts formed and check the IELTS Reading answers. A desert refers to a barren section of land, mainly in arid and semi-arid areas, where there is almost no precipitation and the environment is hostile for any creature to inhabit. Deserts have been classified in a number of ways, gene…
- The History of the Pencil
Read The History of the Pencil and check the IELTS Reading answers. The history of the pencil starts with a violent thunderstorm. When some particularly ferocious weather struck the Lake District in North West England in the sixteenth century, locals in the village of Borrowdale discovered a large…
- The Cause of Linguistic Change
Read The Cause of Linguistic Change and check the IELTS Reading answers. The changes that have caused the most disagreement are those in pronunciation. We have various sources of evidence for the pronunciations of earlier times, such as the spellings, the treatment of words borrowed from other lang…
- Learning from the Romans
Read Learning from the Romans and check the IELTS Reading answers. In a quest to make concrete more durable and sustainable, an international team of geologists and engineers has found inspiration in the concrete used by the ancient Romans. The chemical secrets of Roman concrete have been uncovered…
- Unlocking the mystery of dreams
Read Unlocking the mystery of dreams and check the IELTS Reading answers. Thousands of years ago, dreams were seen as messages from the gods, and in many cultures, they are still considered prophetic, foretelling things to come. In ancient Greece, sick people slept at the temples of Asclepius, the…
- War of the Plants
Read War of the Plants and check the IELTS Reading answers. The general perception of plants is that they are defenceless when faced with threat from animals (including man), insects and other plants. This, however, is not the case. Plants are able to defend themselves against attack from their env…
- Star Performers
Read Star Performers and check the IELTS Reading answers. One widely held assumption about talent is that it is a reasonably fixed characteristic and it is therefore the job of organisations to identify, recruit and retain star performers. This belief affects the way people are managed in the workp…
- John Ray and the Study of Plants
Read John Ray and the Study of Plants and check the IELTS Reading answers. The 17th-century English scholar and botanist John Ray was well aware that he lived through, and participated in, a profound revolution in the way people interacted with nature. In the preface to his Synopsis of British Plan…
- The history of the picnic
Read The history of the picnic and check the IELTS Reading answers. Picnics became popular in France in the 18th century. A favourite pastime of the upper classes, they were initially purely indoor affairs, held at home or in hired rooms. It was assumed that invited guests would contribute; they co…
- What Are Dreams?
Read What Are Dreams? and check the IELTS Reading answers. Thousands of years ago, dreams were seen as messages from the gods, and in many cultures, they are still considered prophetic. In ancient Greece, sick people slept at the temples of Asclepius, the god of medicine, in order to receive dreams…
- A Brief History of Ballet
Read A Brief History of Ballet and check the IELTS Reading answers. Ballet originated in the Italian Renaissance of the 15th century. The nobility were treated to extravagant events, especially wedding celebrations, where dancing and music created a detailed and fascinating spectacle. Dancing maste…
- The hazards of multitasking
Read The hazards of multitasking and check the IELTS Reading answers. You arrive at the office, review your to-do list and start to feel a headache coming on. You resolve to tackle the items as quickly as possible. While you return calls, you sort e-mail and other letters. You begin keying in slide…
- Ambergris - what is it and where does it come from?
Read Ambergris - what is it and where does it come from? and check the IELTS Reading answers. In the ancient world, they waxy grey substance we now refer to as ambergris was highly prized for its medicinal properties, and was widely used as a spice, which was believed to be an aphrodisiac when adde…
- Socotra Island
Read Socotra Island and check the IELTS Reading answers. When scientists began the first substantial exploration of the islands 30 years ago, they found a fascinating collection of unusual plants and animals - a unique combination of 'relict' populations (organisms that have become extinct elsewher…
- Public art programs: research update
Read Public art programs: research update and check the IELTS Reading answers. Researcher Howard Spector suggests that active art experiences benefit all age groups by providing individuals with the means to freely and creatively express themselves. Self-expression, in turn, promotes individuality,…
- Sign, Baby, Sign!
Read Sign, Baby, Sign! and check the IELTS Reading answers. Language is a powerful tool that humans use for a wide variety of purposes-from expressing emotions and sharing ideas to passing down cultural values and acquiring knowledge. It is not limited to spoken words; gestures, facial expressions,…
- What makes a musical expert?
Read What makes a musical expert? and check the IELTS Reading answers. How does someone become expert in music? And is it really possible to have a talent for music? Does that class of people acknowledged to be musical experts just have more of the same basic skills we are all endowed with, or do t…
- Learning to be bilingual
Read Learning to be bilingual and check the IELTS Reading answers. Few people would consider mastering more than one language a bad idea. Consequently, parents who speak different languages from each other are generally keen for their children to learn both. They understand that the family setting…
- The Future of Food Packaging
Read The Future of Food Packaging and check the IELTS Reading answers. Food companies spend a lot of time thinking about packaging as a way to represent their brand and make consumers love their products. More than cosmetic details like labels or logos, a food container can suggest playfulness, env…
- Growing more for less
Read Growing more for less and check the IELTS Reading answers. For farmers, working out the optimal amount of seed, fertiliser, pesticide and water to scatter on a field can make, or break, the subsequent harvest. Regular laboratory analyses of soil and plant samples from various parts of the fiel…
- In Deep Water
Read In Deep Water and check the IELTS Reading answers. While we know that the sea is a big place, few of us realise just how big it really is. More than 66% of the world's surface is covered by ocean, and the sea makes up 97% of the environments on Earth that can support living things. The vast ma…
- Sleep Study on Modern-Day Hunter-Gatherers Dispels Popular Notions
Read Sleep Study on Modern-Day Hunter-Gatherers Dispels Popular Notions and check the IELTS Reading answers. The sleep troubles common in modern life have long been blamed on our industrial society, from the city lights, long work hours and commutes, to caffeine and the Internet. Sleep researchers…
- The fashion industry
Read The fashion industry and check the IELTS Reading answers. The fashion industry is a multibillion-dollar global enterprise devoted to the business of making and selling clothes. It encompasses all types of garments, from designer fashions to ordinary everyday clothing. Because data on the indus…
- New Filter Promises Clean Water For Millions
Read New Filter Promises Clean Water For Millions and check the IELTS Reading answers. 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 c…
- A Brief History of Humans and Food
Read A Brief History of Humans and Food and check the IELTS Reading answers. During the journey from our hunter-gatherer ancestors to the present day, there have been three seismic changes that have impacted the food we eat: the discovery of cooking, the emergence of agriculture, and the invention…
- The strange world of sight
Read The strange world of sight and check the IELTS Reading answers. Two of the great British men of the 17th century, the philosopher John Locke and the physicist Isaac Newton, were both aware that objects are not coloured, and that against all appearances light is not coloured either. This is sti…
- Classical music over the centuries
Read Classical music over the centuries and check the IELTS Reading answers. The production of any great art form, and classical music is no exception, does not usually occur in a society dominated by the basic material demands of food and shelter. Art and music have flourished in those periods of…
- Children's literature studies today
Read Children's literature studies today and check the IELTS Reading answers. Who studies children's literature and what is it that they study? The answers to this question are complex and messy, because of the many confounding factors which exist in this field.
- The importance of being playful
Read The importance of being playful and check the IELTS Reading answers. While it has long been recognized that play affords benefits that last through adulthood, psychologists in the US are now becoming concerned that lack of play could actually be harming their country's kids. In the past, few c…
- The history of colours and the meanings people have given them
Read The history of colours and the meanings people have given them and check the IELTS Reading answers. The use of colours has a long history in human development. Prehistoric paintings in caves were found to contain yellow and red earth, white chalk, and a black made from the soot of burned anima…
- Investing in the Future
Read Investing in the Future and check the IELTS Reading answers. The founding and development of many universities has been dependent on philanthropy. This has been true from some of the oldest universities such as Bologna, Oxford and Cambridge in the twelfth century, to relative newcomers like th…
- The Constant Evolution of the Humble Tomato
Read The Constant Evolution of the Humble Tomato and check the IELTS Reading answers. Famous for their taste, color, and organic appearance, heirloom tomatoes are favorites of gardeners and advocates of locally grown foods. The tomato enthusiast might conclude that, given the immense varieties, hei…
- Memory Decoding
Read Memory Decoding and check the IELTS Reading answers. Try this memory test: Study each face and compose a vivid image for the person's first and last name. Rose Leo, for example, could be a rosebud and a lion. Fill in the blanks on the next page. The Examinations School at Oxford University is…
- The last man who knew everything
Read The last man who knew everything and check the IELTS Reading answers. Thomas Young (1773-1829) contributed 63 articles to the great British encyclopaedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, including 46 biographical entries (mostly on scientists and classical scholars), and substantial essays on 'Bridg…
- The costs of brand loyalty
Read The costs of brand loyalty and check the IELTS Reading answers. A Londoner with a sudden urge for giant African snails could do worse than head to the bustling marketplace in Brixton, a part of south London that is home to many people from Africa. Markets like Brixton market that eater to migr…
- The Long Road to Artificial Intelligence
Read The Long Road to Artificial Intelligence and check the IELTS Reading answers. In 1950, the computing pioneer Alan Turing published a paper in the journal Mind entitled 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence'. It was the first serious, scholarly treatment of the concept of Artificial Intelligenc…
- New Understanding of Giraffes in the Wild
Read New Understanding of Giraffes in the Wild and check the IELTS Reading answers. Even as the tallest animals on Earth, giraffes can be easy to overlook. Despite being a favorite in zoos, until recently almost nobody studied giraffes in the wild. 'When I first became interested in giraffes in 200…
- The Origin and Development of Applause
Read The Origin and Development of Applause and check the IELTS Reading answers. Scholars aren't quite sure about the origins of applause, but the form that is still most common, clapping the hands together, was formalized in Western culture during and after performances. During the time of the Rom…
- How do plants talk to each other?
Read How do plants talk to each other? and check the IELTS Reading answers. In 1983, plant scientists Jack Schultz and Ian Baldwin reported that the leaves of young maple trees increased their defense systems when exposed to maples that had been damaged by plant-eating (herbivorous) insects. The in…
- The geography of taste buds
Read The geography of taste buds and check the IELTS Reading answers. Scientists have long known that the surface of the tongue is covered with taste buds: onion-shaped bundles of cells that stand guard for the digestive system. Long before our modern world of supermarkets and restaurants, taste bu…
- Traditional Farming in Zambia’s Luapula Province
Read Traditional Farming in Zambia’s Luapula Province and check the IELTS Reading answers. By tradition, land in Luapula Province is not owned by individuals, but, as in many other parts of Africa, is allocated by the headman or headwoman of a village to people of either sex according to need. Sinc…
- Effect and Cause
Read Effect and Cause and check the IELTS Reading answers. In the sixth century Gregory of Tours, a chronicler of the Germanic people known as the Rhone River spills into Lake Geneva. He wrote of a big rockfall in the year 563 AD in the vicinity of a place called Tauredunum. The debris plunged into…
- Australia's Airborne Dentists
Read Australia's Airborne Dentists and check the IELTS Reading answers. Australians living or travelling in rural and remote areas can face particular difficulties when they need medical care. Hundreds of kilometres from major cities and many hours by road from the closest hospital or clinic, some…
- Why Do We Need Sleep?
Read Why Do We Need Sleep? and check the IELTS Reading answers. According to the United States (U.S.) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 80 million American adults are chronically sleep deprived, meaning they sleep less than the recommended minimum of seven hours a night. T…
- The art of deception
Read The art of deception and check the IELTS Reading answers. Forty years ago, the research psychologist Dr Paul Ekman was addressing a group of young psychiatrists in training when he was asked a question, the answer to which has kept him busy ever since. Suppose the group wanted to know, a parti…
- How to be Happy
Read How to be Happy and check the IELTS Reading answers. A psychiatrist Tony Fernando was walking down the street when he saw a group of young homeless men sitting on the footpath. As Fernando handed out gifts of food, he tried to video the men’s reactions in his mind, recording how their gratitud…
- Surviving city life
Read Surviving city life and check the IELTS Reading answers. Ecologists often prefer to study plants and animals in exotic locations, but a growing number have turned their attention to the complex interactions of the wildlife that inhabits concrete jungles. Inner-city Sydney is the laboratory of…
- What Lucy Taught Us
Read What Lucy Taught Us and check the IELTS Reading answers. On a Sunday morning in late November 1974, a team of scientists were digging in an isolated spot in the Afar region of Ethiopia. Surveying the area, palaeoanthropologist Donald Johanson spotted a small piece of bone. Straight away, he re…
- Marketing and The Information Age
Read Marketing and The Information Age and check the IELTS Reading answers. For the early practitioners of marketing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the business of selling was simply a matter of continually finding new customers. By contrast, marketing managers in the current era recogn…
- The Origin of Paper
Read The Origin of Paper and check the IELTS Reading answers. The word paper derives from the Greek term for the ancient Egyptian writing material called papyrus. In about 2400 BC, the Egyptians discovered how to make a writing surface out of papyrus, a type of reed that grows along waterways in so…
- The Exploration of Mars
Read The Exploration of Mars and check the IELTS Reading answers. In 1877, Giovanni Schiaparelli, an Italian astronomer, made drawings and maps of the Martian surface that suggested strange features. The images from telescopes at that time were not as sharp as today’s. Schiaparelli said he could se…
- Sorry - who are you?
Read Sorry - who are you? and check the IELTS Reading answers. It was Jacob Hodes' first day at college. He recalled spending an enjoyable afternoon being shown around campus by a second year students name Daniel Byrne, who happened to be from his home town, Jacob then spent the rest of the year ig…
- The Blockbuster Phenomenon: A New Museum Trend
Read The Blockbuster Phenomenon: A New Museum Trend and check the IELTS Reading answers. Since the 1980s, the term ‘blockbuster’ has become the fashionable word for spectacular, high-profile museum exhibitions that have the ability to attract large crowds. A blockbuster is a ‘large-scale loan exhib…
- Conformity
Read Conformity and check the IELTS Reading answers. During your childhood, there will have been some kind of craze which affected all the people in your school. It may have been to do with a particular toy or possibly a must-have item of clothing. It may have been something as simple as a type of…
- Ideal Homes
Read Ideal Homes and check the IELTS Reading answers. The traditional kampung houses of Malaysia do not need air-conditioning. Built on stilts and with steep roofs, they have year-round ventilation. The raised structure ensures a cooling breeze comes up through the floorboards, while the high roof…
- The importance of law
Read The importance of law and check the IELTS Reading answers. The law influences all of us virtually all the time, it governs almost all aspects of our behavior, and even what happens to us when we are no longer alive. It affects us from the embryo onwards. It governs the air we breathe, the food…
- What is an unfair advantage in sport?
Read What is an unfair advantage in sport? and check the IELTS Reading answers. What happened to the Australian athlete Ron Clarke in the 10,000 metres at the Mexico City Olympics of 1968 is now virtually forgotten, though at the time it was headline news. Clarke was the greatest distance runner in…
- Mammoth Kill
Read Mammoth Kill and check the IELTS Reading answers. Although it’s hard to imagine in this age of urban sprawl and automobiles, North America once belonged to huge, elephant-like mammoths, camels, bear-sized beavers and other giant beasts, collectively known as ‘megafauna’. Some 11,000 years ago,…
- Clarence Birdseye and the Development of Frozen Food
Read Clarence Birdseye and the Development of Frozen Food and check the IELTS Reading answers. Born in 1886 in New York, the American naturalist Clarence Birdseye had an instinctive curiosity, a love of food, and a strong entrepreneurial streak. At the age of ten, he was hunting, selling live anima…
- A new look for Talbot Park
Read A new look for Talbot Park and check the IELTS Reading answers. The new Talbot Park is immediately eye-catching because the buildings look quite different to other state-housing projects in Auckland. ‘There is no reason why state housing should look cheap in my view,’ says architect Neil Cotto…
- New Zealand home textile crafts of the 1930s to 1950s
Read New Zealand home textile crafts of the 1930s to 1950s and check the IELTS Reading answers. Domestic crafts do not build monuments to their makers, nor do they create wealth, and too often they have not survived. In consequence, the domestic crafts produced by mothers, grandmothers and great gr…
- A survivor's story
Read A survivor's story and check the IELTS Reading answers. As an island country with a fauna dominated by birds, New Zealand was once home to an owl species which is now extinct, the laughing owl', named for its distinctive cry. This bird was widespread throughout the islands when European settle…
- The Voynich Manuscript
Read The Voynich Manuscript and check the IELTS Reading answers. The starkly modern Beinecke Library at Yale University is home to some of the most valuable books in the world: first folios of Shakespeare, Gutenberg Bibles and manuscripts from the early Middle Ages. Yet the library's most controver…
- The Importance of Business Cards
Read The Importance of Business Cards and check the IELTS Reading answers. The ritual may be universal, but the details of business cards and how they are swapped vary across countries. Americans throw their cards casually across a table; the Japanese make the exchange of cards a formal ceremony. W…
- Book Review:
Read Book Review: and check the IELTS Reading answers. The English explorer and writer John Franklin (1786-1847) joined the Navy at the age of 14, and fought at the battle of Trafalgar. When peace came, he turned his attention to Arctic exploration, and in particular to solving the conundrum of the…
- Improving Patient Safety
Read Improving Patient Safety and check the IELTS Reading answers. One of the most prominent design issues in pharmacy is that of drug packages and the patient information leaflets (PILs) included in them. Many pharmacists are concerned that current designs are 'accidents waiting to happen'. The UK…
- Book review: Triumph of the City
Read Book review: Triumph of the City and check the IELTS Reading answers. *Triumph of the City*, by Edward Glaeser, is a thrilling and very readable hymn of praise to an invention so vast and so effective that it is generally taken for granted. More than half the global population already live in…
- Mind Music
Read Mind Music and check the IELTS Reading answers. Ever had a song stuck in your head, playing on an endless loop? Scientists call them 'involuntary musical images', or 'earworms, and a wave of new research is shining light on why they occur and what can be learned from them. Some neuroscientists…
- The People of Patagonia
Read The People of Patagonia and check the IELTS Reading answers. Anthropologists continue to investigate human migration to Patagonia at the southern tip of South America. The human settlement of the southern extremity of the Americas has always fascinated pre-historians. Viewed from a global pers…
- The problem with graffiti
Read The problem with graffiti and check the IELTS Reading answers. The term graffiti derives from the Italian graffito meaning 'scratching' and can be defined as uninvited marking or writing scratched or applied to objects, built structures and natural features. It is not a new phenomenon: example…
- How a prehistoric predator took to the skies
Read How a prehistoric predator took to the skies and check the IELTS Reading answers. Pterosaurs existed from the Triassic period, 220 million years ago, to the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago, when South America pulled away from Africa and the South Atlantic was formed. They ar…
- The return of monkey life
Read The return of monkey life and check the IELTS Reading answers. Hacienda La Pacifica, a remote working cattle ranch in Guanacaste province of northern Costa Rica, has for decades been home to a community of mantled howler monkeys. Other native primates- white-faced capuchin monkeys and spider m…
- Hunting Perfume in Madagascar
Read Hunting Perfume in Madagascar and check the IELTS Reading answers. Ever since the unguentari plied their trade in ancient Rome, perfumers have had to keep abreast of changing fashions. These days they have several thousand ingredients to choose from when creating new scents, but there is alway…
- Computer Games for Preschoolers: Nintendo's Research and Design Process
Read Computer Games for Preschoolers: Nintendo's Research and Design Process and check the IELTS Reading answers. Designing computer games for young children is a daunting task for game producers, who, for a long time, have concentrated on more "hardcore" game fans. This article chronicles the desi…
- Movement Underwater
Read Movement Underwater and check the IELTS Reading answers. Self-propelled motion is a fundamental ability in many organisms. From the beating flagella of tiny plankton keeping afloat near the ocean surface to the playful perfection of dolphins surfing the bow wave of a ship, marine creatures hav…
- Desertification
Read Desertification and check the IELTS Reading answers. The world's great deserts were formed by natural processes interacting over long intervals of time. During most of these times, deserts have grown and shrunk independent of human activities. Paleodeserts, large sand seas now inactive because…
- A unique golden textile
Read A unique golden textile and check the IELTS Reading answers. A rare textile made from the silk of more than a million wild spiders has gone on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. To produce the golden cloth, 70 people spent four years collecting golden orb spide…
- The conquest of malaria in Italy
Read The conquest of malaria in Italy and check the IELTS Reading answers. The word ‘malaria’ means ‘bad air’ in Italian, and this terrible disease marked the life of the people of that country for thousands of years. Yet by 1962, Italy was officially declared malaria-free, and it has remained so e…
- Tunnelling under the Thames
Read Tunnelling under the Thames and check the IELTS Reading answers. At the beginning of the 19th century, the port of London was the busiest in the world. Cargoes that had travelled thousands of miles and survived all the hazards of the sea were unloaded on the banks of the Thames, only for their…
- The Fascinating World of Attine Ants
Read The Fascinating World of Attine Ants and check the IELTS Reading answers. Leaf-cutting ants and their fungus 'farm' are a marvel of nature and perhaps the best-known example of symbiosis the mutual dependence of two species. Ants cultivate a mushroom-like fungus in 'farms'. Both the ants and t…
- The history of the pencil
Read The history of the pencil and check the IELTS Reading answers. Pencils have existed for millennia. It is known that the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all used small pieces of metal as writing instruments, and that 14th-century European artists made pale grey drawings with thin rods of l…
- Inside the Mind of a Fan: How Watching Sport Affects the Brain
Read Inside the Mind of a Fan: How Watching Sport Affects the Brain and check the IELTS Reading answers. At about the same time that the poet Homer invented the epic hero, the ancient Greeks started a festival in which men competed in a single race, about 200 metres long. The winner received a bran…
- 200 Years of Australian Landscapes at the Royal Academy in London
Read 200 Years of Australian Landscapes at the Royal Academy in London and check the IELTS Reading answers. For the casual viewer, the exhibition of landscapes, Australia, selected by the Royal Academy of Art, will be a spectacular guide through Australian art history. Included in the exhibition ar…
- The Burgess Shale fossils
Read The Burgess Shale fossils and check the IELTS Reading answers. Some discoveries are so unusual it takes decades and sometimes even centuries to understand their full significance. One such discovery is the fossil bed known as the Burgess Shale, which contains a record of bizarre creatures that…
- Traditional Māori Fishing Hooks
Read Traditional Māori Fishing Hooks and check the IELTS Reading answers. The discovery of ancient fishing hooks in New Zealand has revealed that the Maori people were remarkably skilled at crafting highly effective tools for catching fish. These hooks, often made from organic materials such as bon…
- The Power of Smell
Read The Power of Smell and check the IELTS Reading answers. Dog noses are renowned for sensitivity to smells, while human noses are thought to be poor by comparison, yet that might be a misconception. According to recent studies, our noses are in fact acutely sensitive instruments that guide our e…
- Australia's Megafauna Controversy
Read Australia's Megafauna Controversy and check the IELTS Reading answers. Over the past 50 millennia, Australia has witnessed the extinction of many species of large animals, including a rhinoceros-sized wombat and goannas the size of crocodiles. Debate about the possible cause of these extinctio…
- Flower Power
Read Flower Power and check the IELTS Reading answers. Why do people give flowers? To offer condolence to those who are grieving. To express gratitude. To ask for forgiveness. There is something undeniably powerful about giving flowers; in fact, few objects provoke such a universal response. In the…
- Elephant communication
Read Elephant communication and check the IELTS Reading answers. O'Connell-Rodwell, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, has travelled to Namibia's first-ever wildlife reserve to explore the mystical and complicated realm of elephant communication. She, along with her colleagues, is part o…
- Rebranding art museums
Read Rebranding art museums and check the IELTS Reading answers. As anyone with even a passing interest in cultural institutions will know, art museums are adapting to keep up with changes in society. Do any of these newly developed spaces indicate a fundamental shift in the ways we engage with art…
- The Evolutionary Mystery: Crocodile Survives
Read The Evolutionary Mystery: Crocodile Survives and check the IELTS Reading answers. Even though crocodiles have existed for 200 million years, they're anything but primitive. As crocodiles' ancestors, crocodilia came to adapt to an aquatic lifestyle. When most of the other contemporary reptiles…
- Science and filmmaking
Read Science and filmmaking and check the IELTS Reading answers. Every year the film academy in the USA celebrates the outstanding achievements of the year in a ceremony known as the Oscars. An increasingly important component of the ceremony is the presentation of the Scientific and Technical awar…
- The Clipper Races: an era of competition between cargo ships
Read The Clipper Races: an era of competition between cargo ships and check the IELTS Reading answers. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the British East India Company had the monopoly on trade with China and India. This meant that because no rival could legally import tea or other g…
- The economic effect of climate
Read The economic effect of climate and check the IELTS Reading answers. Dr William Masters was reading a book about mosquitoes when an idea struck him. 'There was this anecdote about the yellow fever epidemic that hit Philadelphia in 1793.' Masters recalls. 'This epidemic decimated the city until…
- The Pyramid of Cestius
Read The Pyramid of Cestius and check the IELTS Reading answers. Though Rome draws tourists from around the world to its many impressive sites, one notable monument there has never attracted nearly as much interest: The Pyramid of Cestius. But why would there be a pyramid in Italy? After the Roman…
- Pearls
Read Pearls and check the IELTS Reading answers. Long known as the "Queen of Gems", pearls possess a history and allure far beyond what today's wearer may recognize. Throughout much of recorded history, a natural pearl necklace comprised of matched spheres was a treasure of almost incomparable valu…
- Back to wild
Read Back to wild and check the IELTS Reading answers. The Przewalski Horse is the last wild horse. The horse is named after the Russian colonel Nikolai Przewalski (the name is of Polish origin and "Przewalski" is the Polish spelling). He was the explorer and naturalist who first described the hors…
- Intelligent behavior in birds
Read Intelligent behavior in birds and check the IELTS Reading answers. For centuries, many scholars maintained that humans were the only intelligent organism on Earth. Many traits were considered to be exclusively human examples of acumen - for example, language, tool use, deception, awareness of…
- Caral: an ancient South American city
Read Caral: an ancient South American city and check the IELTS Reading answers. Huge earth and rock mounds rise out of the desert of the Supe Valley near the coast of Peru in South America. These immense mounds appear simply to be part of the geographical landscape in this arid region squeezed betw…
- The dingo debate
Read The dingo debate and check the IELTS Reading answers. A plane flies a slow pattern over Carlton Hill station, a 3,600 square kilometre ranch in the Kimberley region in northwest Australia. As the plane circles, those aboard drop 1,000 small pieces of meat, one by one, onto the scrubland below,…
- The New Zealand writer Margaret Mahy
Read The New Zealand writer Margaret Mahy and check the IELTS Reading answers. In a career spanning some fifty years, Margaret Mahy has come to occupy a unique place in New Zealand writing with innovative fiction and original characterisation. In our solidly realist tradition, the linguistic firewo…
- Facial Expression
Read Facial Expression and check the IELTS Reading answers. A facial expression is one or more motions or positions of the muscles in the skin. These movements convey the emotional state of the individual to observers. Facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication. They are a primary mea…
- Introduction to a book about the assessment of carbon footprints
Read Introduction to a book about the assessment of carbon footprints and check the IELTS Reading answers. As this book is about ways of measuring the carbon footprint of particular things, I should start by making it clear what I mean. I am using the word ‘carbon’ as shorthand for all the differen…
- The Science of Shopping
Read The Science of Shopping and check the IELTS Reading answers. You may have wondered why so many supermarkets are virtually indistinguishable from each other. It is not, as some might suspect, that the companies operating them lack imagination. It is more that they are all well-versed in the sci…
- The origin of language
Read The origin of language and check the IELTS Reading answers. Theories on the origin and evolution of language have been a major area of my research for many years. By 1859, when British scientist Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species, there was already a great deal of interest in this…
- Understanding symbols
Read Understanding symbols and check the IELTS Reading answers. About 20 years ago I had one of those wonderful moments when research takes an unexpected but fruitful turn. I had been studying toddler memory and was beginning a new experiment with two-and-a-half- and three-year-olds. For the projec…
- The benefits of learning an instrument
Read The benefits of learning an instrument and check the IELTS Reading answers. Are music lessons the way to get smarter? That's what a lot of parents and experts believe: studying an instrument gives children an advantage in the development of their intellectual, perceptual, and cognitive skills.…
- The Pixar Story
Read The Pixar Story and check the IELTS Reading answers. Between 2000 and 2005. under former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Michael D. Eisner, Walt Disney Company set its shareholder meetings in a series of cold-weather cities during cold-weather months. Many suspected that this had been to discour…
- Why don't we sleep?
Read Why don't we sleep? and check the IELTS Reading answers. Fifty-six million prescriptions for sleeping medication were handed out by doctors in America last year. Yet remarkably little is being done to understand insomnia's root causes. Socially and economically, the undertreatment of sleepless…
- New Technology in New Zealand's Health Service
Read New Technology in New Zealand's Health Service and check the IELTS Reading answers. At some time in their lives, nearly all New Zealanders will have to attend an after-hours clinic following an emergency or accident. On entering the consulting room, the patient is faced with a barrage of quest…
- IQ Scores
Read IQ Scores and check the IELTS Reading answers. Studies from numerous countries suggest that IQ scores have been rising fast since at least the 1950s - enough to mean that someone with an IQ classed as average at that time could be labelled as having low Intelligence today. However, psychologis…
- Science in the kitchen
Read Science in the kitchen and check the IELTS Reading answers. There is a recent movement in the world of food, in which chefs are collaborating with scientists to teach themselves the chemistry and physics of cuisine. Even academics are getting excited about the results. Colin Osborne of the Roy…
- The Origins of Weather Forecasting
Read The Origins of Weather Forecasting and check the IELTS Reading answers. The world's first public weather forecast appeared in The Times newspaper over 150 years ago: the beginning of a service that gives everyone something to comment on. The pioneering forecast on August 1, 1861, was introduce…
- The importance of icebergs to ocean life
Read The importance of icebergs to ocean life and check the IELTS Reading answers. The word iceberg refers to pieces of ice larger than five meters across. The waters surrounding Antarctica are home to most of the icebergs on Earth, although they can also be found in the Arctic region. The water su…
- An enterprise education programme in Hong Kong
Read An enterprise education programme in Hong Kong and check the IELTS Reading answers. The Teen Entrepreneurs Competition (TEC) is an enterprise education programme developed by the Business Studies Division at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIED) - the major training body for school teac…
- Ahead of its time
Read Ahead of its time and check the IELTS Reading answers. One October afternoon, a young New Zealander, Sam Tobin, called his dogs and went for a walk down to the nearby Ruamahanga River. Having been very high for days, the river had at last fallen, and Tobin was eager to see what changes the flo…
- The internal body clock
Read The internal body clock and check the IELTS Reading answers. From buffalo to bacteria, oaks to algae, all life follows the same relentless 24-hour cycle, which is driven by the rising and setting of the Sun. Or is it? Over 250 years ago, a French scientist performed a simple experiment that bl…
- William Gilbert and Magnetism
Read William Gilbert and Magnetism and check the IELTS Reading answers. The 16th and 17th centuries saw two great pioneers of modern science: Galileo and Gilbert. The impact of their findings is eminent. Gilbert was the first modern scientist, also the accredited father of the science of electricit…
- The History of the Chicken
Read The History of the Chicken and check the IELTS Reading answers. Chicken is the universal food of our era, crossing cultural boundaries with ease. With its mild taste and uniform texture, chicken presents a blank canvas for the national flavours of almost any cuisine. However, until the introdu…
- LIFE ON MARS?
Read LIFE ON MARS? and check the IELTS Reading answers. When scientists began observing Mars with their first primitive telescopes, they assumed from the start that the planet was peopled. The 18th-century astronomer William Herschel, noting the seasons and atmosphere of Mars, declared that 'its in…
- Farmers
Read Farmers and check the IELTS Reading answers. The chain of stores known as Farmers began one hundred years ago as a mail order company. Today the Farmers chain employs 3,500 staff across 58 branches making it the most venerable institution of its type in New Zealand. Coming to Farmers once a we…
- Herbal Medicine
Read Herbal Medicine and check the IELTS Reading answers. There is an age-old practice of harvesting plants and herbs in their natural environment for use as medicines. And today there is huge potential for New Zealand to develop a herb industry based on the excellent growing conditions and experti…
- Western Immigration of Canada
Read Western Immigration of Canada and check the IELTS Reading answers. By the mid-1870s Canada wanted an immigrant population of agricultural settlers established in the West. No urban centres existed on the prairies in the 1870s, and rural settlement was the focus of the federal government's atte…
- A mechanical friend for children
Read A mechanical friend for children and check the IELTS Reading answers. The development of robots that interact socially with people and assist them in everyday life has been an elusive goal of modern science. Despite impressive advances in the mechanical aspects of this problem, producing robot…
- Steam across the water
Read Steam across the water and check the IELTS Reading answers. During the 1600s, very early in the development of steam engines, inventive spirits like the Frenchman Denis Papin dreamed of - and experimented with - boats driven by steam, rather than by the wind or human effort, but many decades p…
- Game theory
Read Game theory and check the IELTS Reading answers. According to game theory, our chances of success in negotiations are based on the choices of others. Computer models have been developed to work out how events will unfold as people and organizations act in what they perceive to be their own bes…
- Multi-tasking and the brain
Read Multi-tasking and the brain and check the IELTS Reading answers. Do you think you're a master of multi-tasking? Think again. Unless you are one of the three percent of super-taskers in the population, research shows that your brain is incapable of paying close attention to more than one comple…
- Seeing the colour of sounds, hearing the colour of numbers
Read Seeing the colour of sounds, hearing the colour of numbers and check the IELTS Reading answers. What is the colour of five? What is the sound of blue? To most of us such questions are either meaningless or suitable only for poetry. But for some people these are questions to which very precise…
- The Whale Goes to Court
Read The Whale Goes to Court and check the IELTS Reading answers. In 1818 a whale became the subject of a controversial court case in New York City. The case involved an old law requiring those who sold fish oil to pay a fee in order to have their barrels inspected by city officials, and certified.…
- A study of introvert and extrovert characters
Read A study of introvert and extrovert characters and check the IELTS Reading answers. We are often labelled as introverts or extroverts, and humans do seem to have biological propensities to behave in certain ways; some of us are naturally more talkative and sociable while others prefer more time…
- The Dunedin Study in New Zealand
Read The Dunedin Study in New Zealand and check the IELTS Reading answers. The New Zealand city of Dunedin in the early 1970s can easily be made to sound idyllic. There was next to no unemployment and people left their doors unlocked at night. New Zealand was then the ninth richest country in the w…
- REMOVING UNWANTED NOISE
Read REMOVING UNWANTED NOISE and check the IELTS Reading answers. A noisy restaurant, a busy road, or a windy day are all situations that can be intensely frustrating for the hearing impaired when trying to understand what other people are saying. Some 10 million people in the UK suffer from hearin…
- Candles
Read Candles and check the IELTS Reading answers. One of the earliest forms of portable illumination, candles have served vital functions for humankind throughout history, a fact chronicled through the use of candles or candle-like objects in virtually every society. Historians believe the original…
- Optimism and Health
Read Optimism and Health and check the IELTS Reading answers. Medical studies are concluding that optimists really do have something to be cheerful about. If you have a positive outlook, the likelihood is that you will lead a longer life. Coincidental links between Optimism and improved general hea…
- Practical Learning in the Classroom
Read Practical Learning in the Classroom and check the IELTS Reading answers. The way we think about architecture in schools has come along way. Once, studying architecture in the art class meant learning to appreciate great buildings art- history style, through slide presentations. In recent years…
- The peopling of Patagonia
Read The peopling of Patagonia and check the IELTS Reading answers. The human settlement of the southern extremity of the Americas has always fascinated pre-historians. Viewed from a global perspective, this was the last major continental land mass to be reached by human beings. The earliest occupa…
- Jethro Tull (1674-1741) - Inventor of The Seed Drill
Read Jethro Tull (1674-1741) - Inventor of The Seed Drill and check the IELTS Reading answers. Jethro Tull was a major pioneer in the modernizing of agriculture. He was born in 1674 in Berkshire, southern England, into a family of land-owning gentry. He studied first at Oxford University and then a…
- Australia's cane toad problem
Read Australia's cane toad problem and check the IELTS Reading answers. In the north of Australia there are many sugar cane plantations, which early in the 20th century were being damaged by a particular pest. This was a species of beetle whose larvae, the infant form of the beetle, live undergroun…
- The Baobabs of Madagascar
Read The Baobabs of Madagascar and check the IELTS Reading answers. The island of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean is the best place in the world to see baobabs. These spectacular trees, with their massive trunks and distinctive horizontal root-like branches, can live over 800 years. Of the eight kno…
- The psychology of new product adoption
Read The psychology of new product adoption and check the IELTS Reading answers. An American philosopher once said, "If a man can ... make a better mousetrap than his neighbor... the world will make a beaten path to his door." If only marketing innovation was that simple. In today's marketplace, co…
- Seaweed
Read Seaweed and check the IELTS Reading answers. Seaweed, a common plant that grows in the sea, has been an important food, fuel, and fertilizer since prehistoric times. For example, it has supplemented the diet of sheep in the Orkneys, islands off the coast of Scotland, since Neolithic times, rou…
- Speaking of Nothing
Read Speaking of Nothing and check the IELTS Reading answers. Some workers are happier in their jobs than others, but it's not only to do with the work itself. For example, security guards, truck drivers and salespeople: year after year, these jobs appear on lists of the unhappiest careers. It's tr…
- Ancient Rome: archaeologists are trying to understand more about the early history of the city
Read Ancient Rome: archaeologists are trying to understand more about the early history of the city and check the IELTS Reading answers. From ancient times to the present, historians have asked the question: How and why did an ordinary little town in central Italy grow so much bigger than any other…
- Babies cry in their mother tongue
Read Babies cry in their mother tongue and check the IELTS Reading answers. It is already known that human foetuses become attentive listeners in the final trimester of pregnancy. 'The mother's voice in particular is sensed early on,' explains Professor Amelia Finlayson of the Institute for Human C…
- Child's Play in Medieval England
Read Child's Play in Medieval England and check the IELTS Reading answers. 'Play up! Play up! And play the game!' The ringing chorus of Sir Henry Newbolt's celebrated cricket poem Vitaï Lampada (1908) sums up views about play in 19th- and early 20th-century Britain. Children's play was important, a…
- The history of the Celtic language
Read The history of the Celtic language and check the IELTS Reading answers. In November 1897, in a field near the village of Coligny in eastern France, a local inhabitant unearthed two strange objects. One was an imposing statue of Mars, the Roman god of war. The other was an ancient bronze tablet…
- Changes to the Soviet Union's working week
Read Changes to the Soviet Union's working week and check the IELTS Reading answers. The Soviet Union's first Five Year Plan was intended to turn the weak and undeveloped country into a powerful, modern, industrial nation. Following its introduction in 1928, production of coal, iron and steel incre…
- Sir Francis Ronalds 1788-1873
Read Sir Francis Ronalds 1788-1873 and check the IELTS Reading answers. Francis Ronalds was born in London in 1788, the second of eleven children. When he was nineteen his father died, and as the eldest son, the young Ronalds had to assume the responsibility of running the family's cheese business.…
- The origins of tennis
Read The origins of tennis and check the IELTS Reading answers. The game of tennis has a very long history. It is officially still known as 'lawn tennis,' partly because it was originally only played on grass, and also to distinguish it from the older game known as 'real tennis,' from which the mod…
- Traditional Farming in Zambia's Luapula Province
Read Traditional Farming in Zambia's Luapula Province and check the IELTS Reading answers. By tradition, land in Luapula Province is not owned by individuals but, as in many other parts of Africa, is allocated by the headman or headwoman of a village to people of either sex according to need. Since…
- Coins the first form of money
Read Coins the first form of money and check the IELTS Reading answers. Few people pay much attention to coins; we take them for granted. Since the advent of paper currency and the abandonment of a monetary system based on intrinsic of actual value, they have been demoted to the status of change: w…
- New Understanding of Giraffes in the Wild
Read New Understanding of Giraffes in the Wild and check the IELTS Reading answers. Even as the tallest animals on Earth, giraffes can be easy to overlook. Despite being a favorite in zoos, until recently almost nobody studied giraffes in the wild. 'When I first became interested in giraffes in 200…
- Andrew Carnegie: industrialist and philanthropist
Read Andrew Carnegie: industrialist and philanthropist and check the IELTS Reading answers. The Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who was the leader of the American steel industry from 1873 to 1901, donated large sums of his fortune to educational, cultural, a…
- Coins - the first form of money
Read Coins - the first form of money and check the IELTS Reading answers. Few people pay much attention to coins; we take them for granted. Since the advent of paper currency and the abandonment of a monetary system based on intrinsic of actual value, they have been demoted to the status of 'change…
- The mystery of Easter Island
Read The mystery of Easter Island and check the IELTS Reading answers. The giant stone statues of Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean have perplexed archaeologists ever since European explorers first witnessed them three centuries ago. Jacob Roggeveen, the Dutch seaman who gave the island its name i…
- Translating: a key to international understanding?
Read Translating: a key to international understanding? and check the IELTS Reading answers. The term 'translation' is used for all cases where the meaning of expressions in one language (the 'source' language) is turned into the meaning in another (the target language), whether the medium is spoke…
- Healthy buildings, productive people
Read Healthy buildings, productive people and check the IELTS Reading answers. Have you felt tired at your desk lately? According to new research, some often overlooked environmental factors within buildings - the degree or type of ventilation, airborne contaminants, lighting and noise levels, for…
- Creating a Better Grapefruit
Read Creating a Better Grapefruit and check the IELTS Reading answers. There is a reason why grapefruit juice is served in little glasses. Most people don't want to drink more than a few ounces at a time. This is because a natural chemical compound found in grapefruit, naringin, has a bitter taste.…
- Charles Heaphy and the settlement of New Zealand
Read Charles Heaphy and the settlement of New Zealand and check the IELTS Reading answers. In the early 19th century, the London-based New Zealand Company was set up to promote the colonisation of the North and South Islands of New Zealand. It hoped to encourage British migrants to settle there and…
- All in the family
Read All in the family and check the IELTS Reading answers. We can choose our friends, the saying goes, but we cannot choose our family of origin. Our parents provide the genetic material and make powerful early role models, but even more influential in determining what kind of adult we will become…