IELTS Reading Recent Actual Test 16 in 2017 with Answer Key

SECTION 1

The Innovation of Grocery Stores

A At the beginning of the 20th century, grocery stores in the United States were full-service.
A customer would ask a clerk behind the counter for specific items and the clerk would
package the items, which were limited to dry goods. If they want to save some time, they
have to ask a delivery boy or by themselves to send the note of what they want to buy to the
grocery story first and then go to pay for the goods later. These grocery stores usually carried
only one brand of each good. There were early chain stores, such as the A&P Stores, but these
were all entirely full-service and very time-consuming.

B In 1885a Virginia boy named Clarence Saunders began working part-time as a clerk in a
grocery store when he was 14 years old, and quit school when the shopkeeper offered him
full time work with room and board. Later he worked in an Alabama coke plant and in a
Tennessee sawmill before he returned to the grocery business. By 1900 when he was
nineteen years old, he was earning $30 a month as a salesman for a wholesale grocer. During
his years working in the grocery stores, he found that it was very inconvenient and inefficient
for people to buy things because more than a century ago, long before there were computers,
shopping was done quite differently than it is today. Entering a store, the customer would
approach the counter (or wait for a clerk to become available) and place an order, either
verbally or, as was often the case for boys running errands, in the form of a note or list. While
the customer waited, the clerk would move behind the counter and throughout the
store select the items on the listsome form shelves so high that long-handled grasping
device had to be usedand bring them back to the counter to be tallied and bagged or boxed.
The process might be expedited by the customer calling or sending in the order beforehand,
or by the order being handled by a delivery boy on a bike, but otherwise it did not vary
greatly. Saunders, a flamboyant and innovative man, noticed that this method resulted in
wasted time and expense, so he came up with an unheard-of solution that would revolutionize
the entire grocery industry: he developed a way for shoppers to serve themselves.

C So in 1902 he moved to Memphis where he developed his concept to form a grocery

wholesale cooperative and a full-service grocery store. For his new cafeteria grocery,
Saunders divided his grocery into three distinct areas: 1) A front lobby forming an entrance
and exit and checkouts at the front. 2) A sales department, which was specially designed to
allow customers to roam the aisles and select their own groceries. Removing unnecessary
clerks, creating elaborate aisle displays, and rearranging the store to force customers to view
all of the merchandise and over the shelving and cabinets units of sales department were
galleries where supervisors were allowed to keep an eye on the customers while not
disturbing them. 3) And another section of his store is the room only allowed for the clerks
which was called the stockroom or storage room where large refrigerators were situated
to keep fresh products from being perishable. The new format allowed multiple customers to
shop at the same time, and led to the previously unknown phenomenon of impulse shopping.
Though this format of grocery market was drastically different from its competitors, the style
became the standard for the modem grocery store and later supermarket.

D On September 6 1916 Saunders launched the self-service revolution in the USA by

opening the first self-service Piggly Wiggly store, at 79 Jefferson Street in Memphis,
Tennessee, with its characteristic turnstile at the entrance. Customers paid cash and selected
their own goods from the shelves. It was unlike any other grocery store of that time. Inside a
Piggly Wiggly, shoppers were not at the mercy of shop clerks. They were free to roam the
store, check out the merchandise and get what they needed with their own two hands and feet.
Prices on items at Piggly Wiggly were clearly marked. No one pressured customers to buy
milk or pickles. And the biggest benefit at the Piggly Wiggly was that shoppers saved money.
Self-service was a positive all around. Its good for both the consumer and retailer because it
cuts costs noted George T. Haley, a professor at the University of New Haven and director
of the Center for International Industry Competitiveness. If you looked at the way grocery
stores were run previous to Piggly Wiggly and Alpha Beta, what you find is that there was a
tremendous amount of labor involved, and labor is a major expense/1 Piggly Wiggly cut the
fat.

E Piggly Wiggly and the self-service concept took off, Saunders opened nine stores in the
Memphis area within the first year of business. Consumers embraced the efficiency the
simplicity and most of all the lower food prices. Saunders soon patented his self-service
concept, and began franchising Piggly Wiggly stores. Thanks to the benefits of self-service
and franchising, Piggly Wiggly ballooned to nearly 1,300 stores by 1923. Piggly Wiggly sold
$100 million worth $1.3 billion today in groceries, making it the third-biggest grocery
retailer in the nation. The companys stock was even listed on the New York Stock Exchange,
doubling from late 1922 to March 1923. Saunders had his hands all over Piggly Wiggly. He
the design and layout of his stores. He even invented the turnstile.

F However Saunders was forced into bankruptcy in 1923 after a dramatic spat with the New
York Stock Exchange and he went on to create the sole-owner-of-my-name chain, which
went into bankruptcy.

G Until the time of his death in October 1953 Saunders was developing plans for another
automatic store system called the Food electric. But the store, which was to be located two
blocks from the first Piggly Wiggly store, never opened. But his name was well-remembered
along with the name Piggly Wiggly.

Questions 1-5

The reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-G.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

1. How Clarence Saundersnew idea had been carried out.

2. Introducing the modes and patterns of groceries before his age.

3. Clarence Saunders declared bankruptcy a few years later .

4. Descriptions of Clarence Saunders new conception.

5. The booming development of his business.

Questions 6-10

Answer the questions below.

Write ONLY ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

6. When Clarence Saunders was an adolescent, he took a job as a .

in a grocery store.

7. In the new innovation of grocery store, most of the clerks work before was
done by

8. In Saunders new grocery store the section where customers finish the payment was
called .

9. Another area in his store which behind the public area was called
the ., where only internal staff could access.

10. At.. where customers were under surveillance.

Questions 11-13

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Write your answers in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet.

11. Why did Clarence Saunders want to propel the innovation of grocery stores at his age?

A Because he was an enthusiastic and creative man.

B Because his boss wanted to reform the grocery industry.

C Because he wanted to develop its efficiency and make great profit as well.

D Because he worried about the future competition from the industry.

12. What happened to Clarence Saunders first store of Piggly Wiggly?

A Customers complained about its impracticality and inconvenience.

B It enjoyed a great business and was updated in the first twelve months.

C It expanded to more than a thousand franchised stores during the first year.

D Saunders were required to have his new idea patented and open more stores.

13. What left to Clarence Saunders after his death in 1953?

A A fully automatic store system opened soon near his first store.

B The name of his store the Piggly Wiggly was very popular at that time.

C His name was usually connected with his famous shop the Piggly Wiggly in the following
several years.

D His name was painted together with the name of his famous store.

SECTION 2

Stealth Forces in Weight loss

The field of weight loss is like the ancient fable about the blind men and the elephant Each
man investigates a different part of the animal and reports back, only to discover their
findings are bafflingly incompatible.

A The various findings by public-health experts, physicians, psychologists, geneticists,

molecular biologists, and nutritionists are about as similar as an elephants tusk is to its tail
Some say obesity is largely predetermined by our genes and biology; others attribute it to an
overabundance of fries, soda, and screen-sucking; still others think were fat because of viral
infection, insulin, or the metabolic conditions we encountered in the womb. Everyone
subscribes to their own little theory/ says Robert Berkowitz, medical director of the Center
for Weight and Eating Disorders at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Were
programmed to hang onto the fat we have, and some people are predisposed to create and
carry more fat than others. Diet and exercise help, but in the end the solution will inevitably
be more complicated than pushing away the plate and going for a walk. Its not as simple as
Youre fat because youre lazy: says Nikhil Dhurandhar, an associate professor at
Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge. Willpower is not a prerogative of
thin people. Its distributed equally.

B Science may still be years away from giving us a miracle formula for fat-loss. Hormone
leptin is a crucial player in the brains weight-management circuitry. Some people produce
too little leptin; others become desensitized to it. And when obese people lose weight, their
leptin levels plummet along with their metabolism. The body becomes more efficient at using
fuel and conserving fat, which makes it tough to keep the weight off. Obese dieters bodies go
into a state of chronic hunger, a feeling Rudolph Leibel, an obesity researcher at Columbia
University, compares to thirst. Some people might be able to tolerate chronic thirst, but the
majority couldnt stand it/ says Leibel Is that a behavioral problema lack of willpower? I
dont think so.

C The government has bng espoused moderate daily exerciseof the evening-walk or take-
the-stairs variety but that may not do much to budge the needle on the scale. A 150-pound
person burns only 150 calories on a half-hour walk, the equivalent of two apples. Its good for
the heart, less so for the gut. Radical changes are necessary/ says Deirdre Barrett, a
psychologist at Harvard Medical School and author of Waistland.People dont bse weight by
choosing the small fries or taking a little walk every other day. Barrett suggests taking a cue
from the members of the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR), a self-selected group of
more than 5,000 successful weight-losers who have shed an average of 66 pounds and kept it
off 5.5 years. Some registry members lost weight using low-carb diets; some went low-fat
others eliminated refined foods. Some did it on their own; others relied on counseling. That
said, not everyone can lose 66 pounds and not everyone needs to. The goal shouldnt be
getting thin, but getting healthy. Its enough to whittle your weight down the low end of your
set range, says Jeffrey Friedman, a geneticist at Rockefeller University. Losing even 10
pounds vastly decreases your risk of diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. The
point is to not give up just because you dont look like a swimsuit model

D The negotiation between your genes and the environment begins on day one. Your optimal
weight, writ by genes, appears to get edited early on by conditions even before birth, inside
the womb. If a woman has high blood-sugar levels while shes pregnant, her children are
more likely to be overweight or obese, according to a study of almost 10,000 mother-child
pairs. Maternal diabetes may influence a childs obesity risk through a process called
metabolic imprinting, says Teresa Hillier, an endocrinologist with Kaiser Permanentes
Center for Health Research and the studys lead author. The implication is clear: Weight may
be established very early on, and obesity largely passed from mother to child. Numerous
studies in both animals and humans have shown that a mothers obesity directly increases her
childs risk for weight gain. The best advice for moms-to-be: Get fit before you get pregnant.
Youll reduce your risk of complications during pregnancy and increase your chances of
having a normal-weight child

E Its the $64,000 questionWhich diets work? It got people wondering: Isnt there a better
way to diet? A study seemed to offer an answer. The paper compared two groups of adults:
those who, after eating, secreted high levels of insulin, a hormone that sweeps blood sugar
out of the bloodstream and promotes its storage as fat, and those who secreted less. Within
each group, half were put on a low-fat diet and half on a tow-glycemic-bad diet. On average,
the tow-insulin-secreting group fared the same on both diets, losing nearly 10 pounds in the
first six months but they gained about half of it back by the end of the 18-month study.
The high-insulin group didnt do as well on the low-fat plan, losing about 4.5 pounds, and
gaining back more than half by the end But the most successful were the high- insulin-
secretors on the low-glycemic-bad diet. They lost nearly 13 pounds and kept it off.

F What if your fat is caused not by diet or genes, but by germs say, a virus? It sounds like
a sci-fi horror movie, but research suggests some dimension of the obesity epidemic may be
attributable to infection by common viruses, says Dhurandhar. The idea of infectobesity
came to him 20 years ago when he was a young doctor treating obesity in Bombay. He
discovered that a local avian virus, SMAM-1, caused chickens to die, sickened with organ
damage but also, strangely, with lots of abdominal fat. In experiments, Dhurandhar found that
SMAM-l-infected chickens became obese on the same diet as uninfected ones, which stayed
svelte.

G He later moved to the U.S. and onto a bona fide human virus, adenovirus 36 (AD-36). In
the lab, every species of animal Dhurandhar infected with the virus became obese_chickens
got fat, mice got fat, even rhesus monkeys at the zoo that picked up the virus from the
environment suddenly gained 15 percent of their body weight upon exposure. In his latest
studies, Dhurandhar has isolated a gene that, when blocked from expressing itself, seems to
turn off the viruss fattening power. Stem cells extracted from fat cells and then exposed to
AD-36 reliably blossom into fat cells but when stem cells are exposed to an AD-36 virus
with the key gene inhibited, the stems cells don*t differentiate. The gene appears to be
necessary and sufficient to trigger AD-36-related obesity, and the goal is to use the research
to create a sort of obesity vaccine.
Researchers have discovered 10 microbes so far that trigger obesity seven of them viruses.
It may be a long shot, but for people struggling desperately to be thin, even the possibility of
an alternative cause of obesity offers some solace. They feel better knowing there may be
something beyond them that could be responsible, says Dhurandhar. The thought that there
could be something besides what theyve heard all their lives that they are greedy and lazy
helps.

Questions 14-18

Reading Passage 2 has five sections, A-G.

Which section contains the following information? Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 14-
18 on your answer sheet.

14. evaluation on the effect of weight bss on different kind of diets

15. an example of research which include relatives of participants

16. Example of a group of people who never regain weight immediately after.

17. long term hunger may appear to be acceptable to most of the participants while losing
weight

18. a continuous experiment may lead to a practical application besides diet or hereditary
resort.

Questions 19-23

Look at the following researchers and the list of findings below. Match each researcher with
the correct finding.

Write the correct letter in boxes 19-23 on your answer sheet.

List of Researchers

A Robert Berkowitz

B Rudolph Leibel

C Nikhil Dhurandhar

D Deirdre Barrett

E Jeffrey Friedman

F Teresa Hillier

19. A persons weight is predetermined to a set point by the DNA.

20. Pregnant mother who are overweight may risk their fetus
21. The aim of losing Wright should be keeping healthy rather than attractiveness

22. mall changes in lifestyle will not have great impact on reducing much weight

23. Researchers should be divided into different groups with their own point of view about
weight loss.

Question 24 37

Complete the summery below.

Choose NO MORE THAN ONE WORD from the passage for each answer. Write your
answers in boxes 24-27 on your answer sheet.

In Bombay Clinic, a young doctor who came up with the concept infect obesity 1 believed
that the obesity is caused by a kind of virus, Years of experiment that he conducted on
24 Later he moved to America and tested on a new virus
named 25 which proved to be a significant breakthrough. Although
there seems no way to eliminate the virus, a kind of 26 can be
separated as to block the expressing power of the virus. The doctor future is aiming at
developing a new 27 to effectively combating the virus.

SECTION 3

Bright Children

A BY the time Laszlo Polgars first baby was born in 1969 he already had firm views on
child-rearing. An eccentric citizen of communist Hungary, he had written a book called
Bring up Genius! and one of his favourite sayings was Geniuses are made, not bom. An
expert on the theory of chess, he proceeded to teach little Zsuzsa at home, spending up to ten
hours a day on the game. Two more daughters were similarly hot- housed. All three obliged
their father by becoming world-class players. The youngest, Judit, is currently ranked 13th in
the world, and is by far the best female chess player of all time. Would the experiment have
succeeded with a different trio of children? If any child can be turned into a star, then a lot of
time and money are being wasted worldwide on trying to pick winners

B America has long held talent searches, using test results and teacher recommendations to
select children for advanced school courses, summer schools and other extra tuition. This
provision is set to grow. In his state-of-the-union address in 2006, President George Bush
announced the American Competitiveness Initiative which, among much else, would train
70,000 high-school teachers to lead advanced courses for selected pupils in mathematics and
science. Just as the superpowers space race made Congress put money into science
education, the thought of China and India turning out hundreds of thousands of engineers and
scientists is scaring America into prodding its brightest to do their best.

C The philosophy behind this talent search is that ability is innate; that it can be diagnosed
with considerable accuracy; and that it is worth cultivating. In America, bright children are
ranked as moderately, highly, exceptionally and profoundly gifted. The only chance
to influence innate ability is thought to be in the womb or the first couple of years of life.
Hence the fad for teaching aids such as videos and flashcards for newborns, and whale
sounds on tape which a pregnant mother can strap to her belly.

D In Britain, there is a broadly similar belief in the existence of innate talent, but also an
egalitarian sentiment which makes people queasy about the idea of investing resources in
grooming intelligence. Teachers are often opposed to separate provision for the best-
performing children, saying any extra help should go to stragglers. In 2002, in a bid to help
the able while leaving intact the ban on most selection by ability in state schools, the
government set up the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth. This outfit runs
summer schools and master classes for children nominated by their schools. To date, though,
only seven in ten secondary schools have nominated even a single child. Last year all schools
were told they must supply the names of their top 10%.

E Picking winners is also the order of the day in ex-communist states, a hangover from the
times when talented individuals were plucked from their homes and ruthlessly trained for the
glory of the nation. But in many other countries, opposition to the idea of singling out talent
and grooming it runs deep. In Scandinavia, a belief in virtues like modesty and social
solidarity makes people flinch from the idea of treating brainy children differently.

F And in Japan there is a widespread belief that all children are born with the same innate
abilitiesand should therefore be treated alike. All are taught together, covering the same
syllabus at the same rate until they finish compulsory schooling. Hiose who learn quickest are
expected then to teach their classmates. In China, extra teaching is provided, but to a self-
selected bunch. Childrens palaces in big cities offer a huge range of after-school classes.
Anyone can sign up; all that is asked is excellent attendance.

G Statistics give little clue as to which system is best. The performance of the most able u is
heavily affected by factors other than state provision. Most state education in Britain is
nominally non-selective, but middle-class parents try to live near the best schools. Ambitious
Japanese parents have made private, out-of-school tuition a thriving business. And
Scandinavians egalitarianism might work less well in places with more diverse populations
and less competent teachers. For what ifs worth, the data suggest that some countrieslike
Japan and Finland, see tablecan eschew selection and still thrive. But that does not mean that
any country can ditch selection and do as well.

H Mr Polgar thought any child could be a prodigy given the right teaching, an early start and
enough practice. At one point he planned to prove it by adopting three baby boys from a poor
country and trying his methods on them. (His wife vetoed the scheme.) Some say the key to
success is simply hard graft. Judit, the youngest of the Polgar sisters, was the most driven,
and the most successful; Zsofia, the middle one, was regarded as the most talented, but she
was the only one who did not achieve the status of grand master. Everything came easiest to
her, said her older sister. But she was lazy.

Questions 28-33

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3? In boxes
28-33 on your answer sheet, write

YES if the statement is true

NO if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage

28. America has a long history of selecting talented students into different categories.

29. Teachers and schools in Britain held welcome attitude towards governments selection of
gifted students.

30. Some parents agree to move near reputable schools in Britain.

31. Middle-class parents participate in their childrens education.

32. Japan and Finland comply with selected students policy.

33. Avoiding-selection-policy only works in a specific environment.

Questions 34-35

Choose the correct letter, A, BC or D.

Write your answers in boxes 34-35 on your answer sheet.

34. Whats Laszlo Polgars point of view towards geniuses of children?

A Chess is the best way to train geniuses

B Genius tend to happen on first child

C Geniuses can be educated later on

D Geniuses are bom naturally

35. What is the purpose of citing Zsofias example in the last paragraph?

A Practice makes genius

B Girls are not good at chessing

C She was an adopted child

D Middle child is always the most talented

Questions 36-40

Use the information in the passage to match the countries (listed A-E) with correct

connection below. Write the appropriate letters A-E in boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet.

A Scandinavia
B Japan

C Britain

D China

E America

36. Less gifted children get help from other classmates

37. Attending extra teaching is open to anyone

38. People are reluctant to favor gifted children due to social characteristics

39. Both view of innate and egalitarian co-existed

40. Craze of audio and video teaching for pregnant women.

ANSWER KEYS

1 D 2 A 3 F
4 C 5 E 6 Clerk
Customers/
7 8 Lobby 3 Stockroom
shoppers
10 Galleries 11 C 12 B
13 C
14 E 15 D 16 C
17 B 18 G 19 C
20 F 21 E 22 D
23 A 24 Chickens 25 AD-36
26 Gene 27 vaccine
28 YES 29 NO 30 YES
31 NOT GIVEN 32 NO 33 YES
34 C 35 A 36 B
37 D 38 A 39 C
40 E