IELTS 4.

0- Unit 1: Relationships

Full name:.................................

Lesson 1 Topic: Relationships WID: IELTS4.0_01_R

QR code:
IELTS Reading
- Identify words in a question …..pts/10
Skills
- Scanning text
- IELTS Reading: Short answer questions

Exercise 1. [Identifying key words in questions– Scanning] Read the text below

There have been a lot of scientific studies into what makes a friendship. It seems today that ideas
of what friendship is are also changing. A study in 1993 at the University of Oxford showed that
people could only maintain 150 relationships. However, with the explosion of social media since
then, many people now have over 300 people who they think of as friends. Some people think that
these friends are not real friends, but others believe that social media has helped us to expand and
keep our friendships because we have more time and opportunities.

One thing is definitely true though, it doesn't matter how old we are or how many friends we have
on social media, friendship is good for our health. People who spend time with friends have fewer
mental health problems and are generally happier and in a better physical state of health than
people who spend their free time alone.

Another change from the past is that people don't stay in the place where they were born. They go
to different cities and countries for education and jobs. People are in general more geographically
mobile nowadays. This means that we have more chances to meet and make friends with people
from different cultures and different backgrounds. People still often make friends at college who
remain friends for life, but making new friends at work is more difficult. People now have less
security at work and this also means that they find it harder to build new relationships.

As people get older, they sometimes also have less free time. They become busier with their jobs
and families and have less time to spend with friends. Friendships can be very different when we
are at different ages. Young children often choose their friends because of convenience, for
example, they go to the same school, they live near each other or their parents are friends. As we
get older, friendships are more connected with having similar interests and opinions.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 1: Relationships

Exercise 1.1 [Identify key words in a question] Underline the question words (where, when, what)
and the key words in each of the questions.

1. What has enabled people to have more friends than in the past, according to some people?

___________________________________
2. What phrase does the writer use to describe people who don't stay in the same place?

___________________________________
3. What work-related problem do people have that makes them less likely to form friendships?

___________________________________
4. What frequently influences the friendships of young children?

___________________________________
5. What are people with friends less likely to suffer from?

___________________________________
Exercise 1.2 [Scanning] Answer those questions using scanning skills.

Exercise 2. [Identifying words – Scanning – Short answer questions] Read the text below.

Recent research into the world of teenagers has suggested that they value friendship above
everything else. Children aged between 12 and 15 were asked what was important to them. Their
answers included possessions such as money and computer gadgets but also relationships with
people. The teenagers questioned said that friends were the most important to them, more even
than family, or boyfriends and girlfriends.

We wanted to find out more about the results of this research so we asked our readers what they
thought about the value of friendship. Here are some examples of what they said about their
friends:

Ben, 15: Every time I have a fight with my parents, I need some time on my own. But after that,
the first thing I do is meet up with my friends. After playing football for a while, or skateboarding,
I usually feel much happier again.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 1: Relationships

Rory, 13: When I moved to a village in the countryside, I thought that it would be the end of my
friendships. But my old friends have kept in touch and they come and visit in the holidays. There's
a lake nearby, so we often go sailing, water-skiing or windsurfing. And I have made some new
friends here too at school, and since I joined the rugby club.

Cartos, 11: Last year, I broke my arm on a skiing holiday. Unfortunately, it was my left arm and I
am left-handed. My school friends all helped and copied their notes for me.

It seems that our readers value their friendships very highly. From what they told us, they spend a
lot of time with their friends, just hanging out, or sharing hobbies and interests. They seem to need
their friends for advice, help, chats and for having fun. Clearly, friends make each other feel better.
Looking at what our readers told us, the results of the recent research are not really surprising.

Exercise 2.1 [Identify words in a question] Underline the question words (where, when, what) and
the key words in each of the questions.

1. What is the first thing Ben does if he has a fight with his parents? _____________________

2. What do we know about the lake that Rory visits? ______________________

3. When did Carlos break his arm? ______________________

Exercise 2.2 [Scanning – Short answer] Answer those questions using scanning skills, use NO MORE
THAN THREE WORDS.

Exercise 3 [IELTS Reading: Short answer questions] Read the text and answer the questions
How technology is changing learning

Technology is helping teachers to expand beyond traditional, text-based learning and to engage
students who learn best in other ways. Its role in schools has developed from a ‘computer class’ into
a versatile learning tool that could change how teachers demonstrate concepts, assign projects and
assess students’ progress.

A It can be hard to show students some concepts such as exactly why mixing two particular
chemicals is dangerous. *Digital simulations can help teachers explain concepts that are too big or
too small, or processes that happen too quickly or too slowly to demonstrate a classroom.
Simulations allow students to experiment with virtual greenhouses in order to understand how
IELTS 4.0- Unit 1: Relationships

plants develop. Other software helps students understand the physics of energy efficiency by
designing a model house. These are all concepts that are much harder to understand by simply
reading.

B Education, by its very nature, produces huge amounts of data and teachers can use this data to
better understand what a student knows and what he or she still needs to learn. Furthermore,
these measurements make it possible to provide every student with a constantly updating,
personalized textbook, with exactly the exercises and information he or she needs to study in order
to understand the course material and get ahead. A teacher can see exactly how well her students
understood that tough biology lesson at the beginning of the week. She can see that Jane needs
extra help understanding cell biology, and can look at what percentage of her students are
prepared for next month’s exam.

C Technology also helps to make the world a smaller place. Language students can use video
conferencing to attend lessons with native speakers living in other countries. In the past, only
students who could afford to travel had the experience of learning a foreign language about other
culture. Now the educational benefits of interaction with a native speaker are available to anyone
who can make a video conferencing call.

D Games are another great way technology has improved the learning experience. There are
games that put students in roles like hotel manager, teacher or scientist and ask them to solve real
problems. In one game, students are directors of a video game company who need to develop and
market a new game. In another, the game gives students the task of designing a new transport
system for London. People working in different industries can learn innovative thinking through
these games. Unlike in traditional classrooms, they develop practical skills by working together to
solve real-world problems.
Vocabulary required:

● engage someone in something (phrasal verb): make somebody take part in something
● versatile (adj): having many different uses
● digital simulation (n): a situation in which computer software is used to produce conditions that are similar
to real ones, especially in order to study or test something
● energy efficiency: using less energy to perform the same task

Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each
answer.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 1: Relationships

1. What software can help students to see processes that are too rapid to show in the classroom?
___________________________________
2. Using software, what can students create that will help them learn more about electricity
usage?
___________________________________
3. What can teachers give to students that have helpful activities that stay up to date?
___________________________________
4. What technology can students use to study with students in other countries?
___________________________________
5. In what type of software do students look at actual situations?
___________________________________
6. What can lessons that are unlike the usual class activities teach creative people?
___________________________________

Exercise 4: [IELTS Reading: Short answer questions] Read the text and answer the questions.
Peanut allergy theory backed up by new research
The effects of eating peanut products as a baby to avoid the risk of allergy have been backed up by
new research. In 2015, a study claimed early exposure to peanut products could cut the risk of
allergy by 80%. Now researchers say "long-lasting" allergy protection can be sustained - even when
the snacks are later avoided for a year. The New England Journal of Medicine study looked at 550
children deemed prone to developing a peanut allergy. The latest paper builds on the results of the
2015 research, which was also carried out by King's College London and marked the first time
scientists were able to suggest that exposing children to small amounts of peanut snacks could
stave off an allergy.
The new study suggests that if a child has consumed peanut snacks within the first 11 months of
life, then at the age of five they can afford to stop eating the food entirely for a year, and maintain
no allergy. Lead author Prof Gideon Lack said: "[The research] clearly demonstrates that the
majority of infants did in fact remain protected and that the protection was long-lasting." He said
that part of the problem was that people lived in a "culture of food fear". "I believe that this fear
of food allergy has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the food is excluded from the diet
and, as a result, the child fails to develop tolerance," he told the BBC News website. The researchers
IELTS 4.0- Unit 1: Relationships

used the same children who took part in the 2015 study - half of whom had been given peanut
snacks as a baby while the remainder had been fed on a diet of breast milk alone.
"The study found that at six years of age, there was no statistically significant increase in allergy
after 12 months of avoidance, in those who had consumed peanut during the [2015] trial," the
authors said. The children taking part in the study were considered prone to peanut allergy,
because they had already developed eczema as a baby - an early warning sign of allergies. Prof Lack
said that further studies were needed to see if the resistance lasts for considerably longer than the
12-month abstinence period. He said that in the UK and US combined, 20,000 babies a year are
being diagnosed with peanut allergies. He also said that between 1995 and 2005, the number of
people being diagnosed had trebled, and this was not because detection methods had become any
more advanced as they had remained the same. Prof Barry Kay, from Imperial College London, said
the study's results "point the way to completely fresh thinking on the mechanisms of tolerance to
allergenic foods in 'at risk' infants". Speaking about both pieces of research, Michael Walker, a
consultant analyst and medical adviser to the government, said: "Taken together these are
reassuring findings that pave the way to stem the epidemic of peanut allergy."
Vocabulary required:
● exposure to something (n): the state of being in a place or situation where there is no protection from
something harmful or unpleasant

● prone to something (v): likely to suffer from something or to do something bad

● stave off (v): to prevent something bad from affecting you for a period of time
● self-fulfilling prophecy (n): thing becomes true because people expect it to be true and behave in a way that
will make it happen

● be excluded from: deliberately not included in something

● abstinence (n): the practice of not allowing yourself something, e.g. food
● be diagnosed with (v): said exactly what an illness or the cause of a problem is
● tremble= triple (v): to make something, three times as much or as many
● pave the way for something/ to do something (phrase): create a situation in which something can happen.

Answer the questions below. Write EXACTLY TWO WORDS OR A NUMBER from the passage for
each answer.
1. What is the number of children that the New England Journal of Medicine studied?
____________________________________
IELTS 4.0- Unit 1: Relationships

2. At what age can the child stop eating peanuts for a year if it has consumed peanut snacks
within the first 11 months of life?
____________________________________
3. What part of the infants remained protected for a long-lasting period?
____________________________________
4. What's the illness that 20,000 babies in the UK and US combined are diagnosed with each
year?
____________________________________

Exercise 5: [IELTS Reading: Short answer questions] Read the text and answer the questions.
Do dolphins have conversations?
A Researchers have recorded two dolphins having a conversation for the first time after the
development of an underwater microphone which can distinguish the animals’ different ‘voices’.
Researchers have known for years that dolphins have an advanced form of communication, using
a range of clicks and whistles to show they are excited, happy, stressed or separated from the
group. But scientists have now shown that dolphins make changes to the volume and frequency of
their clicks to form individual ‘words’, which they group together into sentences similar to how
humans speak.
B Researchers at Karadag Nature Reserve in Feodosia, Ukraine, recorded two Black Sea bottlenose
dolphins called Yasha and Yana talking to each other in a pool. They found that each dolphin would
listen to a sentence of clicks, without stopping the other dolphin, before replying. Lead researcher
Dr Vyacheslav Ryabov said, ‘Essentially, this exchange is very much like a conversation between
two people. Each click that is produced by dolphins is different from another, so we can assume
that each click represents a word of the dolphin’s spoken language.
C The researchers found that Yasha and Yana could create sentences of up to five ‘words’, but the
scientists have not worked out the content yet. Dr Ryabov said it was now almost certain that
dolphins speak their own language and it is time to start studying how to communicate directly
with them. Because dolphins have brains that are larger, more complex and older than human
ones, Dr Ryabov said, ‘Humans must take the first step to form relationships with the first
intelligent inhabitants of the planet Earth. We need to create devices that allow communication
between dolphins and people’.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 1: Relationships

D Scientists already knew that dolphins use more than 1,000 different types of whistles depending
on social context, but it was unclear if they could communicate directly with each other, one to
one. In 2007, Australian scientists identified specific whistles which they interpreted to mean, ‘I’m
here, where is everyone?’, ‘Hurry up!’ and ‘There’s food over here.’ Researchers also think that
dolphins have developed a type of sign language in which they communicate with their flippers.
E Research has come a long way since the founder of dolphin communication research, Louis
Herman, started out. Herman worked with two dolphins, Pheonix and Ake, in Hawaii. Pheonix was
taught to respond to computer-generated whistles, while Ake learnt a ‘dolphinsed’ version of
American Sign Language. The two systems had their own different grammar structure. For Pheonix,
‘pipe fetch gate’ meant ‘take the piece of pipe to the pool gate’, but for Ake the words were
organized differently, so ‘channel fish fetch’ meant ‘take the first to the channel connecting the
pools’. Each dolphin learnt about 300 words in all and by following the commands correctly, they
both showed an understanding of directions.
Vocabulary required:
● distinguish (v): to recognize the difference between two people or things
● exchange (n): a conversation or an argument
● represent (v): to be an expression of something
● social context (n): the immediate physical and social setting in which something happens or develops
● interpret (v): explain the meaning of something
● sign language (n): a system of communicating with people who cannot hear, by using hand movements
rather than spoken words

Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.
1. What did scientists use to record Yasha and Yana’s ‘conversations’?
_______________________
2. As well as changing how often they ‘click’, what else do dolphins change about their ‘clicks’ to
help them communicate?
_______________________
3. What are the researchers in Ukraine unable to understand about Yasha and Yana’s
‘conversations’?
_______________________
4. What form of communication do scientists believe dolphins use when they communicate with
their flippers?
IELTS 4.0- Unit 1: Relationships

_______________________
5. What type of instruction were both Pheonix and Ake able to follow in Louis Herman’s
research?
_______________________
IELTS 4.0- Unit 1: Relationships

Full name:.................................

Lesson 2 Topic: Relationships WID: IELTS4.5_02_L

QR code:
Skills IELTS Listening
- Identifying speakers …..pts/10
- Listening for numbers
- Listening MCQ

Exercise 1 [IELTS Listening: Identifying speakers] Listen to a conversation about a project

someone is working on. Choose the correct answers.
1. How many speakers are there?
A. two B. three C. four
2. What is the relationship between the two people?
A. They are a student and her teacher.
B. They are both teachers.
C. They are both students.
3. Which animals does the woman decide to do her project on?
A. pandas B. sharks C. dolphins
4. What does the woman have to do for her project?
A. write a report on an animal
B. give a presentation about New Zealand
C. take some photographs of wild animals

Exercise 2 [IELTS Listening: Multiple Choice Questions - Identifying speakers] Look at the five
questions from different IELTS Listening tests with the extracts from the conversations that
answer them. Listen to the recording. Choose the correct answers.

1. How does the man describe female elephants?

A. rare B. dangerous C. sociable

2. People should not keep wolves as pets because they are

A. wild animals. B. dangerous. C. very expensive to feed.

IELTS 4.0- Unit 1: Relationships

3. How fast does a great white shark usually swim?

A. 56 kph B. 2.5 kph C. 74 kph

4. In what unexpected place do sea lions sometimes sleep?

A. on the beach B. along the coast C. in the sea

5. How long is a giraffe's neck?

A. 3.5 m B. 1.45 m C. 1.8 m

Exercise 3 [IELTS Listening: Listening for numbers] Complete the form below, using NO MORE
THAN THREE WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER for each answer.
Travel Safe
INSURANCE PLC
Department: Motor Insurance
Client details:
Name: Elizabeth (1)__________
Date of birth: 8th October, (2) ___
Address: (3)__________ (street) Callington (town)
Policy number: (4) __________
Accident details:
Date: (5) __________
Time: Approx. (6)__________
Supporting evidence: (7) __________
Medical problems (if any): minor injuries

Exercise 4 [IELTS Listening: Multiple Choice Questions] Robert is going to a conference next
month. He phones different places to find accommodation.

1 In the first phone call, Robert calls…

A. a guest house B. a friend C. his parents
2 The conference is…
A. 19th - 20th May B. 19th - 21st May C. 19th - 23rd May
IELTS 4.0- Unit 1: Relationships

3 Robert cannot stay with Sue because…

A. she is visiting her parents.
B. her parents are visiting her.
C. she doesn’t have a sofa.
4 In the second phone call, Robert calls…
A. a hotel B. a bed and breakfast C. a youth hostel
5 Robert wants…
A. a single room B. a twin room C. a double room
6 Robert doesn’t book a room at the hotel because…
A. it is too expensive.
B. he doesn’t want to change rooms.
C. the hotel is fully booked on all those dates.
7 At the guest house, the woman offers Robert…
A. a single room B. a double room C. a triple room
8 The room…
A. is on the top floor. B. has a private bathroom. C. doesn’t have a television.
9 The guest house…
A. has a lift.
B. has a bathroom on every floor.
C. serves breakfast at no extra cost.
10 To book the room Robert needs to…
A. pay the full price now.
B. pay a deposit.
C. give his credit card details.

Exercise 5 [IELTS Listening: Multiple Choice Questions- Listening for numbers] Listen to the
recording. Choose the correct answers.
1. Anne has asked Tom to help her with her dolphin project because
A. he is in the same class as Anne.
B. he is an expert on dolphins.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 1: Relationships

C. he once did a similar project to Anne.

2. How long is an adult male Maui dolphin?
A. 1.5 metres B. 1 metre C. 1.7 metres
3. Where are Maui dolphins found in New Zealand?
A. around most of the coast of the North Island
B. around the west coast of the North Island
C. around the whole coast of the South Island
4. The population of Maui dolphins is now likely to be
A. around 100 B. well over 500 C. less than 50
5. What do Anne and Tom agree is typical behaviour for Maui dolphins?
A. They prefer to live with many other Maui dolphins.
B. They often choose to follow boats to catch fish more easily.
C. They are friendly towards people who swim near them.
6. How far along the coastline do Maui dolphins swim?
A. 40 kilometres B. 50 kilometres C. 30 kilometres
IELTS 4.0- Unit 2: Places and buildings

Full name:.................................

Lesson 5 Topic: Places and buildings WID: IELTS4.0_05_R

QR code:
IELTS Reading
- Present simple and past simple tenses ...... pts/10
Skills
- Respond to sentence completion questions
- Skim and scan a text
- Recognize paraphrase

Exercise 1. [Grammar focus: Present simple vs Past simple] Fill in the blanks with present
simple and past simple tenses. (optional)

Dear Peter,

Last summer, I ________ (travel) to Edremit with my family. We ________ (not stay) in our
friend’s house, because we ________ (want) to stay in a nice boutique hotel. I ________
(play) on the beach, ________ (go) for sightseeing, ________ (swim) in the beautiful sea, and
________ (write) many postcards. This ________ (be) a really different holiday for me. In
holidays, I usually ________ (stay) in bed more and ________ (sleep) more.
One day, we ________ (visit) a small island called Bozcaada. My father ________ (warn) me
before the trip not to leave them. He ________ (want) me to stay with them during the whole
trip. I usually ________ (listen) to my father, but I ________ ( not listen) to him in that trip.
Because the island ________(be) so beautiful and I couldn’t wait to see with them. They
________ (be) really slow. During the trip I eventually ________ (lose) them. Hopefully, at the
end of the trip I ________ (find) them. They ________ (be) angry with me. However, I really
________ (have) great time without them.
Tell me Peter, what ________(be) your holiday like? What ________ you ________ (do) last
summer?

Ersin
IELTS 4.0- Unit 2: Places and buildings

Exercise 2. [Recognizing paraphrases]

Exercise 3. [Paraphrasing] Paraphrase the following passage.

The Koala Bear

The koala bear of Australia is a living “Teddy Bear.” Its thick coat of gray fur is just as soft as the
beloved toy. The koala has a large head, big ears and small, dark eyes that look at you without
expression. Its nose, as black as patent leather, seems too big for the rest of its face.

The koala is a gentle little animal. It is almost defenseless. Only its color protects it from
enemies. The koala makes no nest. It just sits in the forked branches of a tree. Unlike a bird, it
cannot balance itself with its tail—because it has no tail. It likes gum trees the best because it
loves entirely on the leaves of the tree. Sometimes the supply of its special diet is used up. The
koala, rather than seek food elsewhere, will stay in its own area and starve to death.

______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
IELTS 4.0- Unit 2: Places and buildings

Exercise 4. [IELTS Reading: Sentence completion + Recognizing paraphrases] Read the passage
and answer the questions.
European Settlement of Australia
European settlement of Australia began in 1788 when a British penal colony was established on
the east coast. From this starting point Australia grew rapidly and continually, expanding across
the entire continent.
A number of reasons contributed to Britain's decision to colonise Australia. The most important
factor was Britain's need to relieve its overcrowded prisons. Several violent incidents at
overcrowded prisons convinced the British government of the need to separate unruly
elements from the rest of the prison populace.
Additionally, Australia was of strategic importance to Britain, and it provided a base for the
Royal Navy in the eastern sea. Also, Australia could be used as an entry point to the economic
opportunities of the surrounding region. All these points figured in the decision by Lord Sydney,
secretary of state of home affairs, to authorise the colonisation.
To this affect, on May 13, 1787, Captain Arthur Phillip, commanding eleven ships full of
convicts, left Britain for Australia. He successfully landed a full fleet at Botany Bay on January
18, 1788. However, they left the bay eight days later because of its openness and poor soil, and
settled instead at Port Jackson, a few kilometres north. The ships landed 1,373 people,
including 732 convicts, and the settlement became Sydney. Australia Day is now celebrated on
26 January each year, to commemorate this first fleet landing.
Vocabulary required:

• settlement (n): the process of people making their homes in a place

• colony (n): a country or an area that is governed by people from another, more powerful, country
• incident (n): something that happens, especially something unusual or unpleasant
• convict (n): a person who has been found guilty of a crime and sent to prison
• commemorate (v): remind people of an important person or event from the past with a special
action or object

I. Complete the following statements using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS.

1. Australia was originally founded as a ________________________.
2. The major consideration in colonizing Australia was Britain’s ______________________.
3. It was thought that ___________________ could be gained in that part of the world due to
the access provided via Australia.
4. Lord Sydney took every factor into account when he gave official permission for the
__________________ of Australia.
5. Botany Bay was abandoned by the settlers due to the lack of cover and
_______________________.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 2: Places and buildings

II. Write down the paraphrases and synonyms that you would have needed to identify in
order to successfully find the answers:

Synonym/Paraphrase from the question Original word from the reading

Question 1 founded

Question 2 major consideration

access
Question 3
part of the world

took every factor into account

Question 4
official permission

abandoned
Question 5
lack of cover

Exercise 5. [IELTS Reading: Sentence completion]

A. Read the first paragraph

What is the main idea of this paragraph?

A. to explain where mammoths lived before they became extinct

B. to explain when mammoths became extinct

C. to explain why mammoths became extinct

B. Complete the sentences below.

Write ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

1. The number of mammoths started to fall when their ___________ got smaller.

2. Humans used mammoths for food, and to make art and ___________.

3. Scientists have examined the contents of mammoths’ ___________.

4. Mammoths had smaller ___________ than modern elephants.

5. Some scientists think that a ‘new’ mammoth should have some ___________.

6. Both elephants and mammoths are ___________ animals.

7. There is a possibility that a ‘new’ mammoth could get a ___________.

IELTS 4.0- Unit 2: Places and buildings

Bringing the mammoth back to life

Mammoths once lived in large numbers across Asia, Africa, North America and Europe.
However, over time, their numbers fell until the mammoth became extinct. Scientists think this
happened for two reasons. Firstly, the mammoths’ natural habitat decreased in size because of
climate change. Secondly, many mammoths were killed by people who hunted them. The last
population of mammoths lived on Wrangel Island, off north-east Siberia in the Chukchi Sea.
These were woolly mammoths that could survive in very cold conditions, but they also died out
around 4,000 years ago.

Prehistoric cave paintings show us that people ate the woolly mammoths they killed, but also
used their bones and tusks. They used these to make simple animal and human figures, an early
kind of art, and also to create some basic tools. We also know a lot about the woolly mammoth
because the freezing conditions in Alaska and Siberia have preserved them. Researchers have
studied their skeletons, their teeth and even the grass and plants that were still inside their
stomachs. We know that their fur was an orange-brown colour, they had a thick layer of fat,
and they had long, curved tusks. Their ears were short compared to an African or Asian
elephant’s we might see today, so they would not lose so much heat or get frostbite.

In recent years, some researchers have suggested that we could bring woolly mammoths back
to life. Interestingly, not all scientists believe that bringing the mammoth back to life would be a
good thing. They think it would be unfair to create a ‘new’ mammoth and then keep it in a small
space. They think the right thing to do would be to give it a certain amount of freedom, perhaps
in a wildlife park. But where would this be? And the mammoth would also be alone, and like
elephants, mammoths were probably social in the way they behaved. This does seem to be a
strong reason against bringing the mammoth back to life. Perhaps the ‘new’ mammoth might
also develop an ‘old’ disease – and this might have an effect on the ecosystem that scientists
cannot predict. Although the idea of bringing the mammoth back seems like an exciting one at
first, there are many issues that we need to consider.

Vocabulary required:

• woolly (adj): covered with wool or with hair like wool

• tusk (n): the long curved teeth that stick out of the mouth of elephants
• skeleton (n): the structure of bones that supports the body of a person or an animal; a model of
this structure
• frostbite (n): a medical condition in which parts of the body become damaged as a result of
extremely cold temperatures
IELTS 4.0- Unit 2: Places and buildings

Exercise 6. [IELTS Reading: Sentence completion] Read the passage and answer the questions.

Calendars Through the Years

A How many days are there in a year? You might say 365, with an extra 'leap day' added to the
end of February every four years. This averages out to a quarter of a day every year, so that
every year is 365.25 days. This is because the actual length of a solar year - that is, the time it
takes for the Earh to complete a full rotation of the Sun - is a little bit more than 365 days.
Throughout history, most calendars have tried to match their year to the length of a solar year,
with varying degrees of accuracy.

B The calendar used in much of the world today is based on the one used by the Romans.
Because Romans thought that even numbers were unlucky, the earliest Roman calendar had
months of 29 or 31 days, with 28 days in February. Since the year had 355 days, they would add
a leap month of 27 days between February and March every 3 to 5 years, as determined by
priests called pontifces. As a result, the average year was anywhere from 360 to 364 days, so it
is no surprise that the calendar very quickly deviated from the solar year.

C Julius Caesar decided that the calendar should be based on the solar year, following a special
year of 445 days in 46 BC that readjusted the months to their proper seasons. From 45 BC
onwards, the months were given the current lengths of 30 or 31 days, retaining 28 for February
but adding the 29th February every four years to account for the accumulated extra quarter
days. The names of the months used by the Romans remain in English today, either with a slight
adjustment to spelling (e.g., they called it Aprilis, we call it April) or in the exact same form (e.g.,
they also called September, October, November and December by those very names).

D The calendar used from 45 BC onwards - known as the Julian calendar, after the man who
imposed it on the world - is far more accurate than any earlier calendar. Even so, the Julian
calendar deviates from the solar year by 1 day every 128 years. This is because the exact length
of the solar year is actually 365.2422 days, or about 11 minutes shorter than the 365.25 days
calculated by the Romans.

E By the 16th century AD, the discrepancy between the solar year and the Julian calendar was
notable enough that something had to be done. It took several decades of consultation among
mathematicians and astronomers until it was fnally decided to end the Julian calendar, and
move to a new system of calculating leap years. Pope Gregory XIII decreed that the Julian
calendar would end on Thursday 4th October 1582, and that the following day would be Friday
15th October. This would remove the 10 days that had been added in error by the Julian system
for leap years, and readjust the calendar to the seasons in the solar year.

F As we can see from this brief history of calendars, one of the key challenges in making any
calendar is the decision about how to account for the variations between the calendar year and
the solar year, since the latter includes a fraction of a day. The Gregorian calendar improved
IELTS 4.0- Unit 2: Places and buildings

considerably on the Julian calendar, limiting the discrepancy to one day every 3,336 years.
While it is commonly believed that every fourth year is a leap year, the actual rule imposed in
1582 is slightly more complicated: we add a day to February in years that are divisible by 4, but
not in years divisible by 100, unless they can be divided by 400. Thus, 1700, 1800 and 1900
were not leap years, but 1600 and 2000 were. This adjustment means that the average
calendar year is only 26 seconds longer than a solar year, so it won't be an issue again until the
year 4918.
Vocabulary required:

• leap day (n): the extra day added to the calendar in leap year (=one year in every four years
when February has 29 days instead of 28).
• rotation (n): the action of an object moving in a circle around a central fixed point
• deviate from (v): to be different from something; to do something in a different way
• impose on (v): introduce a new rule, tax; to order that a rule, punishment, etc. be used
• discrepancy (n): a difference between two or more things that should be the same

Complete the sentences below. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
for each answer.

1. A solar year is the time it takes for the Earth to make a ______________ of the sun.

2. Without a ______________, the year in the earliest Roman calendar was 355 days long.

3. From 45 BC, the calendar year was based on the solar year, thanks to the intervention of
____________.

4. Unfortunately, the solar year is ___________ than the year in Julian calendar.

5. When Pope Gregory XIII first instituted the new calendar, one change was to __________
that were mistakenly added by the Julian calendar.

6. Under current rules, years that are ___________ are not leap year, unless they can also be
divided evenly by 400.

Exercise 7. [IELTS Reading: Sentence completion] Read the passage and answer the questions.

How can we measure happiness?

Western leaders are looking beyond traditional indices of economic and social well-being and
turning to ways of measuring national happiness.

What makes you happy? The smell of new-mown grass on a spring morning, perhaps; or the
laughter of your children. For many of us, happiness is spiritual, individual, difficult to define
and ephemeral. A Buddhist monk with no possessions beyond his clothes and an alms bowl
might consider himself happier than a City financier with homes on three continents.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 2: Places and buildings

Personal happiness is something we all aspire to; so what about national happiness? Can the
well-being of a country be measured? Is it possible to aggregate all those individual experiences
into a happiness index that can be published quarterly, along with crime statistics, inflation
rates and unemployment figures? Some political leaders think it is. They subscribe to the idea
that measuring a nation’s well-being by this economic output is a policy dead-end. Is this wise?

The consideration of happiness and how to maximize it is hardly a new activity. It has exercised
great minds from Socrates to Montaigne and on to Bentham, Mill and the authors of the
American Declaration of Independence. But while philosophers tended to deal with how we
should lead our lives as individuals, the idea of happiness both as a science and a specific aim of
national policy has only taken off in the past decade or so.

It is hardly surprising that the idea appeals to many politicians, especially when most of the
economic news is gloomy and government policy is couched in the downbeat language of
austerity. In such circumstances, looking beyond the traditional measurement of national well-
being is a great temptation, even if it risks being criticized as a gimmick that has no place in the
serious business of politics.

Lord Layard, professor at the London School of Economics, believed that governments should
embrace the principle that ‘the best society is that where the people are happiest, and the best
policy is the one that produces the greatest happiness’. They found this hard to do because so
little was known about what made people happy. But as Lord Layard points out, ‘The first thing
we know is that in the past 50 years, average happiness has not increased at all in Britain or in
the United States- despite massive increases in living standard.’ In better–off countries, in other
words, simply raising incomes does not make people any happier.

In truth, Prime Minister David Cameron has been thinking along these lines for a while. Shortly
after he became Tony leader in 2005, he said: “Well-being can’t be measured by money or
traded in markets. It’s about the beauty of our surroundings, the quality of our culture and,
above all, the strength of our relationships. Improving our society’s sense of well-being is, I
believe, the central political challenge of our times”.

In order to avoid a politically biased view of what constitutes national contentment, it would be
essential to have an independent body deciding what questions to ask and when to do so. A
survey conducted in the middle of a cold, wet January, for instance, might produce significantly
gloomier results than one carried out in summer months.

If measuring happiness is a relatively new phenomenon in the West, it has underpinned the
public policy of one country for almost 40 years. The Kingdom of Bhutan has pursued the goal
of ‘gross national happiness’ since 1972. In addition to the promotion of equitable
socioeconomic development and the establishment of good governance, it also stresses the
importance of the preservation and promotion of cultural values.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 2: Places and buildings

It probably helps, too, that there is little in the way of traffic, commuting into major cities does
not involve an hour-long journey crushed together like sardines, television was banned until
1999 and the Himalayas provide a visual backdrop to a stunning sub-tropical landscape. No
wonder they are happy.

Vocabulary required:

• ephemeral (adj): lasting or used for only a short period of time

• aspire to (v): to have a strong desire to achieve something
• inflation rate (n): the percentage at which a currency is devalued during a period of time
• philosopher (n): a person who studies or writes about philosophy (triết học)
• couch in (v): to say or write words in a particular style or manner
• austerity (n): a situation when people do not have much money to spend because there are bad
economic condition
• contentment (n): a feeling of happiness or satisfaction

Read the text and complete the sentences. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each
answer.

1. Some politicians feel that it is not wise to focus on a country’s _____________.

2. Governments have only really taken the importance of promoting national happiness
seriously in ____________.

3. While the idea of measuring happiness appeals to some politicians, others believe it could be
___________ for lacking in seriousness.

4. Although there have been ____________ in personal wealth, people in rich West are not
happier.

5. For David Cameron’s government, the attempt to increase the __________ of the people is a
key priority.

6. Surveys may have different results depending on the weather, with ______________ results
being possible for those carried out in winter.

7. As part of its policy of promoting happiness, the government of Bhutan thinks it is important
to ensure the country remains true to its _____________.

8. According to the writer, Bhutan has the advantage of having almost no ____________, which
is a source of stress in Western countries.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 2: Places and buildings

Full name:.................................

Lesson 6 Topic: Places and buildings WID: IELTS4.0_06_RL

QR code:
Skills IELTS Listening ...... pts/10
- Answer short-answer questions
- Spell names correctly

Exercise 1. [IELTS Listening: Short answer questions] Read the questions and underline the
key words. Then decide what kind of answer is needed in terms of grammar and topic, and
suggest possible answers.

Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

1. List 3 energy-saving methods.

_____________________ _________________________________________

2. Name 2 substances which contribute to climate change.

________________________________

Now listen and answer the questions below.

List three forms of energy Mary will write about in her essay. Write NO MORE THAN THREE
WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER for each answer.

___________________________

___________________________

___________________________

Exercise 2. [IELTS Listening: Short answer questions] You are going to hear three students
discussing their environmental science presentation. Listen and answer the question.

What two pieces of information do the students agree to remove from their presentation?

Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER for each answer.

1________________

2________________
IELTS 4.0- Unit 2: Places and buildings

Exercise 3. [IELTS Listening: Short answer questions] You are going to hear two friends talking
about the exercise classes they took in the last week. Listen and answer the questions 1-3.

Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

1. Which two classes did Debbie go to last week? ________________

2. Why didn’t Penny like yoga? ________________

3. Where is Penny going next week? ________________

Exercise 4: [IELTS Listening: Short answer questions] Answer the questions.

Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER for each answer.

21. How many major essays do the students have to write a year?

____________________________________________

22. What percentage of the total marks does the written exam account for?

____________________________________________

23. How many marks was Carl given for his latest essay?

____________________________________________

24. How many marks did Pamela receive for her latest essay?

____________________________________________

25. In which session was the marking system explained before?

____________________________________________

Exercise 5. [IELTS Listening: Short answer questions] You are going to hear a lecture about
adults who continue to live with their parents. Before listening, underline the question words
and the key words in the questions.

1. What percentage of women in their early thirties still live with their parents?

___________________________

2. When were house prices only three times the average yearly income?

___________________________

3. What is the reason that people return to their parental home after university?

___________________________

4. Who does the Affordable Housing Scheme aim to help?

IELTS 4.0- Unit 2: Places and buildings

___________________________

Then listen and answer the questions in NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER.

Exercise 6. [IELTS Listening: Short answer questions] Listen and answer the questions.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.

1. What is the surname of the writer that Sarah likes?

_________________________________

2. What is the password for the university library website?

_________________________________

3. Which drink does Joe say people should stop drinking?

_________________________________

4. Where are many families getting their meals from?

_________________________________

5. What problem does Sarah say is increasing because of unhealthy eating?

_________________________________

6. Which kind of fast food is most popular with other university students?
_________________________________

7. In which street is the sushi café?

_________________________________
IELTS 4.0- Unit 3: Education and employment

Full name:.................................
Lesson 10 Topic: Education and employment WID: IELTS4.0_10_R
QR code:
IELTS Reading:
Skills - Skimming: identify the main ideas of a passage
...... pts/10
- Scanning: find information in a text quickly
- Deal with multiple-choice questions
- Grammar Focus: the present perfect

Exercise 1. [Present perfect - Present simple] Match the present results (present simple) with the
past events (present perfect).

Exercise 2. [Present perfect] Complete the sentences. Use the past participle of the irregular verbs
in brackets.
1. He wasn’t very good when he started, but he’s _____________ (become) a very good teacher in
the last few years.
2. Have you _____________ (chose) a career yet? Do you know what you want to do when you
leave school?
3. I studied History for five years at school, but now I’ve _____________ (forget) almost everything.
4. It’s been a very useful course and you’re a great teacher – you’ve _____________ (teach) me a
lot.
5. I’ve _____________ (send) emails to lots of companies asking for a job, but nobody’s offered me
one yet.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 3: Education and employment

6. Have you _____________ (be) on any training courses this year?

7. I need to write a 10,000-word essay by the end of my course, but I’ve only_______________
(write) 2,500 words so far.
8. I studied Business at university, but I’ve _____________ (learn) more in my first month at work
than in three years at university.
9. Sorry I haven’t finished the presentation yet. I haven’t _____________ (have) time.
10. OK, so now that I’ve _____________ (show) you what to do, it’s your turn.

Exercise 3. [Present perfect] Complete the sentences. Use the words in brackets with the present
perfect. Use contractions where possible (e.g. haven’t). The first one has been done for you.

1. My sister’s just started university – it’s her first week this week. (my sister/ just/ start)
2. I’m really pleased. ________________ all my exams. (I/ pass)
3. We finished our project over a month ago, but our teacher ________________. (not/check/ it/
yet)
4. ________________ to go to evening classes to learn how to write computer programs. (I/
already/ decide)
5. Don’t worry. ________________ anybody your exam results. (I/ not/ tell)
6. I think the job interview went well, but ________________, so I don’t know if I’ve got the job or
not. (they/ not/ contact/ me/ yet)
7. Why are we doing this training course again? ________________ it three times! (we/ already/
do)
8. I’m really worried. I think ________________ my end-of-course test. (I/ fail)
IELTS 4.0- Unit 3: Education and employment

Exercise 4. [IELTS Reading: Multiple choice questions] Read the following paragraph and answer
the question.
Paragraph A
Researchers recently gave 1,000 people a questionnaire about ‘Cities of The Future’. To answer the
questions, the people had to imagine and describe what they thought our cities might look like in
the year 2050. Interestingly, a large number of people were anxious that they would become ‘dark,
dangerous places’, which had endless traffic jams and very few green spaces. This group also
predicted an increase in the level of pollution and thought people would always need to wear
facemasks in order to breathe. They also believed that it would be less safe to walk on the street as
there would be ‘more stealing’ and other criminal behaviour. A smaller number thought cities might
become a lot cleaner, and might be built from more interesting materials. They were also looking
forward to new technology such as flying cars and moving pavements. In general, they believed that
the cities of the future would offer a much more convenient way of living. A few people were
uncertain; for example, they thought the size of apartments might reduce as the population of the
city grew, but they also thought that public transport would become better.
1 What do the results of the questionnaire show?
A Most people feel worried rather than pleased about the way that cities will develop.
B People imagined that no one would use their own vehicles any more.
C People think that crime will be the worst problem that future cities will have.
D Some people believe that there will not be enough houses in the city for everyone.

Exercise 5. [IELTS Reading: Skimming + Multiple choice questions]

A. Read the information. Then read Paragraphs B–E as quickly as possible. Answer the questions
below
Paragraph B
What do the results from this questionnaire tell us? In a way, we shouldn’t be amazed by the
descriptions of the largest group. So many Hollywood films show cities of the future as frightening
places. Online newspapers are also responsible for spreading this same belief. Headlines such as
‘Global population rises – cities become crowded’ are becoming more frequent. Journalists rarely
discuss how future cities might be a good place to live.
Paragraph C
IELTS 4.0- Unit 3: Education and employment

The facts are these: 50% of people now live in cities, even though cities only occupy 2% of the
world’s land. By 2050, it is predicted that the number of people living there will rise to 70%. Some
people are worried that villages in the countryside will become empty as everyone leaves for the
city, and so traditional ways of life will be lost. This may be true, but we have to accept changes like
this as part of human development. Rather than being negative, we should be hopeful that we can
improve people’s lives as they move to cities. The way to do this is through intelligent planning.
Paragraph D
Architects have a big role to play in our future cities. In the past, the architects who were responsible
for planning our cities often designed buildings that they were interested in; but now it is time for
them to listen carefully to what people living in cities are asking for. In many countries around the
world, people are choosing to have smaller families or to wait longer before they start a family. For
this reason, not everyone needs a large house. Smaller and cheaper houses are what they need. But
‘small’ doesn’t have to be the same as ‘ugly’ or ‘boring’. Western architects could perhaps look at
some of the architecture in Japanese cities, where very stylish houses are built on small pieces of
unused land.
Paragraph E
And what might cities of the future be made from? Engineering companies have produced some
interesting new products, for example, wood-like material made from recycled newspapers or old
drink cartons. One engineering team are even working on a project that uses mushrooms to create
a hard building material. These new materials may seem strange, but we should remember that
plastic was only invented in 1907 – at the time people thought that this was an unusual product,
but now it is something we cannot manage without. Building a city of the future requires
imagination and an open mind.
In which paragraphs are the topics below mentioned? Choose the correct answers.
1 the duties and responsibilities of the people who design our cities
2 the influence of cinema and the media on people’s view of the future
3 the types of material that future buildings might be made from
4 some information and opinions about people living in cities and living in the countryside
B. Read the questions and the options carefully. Choose the correct answers.
1 What is the writer doing in Paragraph B?
A. Explaining why many people will probably prefer to live in cities in the future.
B. Giving a reason why many people feel negative about cities of the future.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 3: Education and employment

C. Suggesting that newspapers show a more realistic view of future cities than films.
2 What point does the writer make in Paragraph C?
A. It is important to encourage some people to stay in their villages.
B. It is possible to maintain traditional village customs after moving to cities.
C. It is necessary to think in a creative way about city design.
3 Paragraph D: In the writer’s opinion, architects who are responsible for planning cities
A. often make houses that are unattractive.
B. must make buildings based on people’s needs.
C. should get experience by working in foreign cities.
4 Paragraph E: The writer refers to the invention of plastic to make the point that
A. we can expect building materials to be very different in the future.
B. we must accept that good-quality materials take a long time to create.
C. we should use a variety of building materials to make our cities interesting.

Exercise 6. [IELTS Reading: Multiple choice questions] Read the passage and choose the correct
answer.

Everywhere we go, we can find a TV screen. From public places to the back of car seats, from railway
stations to restaurants and bars, TV is all around us. More than ever before, children are living in a
world filled with media, and television in particular. A third of children under the age of four have a
TV in their bedrooms, as do more than half of under-16-year-olds. A study warned that children are
becoming addicted to television. Researchers said that young people in the UK watch around five
hours of television a day- in the rest of Europe they watch just two hours. On average, two-thirds of
children watch TV for two hours a day and teenagers and young adults spend nearly four hours a
day in front of a TV and two additional hours on computer playing video games.

For at least the past two decades, researchers have studied the effects of television on children- and
it hasn’t been good news. The first two years of life are extremely important for the development
of the brain. Children need these two years to explore and play with their parents and other
children. This helps learning and healthy physical and social development. As children grow up, too
much TV interferes with activities such as being physically active, reading, doing homework, playing
with friends, and spending time with family.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 3: Education and employment

Apart from the general harmful effects on development, research shows that there are specific
effects too. Children spending over four hours each day in front of the TV are more likely to be
overweight. Violence on TV affects children very badly- the average American child will see 200,000
violent acts on television before they are 18. Children who see violent acts are more likely to show
aggressive behavior but they also think that the world is a frightening place and that something bad
will happen. Although cigarette adverts are banned in many countries, children still see plenty of
people smoking on TV. This kind of ‘product placement’ makes risky behavior like smoking and
drinking alcohol seem acceptable. In facts, kids who watch five or more hours of TV per day are
more likely to begin smoking than those who watch less than two hours a day.

Why do parents allow their children near such a harmful influence? There are several reasons. Many
of these parents want to keep their children entertained while they do something else. Many more
have grown up watching a lot of TV themselves and don’t see anything wrong with this.

In fact, there is nothing wrong with TV- only in the way we see it. In the UK, the government wants
school children to have a greater understanding of TV and film by teaching them media studies from
the age of five. But perhaps the answer lies at home. Parents can keep TVs out of children’s
bedrooms and limit the amount of TV they watch. They can take an interest in what their children
watch and comment on what they don’t agree. Today, media studies isn’t only a university subject-
it’s a way of life.

1. What is the most suitable title for the A the parents of the children
passage? B the development of the brain
A Product placement C physical and social development
B Media studies for children 4 Children who see too much violence on TV
C The danger of too much TV are…
D Marketing and young viewers A likely to smoke and drink
E Parents and TV B frightened by the world
2. Children in the UK watch… C overweight
A more TV than children in Europe 5 The UK government wants to teach children…
B two hours per day A to understand what they watch
C six hours per day including video games B a way of life
3 Too much TV is bad for…. C that there is nothing wrong with TV
IELTS 4.0- Unit 3: Education and employment

Exercise 7. [IELTS Reading: Multiple choice questions]

Social organization among animals
The palato - a worm which lives on rocks in the sea- one of very few animals which never have
contact with other members of the same species. Others, such as spiders, are normally solitary,
meeting only to mate (that is, to reproduce).
Some species form social links only for the period while they are rearing their young. Among birds,
European robins raise their chicks in a pair, away from other members of their species, while
herring gulls form larger groups (colonies) consisting of many pairs living close together, each pair
raising their chicks independently.
Many species of fish and birds from large groups, called schools and flocks, respectively, and swim
or fly together. Hens attack each other, and eventually establish a hierarchy based on their
individual strength. Those at the top of the ‘pecking order’ get to eat before the others.
Finally, some animals spend most or all of their lives in social groups in which individuals co-
operate. Lions, for instance, usually live in a relatively permanent group, called a pride, where some
activities, such as hunting, are social, and others, like sleeping, are solitary.
Bees, wasps and ants live in stable, co-operative groups in which every activity is communal and
organized. Worker bees (which are all female) have several jobs in succession, depending on their
age. They begin with cleaning duties, and later become soldiers to defend the hive against
intruders. Finally, they fly out of the hive to collect food. Theirs is a highly complex social
organization.
Social co-operation can provide a number of benefits. Groups of male frogs sing to attract females,
and large groups generally attract more females per male than smaller groups, making it easier for
the males to find a mate.
The young can be reared more safely in social groups. Birds in a colony tend to lay their eggs at
around the same time, so all the chicks emerge from the egg almost simultaneously. As an
individual predator (an animal that kills and eats other animals) can only consume a finite number
of eggs or chicks, each individual is less likely to be eaten. Groups of adult elephants surround all
their young, giving each one much greater protection than its parents alone could provide.
Groups are also more effective in bringing up the young. In some species of apes and monkeys,
female ‘aunties’ help to look after the young which are not their own, while learning how to raise
their own young in the future. Lion cubs drink the milk not only of their mother but also of other
lionesses in the group, and the range of antibodies that different female provide increases their
resistance to disease.
A group that spread out in search of food is likely to be more successful than an animal searching
alone. When one has found food, others may simply join it, but some species have developed a
highly complex form of communication. When a honeybee finds some food, it returns to its hive
and performs a complex dance to indicate the location of the food to others.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 3: Education and employment

Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.

1 Which of these animals spends most, but not all, of its life alone?
A palato
B herring gull
C spider
2 European robins and herring gulls are different with regard to
A how many birds help to bring each chick
B the social organization in which pairs bring up their young
C how long they spend together
3 What point is made about hens?
A The best fighters eat different kinds of food from weaker hens
B They live in larger groups than most other species of birds
C Their social structure gives certain individuals advantages over others.
4 What is said about the life of lions?
A They live in a group and do some activities together.
B They live separately and come together for some activities.
C They live in a group and do all activities together.
5 What point is made about worker bees?
A They carry out different tasks as they get older.
B They live in a social structure unlike that of any other animals.
C They could not survive alone.
6 Which FIVE of these advantages of social co-operation are mentioned in the above passage?
A Females can choose a mate more easily.
B More eggs can be laid.
C Eggs are more likely to survive.
D There are more adults available to protect the young.
E Individuals can develop skills for later use.
F The young are likely to be healthier.
G Individuals can eat food which others have found.
H The group is more likely to live close to a source of food.
IELTS 5.0- Unit 3: Education and employment

Exercise 8. [IELTS Reading: Multiple choice questions]

How similar are animals and human beings?

Over the centuries, a number of animals have been charged with a crime, tried in a court of law,
found guilty and punished- even executed. The last time was as recently as 1906. Animals were
thought to be like human beings- able to decide their actions and morally responsible for the
outcome.

Then ideas about animals changed, and they were thought to lack awareness of their own
internal states and relationships to others. They were therefore considered incapable of true
suffering and of criminal behavior.

But the new research suggests that animals have far more complex cognitive and social skills than
we thought. The focus in recent decades has been on wildlife, but now seems that something
similar is also true of farm animals: pigs, sheep, cows, chickens.

First for some findings. In 2004, researchers in Cambridge, UK, reported that when individual
sheep were isolated from the flock of sheep that they belonged to, they experienced stress. This
was shown by increases in heart rate, stress hormones and bleating- a sheep’s call. But showing
them pictures of familiar sheep faces reduced all three measurements. The same effect was not
produced when they were shown pictures of goat faces or inverted triangles.

Donald Broom, professor of animal welfare at the University of Cambridge, says that cows often
form long-lasting, co-operative partnerships. They also show a physiological response on learning
something new. He and colleague Kristin Hagen put young cows in a situation where they had to
press a panel to open a gate and gain access to food.

Those that learned the task were more likely to experience a sudden increase in heart rate and
to run around than those that did not. This was called ‘the eureka response’, and resembles the
human reaction to making a discovery.

Other research has shown that if offered a choice of two places to feed, pigs will avoid the one
where they had previously been shut in for several hours after eating, and go for the one that
they were released from quickly. None of these findings proves that animals feel pain or joy in
the same way that humans do, but according to Broom, the evidence suggests that animals may
be aware of what has happened in the past, and capable of acting on it in the future.

That awareness is the basis of collaboration among human beings- for instance, knowing not to
attack a familiar face. In animal communities too, it now seems, animals with big teeth, or
IELTS 5.0- Unit 3: Education and employment

weighing several tonnes, will move carefully so as to not damage others. In the past, this was
explained as their fear that if they accidentally hurt another animal, it will attack them. According
to Broom, however, this is not true in every case. He claims that a great deal of this behavior has
a more general aim of ensuring that the society will function.

American animal rights lawyer Steven Wise has gone a step further. He argues that people have
basic civil liberties because they possess a sense of self, plus the ability to want something and
to have the intention of gaining what they want. The great apes, dolphins, African grey parrots
and other animals also appear to have this ability. Now, he says, it seems to apply to some farm
animals too. He claims that these animals therefore deserve basic rights such as freedom from
being raised as food for human beings.

Wherever development in our understanding of animals takes us, however, it seems unlikely that
we will again try them for criminal behavior.

Read the passage and choose the correct letter, A, B or C.

Choose the appropriate letters A, B or C and write them in boxes I — 9 on your answer sheet.
1 The belief mentioned in the first paragraph is that animals
A can choose how to behave.
B behave worse than people.
C copy the behaviour of people.
2 The belief mentioned in the second paragraph is that animals
A behave better than people.
B are not aware of other animals.
C do not experience mental pain as people do.
3 What point is made in the third paragraph?
A Further research is needed into comparing the skills of wild and farm
animals.
B Skills are being found among farm animals as well as wild animals.
C Farm animals are proving to be more interesting than wild animals.
4 What is suggested by the research into sheep?
A They suffer stress if they are placed with animals of different species.
B They cannot distinguish between goats and abstract symbols.
C They can recognize other sheep in photographs.
5 The experiment with cows was designed to find out
A how they reacted to learning something new.
B how fast they learned to solve a problem.
C How they worked out a method of getting food.
IELTS 5.0- Unit 3: Education and employment

6 Research into pigs has shown that they

A forget previous experiences when they want food.
B remember which types of food they like.
C can base their behaviour on earlier experiences.
7 Professor Broom believes that animals try not to harm others
A when the other animal is more powerful.
B to avoid being attacked by another animal.
C even if they will not benefit themselves.
8 Steven Wise argues that
A the legal basis for human civil liberties also applies to animals.
B animals should be given the same rights as people.
C owning animals should be made illegal.
9 What do you think is the writer’s main purpose in this passage?
A To argue that animals should have the same rights as human beings.
B To present current research into animals to a nonspecialist audience.
C To show differences between animals and human beings.

Exercise 9. [Vocabulary]
A. Match the people with the descriptions of the jobs.

a chef a doctor a vet a programmer

a teacher a store manager an engineer an accountant

This person …

1 looks after people who are ill or hurt:

2 designs or builds machines, equipment or roads, etc.:

3 cooks food in a restaurant:

4 keeps information about money that a company or person receives, pays or owes:

5 works in a school or college:

6 produces computer programs:

7 looks after sick animals:

8 is responsible for the day-to-day operations of a store:

B. Classify the jobs into different areas:

IELTS 5.0- Unit 3: Education and employment

hotel and catering: retail:

information technology: health:

construction: education:
IELTS 4.0- Unit 3: Education and employment

Full name:.................................
Lesson 11 Topic: Education and employment WID: IELTS4.0_11_L
QR code:
IELTS Listening
- learn vocabulary about different areas of work or
study
Skills ...... pts/10
- Sentence completion task
- follow a conversation
- recognise synonyms and paraphrase

Exercise 1. [IELTS Listening: Follow a conversation] Read the extracts from a lecture on the
history of money and choose the five phrases that signal the introduction of a new topic.
(A) Well, we’ll start by thinking about the situation in prehistoric times.
(B) It was in western Turkey, however, that the system of producing coins became more
organised.
(C) The only problem with these little tools is that they looked just like the real ones.
(D) Now, about 3,000 years ago, there was an interesting development, and this happened in
China.
(E) This is a metal which is quite easy to use and to make large tools from.
(F) It’s something that’s so easy to buy in the supermarket nowadays.
(G) But that wasn’t the only big development in China.
(H) What else was used instead of money in the distant past?

Exercise 2. [Listening for synonyms and paraphrase] Which word can you hear in the
recording that have the same meaning as the words below?

Answers will come in order. Answers might be one word or more.

1. acquired ____________________

2. familiar with ____________________

3. thousands of years ____________________

4. animal skins ____________________

5. limited ____________________

6. originates ____________________
IELTS 4.0- Unit 3: Education and employment

7. world ____________________

Exercise 3. [IELTS Listening: Sentence completion] You will listen to two students talking
about the topic of finance in preparation for a lecture. Write ONE WORD for each answer.

1. Greg and Penny agree to do some background reading on the history of ___________.
2. Greg says that before money, ___________ was very common.
3. Greg says that in the past, bronze was probably used to make ___________.
4. The book Greg and Penny should read is called ‘The ___________ World’.

Exercise 4. [IELTS Listening: Sentence completion] Complete the sentences. Write ONE OR
TWO WORDS for each answer.
1. Ordinary people can provide a news story, a ___________ or a video when no professional
journalist is present.

2. Amateur journalists often report on subjects which would be of little interest to a large
___________.

3. In the past, someone who wanted to express an opinion used to write a ___________, while
now they write a blog.

4. An amateur journalist’s subject is more likely to be a ___________ rather than national or

international news.

5. Amateur news websites, such as Ohmynews in South Korea, earn money from ___________.

Exercise 5. [IELTS Listening: Sentence completion] Listen and complete the sentences. Write
ONE WORD ONLY in each gap.
1. People often exchanged vegetables for ___________ in prehistoric times.
2. In Ancient European cultures, tools that were used for ___________ were most important.
3. Around 3,000 years ago, the Chinese began to make tiny ___________ of tools from bronze.
4. China introduced coins that were round with a ___________ hole in the middle 2,800 years
ago.
5. Coins were made mostly from ___________ in western Turkey.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 3: Education and employment

6. King Alyattes had the idea of putting pictures of birds and ___________ on coins.

Exercise 6. [IELTS Listening: Sentence completion]

IELTS 4.0- Unit 4: Food and drink

Full name:.................................

Lesson 15 Topic 4: Food and drink WID: IELTS4.0_15_RL

IELTS Reading: QR code:
- locate and match information from a text
- recognizing paraphrasing
- sentence completion
...... pts/10
- grammar focus: correct common errors in the
Skills use of countable/ uncountable nouns
- use some, any, much and many
IELTS Listening:
- Identify synonyms and paraphrase in matching
tasks ...... pts/10
- identify "distractors" in matching tasks
- Matching task

Exercise 1. [IELTS Reading: Matching information] Read the information. Then match the phrases
describing types of information with the words in bold in the statements.
a comparison between a reference to
a description of an example of
a prediction about
1. Young students use Instagram far more than they use SnapChat. ____________
2. Digital devices will probably replace books in all UK schools by 2030. ____________
3. The new phone has a great camera and a clever feature which makes apps easy to use.
____________
4. The first email message was sent in 1971. ____________
5. There are many reasons why I stopped using social media, such as the huge amount of time it
took up. ____________

Exercise 2. [IELTS Reading: Matching information] Read the information. Then match the types of
information with the sentences.

a description of a reason for a suggestion details of

1. Perhaps we should focus more on face-to-face communication than digital communication?
___________
IELTS 4.0- Unit 4: Food and drink

2. Fewer people are sending letters by post because stamps are very expensive nowadays.
___________

3. Mervyn’s YouTube channel had a huge number of followers. His videos were about his daily life
in New York and where people could go to find the best R’n’B music in Manhattan. ___________

4. 75% of teens in the 12-17 age group own mobile phones. Every month, girls send out
approximately 3,952 messages, and boys send about 2,815. ___________

Exercise 3. [IELTS Reading: Locate and match information from a text] Read the paragraph.
Nowadays, getting in touch is a lot easier. Almost every aspect of human communication has
changed: we have email, text, Skype, Facebook and Instagram, and we are certainly busy using
them to build and maintain our relationships. According to recent reports, the top social networks
now each have more than a billion monthly active users. And keeping in touch isn’t just something
we do in class or at work any more: we continue to communicate with friends, strangers, family
and colleagues (1) while we’re on the train, in the living room and at the dinner table, for
instance. One recent British study indicated that (2) 79% of teens even put their phone under their
pillow so they can keep up-to-date with whatever is happening on social media day and night, and
not miss out on updates. As for adults, a recent survey showed that (3) they now spend 20 to 28
hours a week on social media and have on average 275 personal connections. However, in contrast,
only 11% of these same people actually meet their social connections in an actual physical
environment on a regular basis.

Match the information statements (A–D) with the numbered parts of the paragraph (1–3). There
is one information statement that you do not need.
A. a comparison between the time spent online with friends and time spent in real places
B. some examples of typical locations in which digital technology may be found
C. the reason why some young people feel the need to keep a digital device with them all the times
D the suggestion that adults could learn about digital communication from their children
IELTS 4.0- Unit 4: Food and drink

Exercise 4. [IELTS Reading: Matching information] Read the passage.

Amundsen’s Expedition to the South Pole
A The first expedition to reach the geographic South Pole was led by the Norwegian explorer Roald
Amundsen. He and four others arrived at the pole on the 14 December 1911, five weeks ahead of a
British party led by Robert Falcon Scott as part of the Terra Nova Expedition. Amundsen and his
team returned safely to their base, and later learned that Scott and his four companions had died
on their return journey.

B Amundsen’s plans had focused on the Arctic and the conquest of the North Pole by means of an
extended drift in an icebound ship. He obtained the use of Fridtjof Nansen’s polar exploration ship
Fram, and undertook extensive fundraising. Preparations for this expedition were disrupted when,
in 1909, the rival American explorers Frederick Cook and Robert E. Peary each claimed to have
reached North Pole. Amundsen then changed his plan and began to prepare for a conquest of the
South Pole; uncertain of the extent to which the public and his backers would support him, he kept
this revised objective secret. When he set out in June 1910, even most of his crew believed they
were embarking on an Arctic drift.

C The expedition’s success was widely applauded. The story of Scott’s heroic failure overshadowed
its achievement in the United Kingdom, unable to accept that a Norwegian had been the first
person to set foot in the South Pole, but not in the rest of the world. Amundsen’s decision to keep
his true plans secret until the last moment was criticized by some. Recent polar historians have
more fully recognized the skill and courage of Amundsen’s party; the permanent scientific base at
the pole bears his name, together with that of Scott.

Vocabulary required:

• expedition (n): an organized journey to find out about a place that is not well known
• conquest (n): the act of taking control of a country, city, etc. by force
• disrupted (adj): interrupted, difficult for something to continue in the normal way
• embark on (v): to start to do something new or difficult
• overshadow (v): to make an event less enjoyable than it should be
• set foot in (phrase): to enter or visit a place

Questions 1-5
In which paragraph (A-C) is the following information found.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 4: Food and drink

1. The success of Roald Amundsen was celebrated worldwide, except in one country.
2. Amundsen only heard about the death of Scott after he had reached the South Pole.
3. The base at the South Pole bears both Amundsen’s name and Scott’s.
4. Amundsen had originally planned an exhibition to the North Pole.
5. When Amundsen decided to aim for the South Pole, he did not reveal his intentions.
6. The British did not celebrate Amundsen’s success as did other countries due to the death of
Scott.

Exercise 5. [IELTS Reading: Matching information] Read the passage and answer the questions.
A Barry Schwartz did not expect to feel inspired on a clothes-shopping trip. ‘I avoid buying jeans; I
wear one pair until it falls apart,’ say Schwartz, an American psychology professor. ‘The last time I
had bought a pair, there had been just one style. But recently, I was asked if I wanted this fit or that
fit, or this color or that. I intended to be out shopping for five minutes but it took an hour, and I
began to feel more and more dissatisfied.’ This trip made him think: did more choice always mean
greater satisfaction? ‘I’d always believed that choice was good, and more choice was better. My
experience got me thinking: how many other felt like me?’

B The result was a widely discussed study that challenged the idea that more is always better.
Drawing on the psychology of economics, which looks at how people choose what to buy, Schwartz
designed a questionnaire to show the differences between what he termed ‘maximisers’ and
‘satisficers’. Broadly speaking, maximisers are keen to make the best possible choices, and often
spend time researching to ensure that their purchases cannot be bettered. Satisficers are easy
going people, delighted with items that are simply acceptable.

C Schwarts puts forward the view, which contrasts with what politicians and salesmen would have
people believe, that the unstoppable growth in choice is in danger of ruining lives. ‘I’m not saying
no choice is good. But the average person makes at least 200 decisions every day, and I don’t think
there’s room for any more.’ His study may help to explain the peculiar paradox of the wealthy
West- psychologists and economists are puzzled by the fact that people have not become happier
as they have become richer. In fact, the ability to demand whatever is wanted whenever it is
wanted has instead led to rising expectations.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 4: Food and drink

D The search for perfection can be found in every area of life from buying soap powder to selecting
a career. Certain decisions may automatically close off other choices, and some people are then
upset by the thought of what else might have been. Schwartz says, ‘If you make a decision and it’s
disappointing, don’t worry about it, it may actually have been a good decision, just not as good as
you had hoped.’

E One fact that governments need to think about is that people seem more inclined to buy
something if there are fewer, not more, choices. If that’s true for jeans, then it’s probably true for
cars, schools and pension funds. ‘If there are few options, the world doesn’t expect you to make
the perfect decision. But when there are thousands, it’s hard not to think there’s a perfect one out
there, and that you’ll find it if you look hard enough.

F If you think that Internet shopping will help, think again: ‘You want to buy something and you
look at three websites. How long will it take to look at one more? Two minutes? It’s only a click.
Before you know it, you’ve spent three hours trying to decide which £10 item to buy. It’s crazy.
You’ve used another evening that you could have spent with your friends.’

G Schwartz, who describes himself as a natural satisficer, says that trying to stop our tendency to
be maximisers will make us happier. ‘The most important recommendation I can give is to lower
personal expectation,’ he says. ‘But no one wants to hear this because they all believe that
perfection awaits the wise decision maker. Life isn’t necessarily like that.’

Vocabulary required:

• psychology (n): the scientific study of the mind and how it influences behavior
• peculiar (adj): strange or unusual, especially in a way that is unpleasant or worrying
• paradox (n): a person, thing or situation that has two opposite features and therefore seems strange
• inclined (adj): wanting to do something

The reading passage has seven paragraphs labeled A-G. Which paragraph contains the following
information (1-7)?
NB You may use any letter more than once.
1 an account of a personal experience
2 why some advice may be rejected
3 a finding that confuses experts
IELTS 4.0- Unit 4: Food and drink

4 the emotional effect of the result of making a choice

5 information about how Schwartz’s research was undertaken
6 how a lack of choice affects decision making
7 a definition of two types of personality

Exercise 6. [IELTS Reading: Matching information] Read the passage and answer the questions
Six Thinking Hats- Looking at a decision from all points of view
A Faced with a number of choices, we may find it hard to make a decision, or may always approach
problems in the same way. Emotional people, for example, may not consider decisions calmly and
rationally. Many successful people think from a very rational, positive viewpoint, and this is one
reason for their success. Often, though, they fail to look at a problem from an emotional, intuitive,
creative or negative viewpoint. By always using a positive approach, they may underestimate
possible difficulties- such as resistance to their plans- and be under-prepared for dealing with
future problems.

B “Six Thinking Hats” is a valuable technique for increasing the effectiveness of decision-making.
Created by Edward de Bono, it makes you consider the decision from a number of perspectives,
forcing you to add different ways of thinking to your usual approach. This gives you a fuller view of
a situation. As a result, your decisions and plans will be ambitious, creative and sensitive to the
needs of others. They will be carried out effectively, and you will be prepared for the unexpected.
You can use Six Thinking Hats with other people or on your own. With others, it has the benefit of
blocking the confrontations that happen when people with different thinking styles discuss the
same problem.

C Each ‘Thinking Hat’ is a different style of thinking. With the White Thinking Hat, you focus on the
data available. Look at the information you have, and see what you can learn from it. Look for gaps
in your knowledge, and either try to fill them or take account of them. This is where you analyze
past trends, and try to work out from historical data what might happen in the future. ‘Wearing’
the Red Hat, you look at problems using intuition, instantaneous reactions, and emotion. Also try to
think how other people will react emotionally. Try to understand the responses of people who do
not fully know your reasoning.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 4: Food and drink

D Using Black Hat thinking, look at all the bad points of the decision. Look at it cautiously and
defensively. Try to see why it might not work. This is important because it highlights the weak
points in a plan. It allows you to eliminate them, alter them, or prepare contingency plans to deal
with problems that might arise. Black Hat thinking helps to make your plans ‘tougher’ and better
able to survive difficulties. It can also help you to spot fatal flaws and risks before you start on a
course of action.

E The Yellow Hat encourage you to think positively. It is the optimistic viewpoint that helps you to
see all the benefits of the decision and the value in it. Yellow Hat thinking helps you to keep going
when everything looks gloomy and difficult. The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where you
can develop creative solutions to a problem. It is an unstructured way of thinking, in which there is
little criticism of ideas. A whole range of creativity tools can help you here.

F The Blue Hat stands for process control. This is the hat worn by people chairing meetings. When
running into difficulties because ideas are running dry, they may direct activity into Green Hat
thinking. When contingency plans are needed, they will ask for Black Hat thinking, & so on.

Vocabulary required:

• underestimate (v): not realize how good, strong, determined, etc. somebody/ something really is
• resistance to (n): dislike of or opposition to a plan, an idea, etc.; refusal to obey
• confrontation (n): situation in which there is an angry disagreement between people or groups who
have different opinions
• instantaneous (adj): happening immediately
• contingency plans (n): plans for what to do if a particular event happens or does not happen
• course of action (n): a way of acting in or dealing with a particular situation
• optimistic (adj): expecting good things to happen

The passage has six paragraphs labeled A-F. Which paragraph contains the following
information?
NB You may use any letter more than once.
1. a method of thinking which discourage objections to suggestions
2. a potential disadvantage of considering a problem from only one angle
3. possible benefits of identifying negative aspects of a plan
4. how the Six Thinking Hats technique can help to prevent conflict in a meeting
5. a method of thinking where one person in a group changes the style of thinking that is required
IELTS 4.0- Unit 4: Food and drink

6. a description of decisions made using the technique

7. how to use what you already know
8. a way of making you feel more cheerful

Exercise 7. [IELTS Reading: Sentence completion] Read the passage and answer the questions.
Australia’s first commercial wind farm
It’s some years since the rotor blades began spinning in Esperance.

A Harvest time in Esperance is constant. As long as the wind blows- which is pretty much all the
time- nine identical synchronized wind turbines reap the benefits of the dependable winds that
gust up around the southern coastline of Western Australia. These sleek, white, robot-like wind
turbines loom up on the horizon forming part of Australia’s first commercial wind farm. They are
not only functional machines that help provide electricity for this secluded coastal town, but
increasingly, they are also draw cards for curious tourists and scientists alike.

B Because of is isolation, Esperance is not linked to Western Power’s grid which supplies electricity
from gas-, coal- and oil-fired power stations to the widespread population of Western Australia.
Before the wind turbines went in, Esperance’s entire electricity needs were met by the diesel
power station in town.

C The $5.8 million Ten Mile Lagoon project is not Esperance’s first wind farm. The success of a small
experimental wind farm, at a spot called Salmon Beach, encouraged State’s power utility to take
Esperance wind seriously. Today, the wind turbines at Ten Mile Lagoon work in conjunction with
the diesel power station, significantly reducing the amount of the town’s electricity generated by
expensive diesel power.

D The wind farm is connected to the power station by a 33-kilovolt powerline, and a radio link
between the two allows operators to monitor and control each wind turbine. The nine 225-kilowatt
Vestas wind turbines produce a total generating capacity of two megawatts and provide around 12
percent of the energy requirements of Esperance and its surrounding districts.

E The power produced by a wind turbine depend on the size and efficiency of the machine, and, of
course, on the energy in the wind. The energy in the wind available to the wind turbines is
IELTS 4.0- Unit 4: Food and drink

proportional to wind speed cubed. Thus, the greater the wind speed, the greater the output of the
turbine. In order to achieve optimum wind speeds, the right location is imperative. ‘You have to
accept the nature of the beast’, Mr Rosser, Western Power’s physicist, said. ‘As surface dwellers
our perceptions of wind speeds are bad. As you go higher, wind speed increases significantly’.

F The most favourable wind sites are on gently sloping hills, away from obstructions like trees and
buildings and where the prevailing winds are not blocked. Computer modeling was used to select
the optimum site for Esperance’s wind farm. Scientists were concerned not only with efficiency,
but also with protecting the coastal health environment which is rich in plant life and home to tiny
pygmy and honey-possums, and a host of bird species. In addition, the wind farm is adjacent to
Esperance’s popular scenic tourist drive.

Vocabulary required:

• synchronized (adj): made to happen at the same time or to move at the same speed
• secluded (adj): quiet and private; not used or disturbed by other people
• dweller (n): a person or an animal that lives in the particular place that is mentioned
• sloping hills (n): hills having a slanting form or direction
• adjacent to: next to or near something

Complete the sentences below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.
1. Esperance used to rely totally on __________ for energy.
2. About __________ of Esperance’s energy needs are met by the wind farm.
3. Both the ___________ of a wind turbines affect its energy output.
4&5. Wind farms should not be built near barriers to the wind, such as __________ or __________.
6. Scientists chose the best location for the wind farm at Esperance with the aid of __________.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 4: Food and drink

Exercise 8. [IELTS Reading: Sentence completion] Read the passage and answer the questions.
Public library
A The word public comes from a Latin word, publicus, meaning people. A public library is for all the
people in a community to use. It charges no fee for its services. The public library will have
available, within the limits of its budget, a wide variety of books and other materials. These books
or other materials may be borrowed, or taken out for a specific time, by anyone in the community.
The library loans its materials.

B Public libraries are usually tax-supported. There are a few that are instead supported from money
that has been donated. And there are some that receive port of their money from taxes and part
from gifts.

C Few public libraries are exactly alike. Not only are the shapes and sizes of the building different,
but also are the number of books and other materials in each. Your nearest library may be like the
Los Angeles Public Library, which has over 4,538,458 books and bound periodicals (magazines and
journals) in its collection. Or it may be like the Cherokee County Public Library, which has only
about 3,800 books in its collection.

D Libraries vary in other ways, too, for instance, in the number of hours (or days) they are open or
in the number of people who work there. Most public libraries, however, arrange their books and
other materials in similar ways. They divide their collection into two basic age groups, children and
adult. Adult books are in one place; children’s books are in another. The books are further
separated by the kind of books. Storybooks – works of fiction – are separated from information, or
fact books – nonfiction.

E People often want to refer to, that is, look something up in a certain basic information book. Thus
reference books, which are rarely read cover to cover, are put in a special place in the library, a
reference section of perhaps a reference room. Reference books are never to be taken out from
the library building.

F Each library decides for itself how it should further arrange its books and other materials. In a
large city library, certain nonfiction materials may be put into a special area or separate room. For
instance, there may be a separate room just for all the materials a library has on music. In another
IELTS 4.0- Unit 4: Food and drink

large city, the music materials might not be kept so separate. It would depend on what the people
in that city had indicated they found useful.

G A library’s holdings are everything the library has in its collection. These holdings almost always
reflect the community’s special interest. Suppose, for example, there was a town where Morgan
horses were widely raised and trained. That town’s library would most likely have a great deal of
material about Morgan horses. Since the people who were interested in Morgan horses would
probably be less interested in other breeds of horses, the library might have only a small amount of
material on Mustangs or Appaloosas.

Complete the sentences. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each
answer.
1. A public library provides free services to everyone __________.
2. People who borrow the books can keep them for ________.
3. The money used to support public libraries may come from donations, gifts, and _________.
4. The collections in most public libraries are arranged according to two age groups, ________.
5. Books that people can only read in the library are probably ________.
6. In some libraries, people may find certain nonfiction materials kept in ________.
7. From the holdings a library has, we can see if the community has any ________.

Exercise 9. [IELTS Reading: Sentence completion] Read the passage and answer the questions.
Return to the Trail of Tears
It’s easy to miss this subtle groove, covered in pine straw and vines, worn in the ground of eastern
Tennessee. In the summer of 1838, about 13,000 Cherokee walked this path from their homes in
the Appalachian Mountains to a new, government-mandated homeland in Oklahoma. They
travelled over land and water and were held in military camps along the way. Unlike other settlers
heading west, who saw in America’s open expanses the hope of a new life, the Cherokee travelled
with a military escort. They left behind highly coveted land that was, even as they walked, being
divided up among white land speculators.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 4: Food and drink

The Trail of Tears was a journey of some 900 miles that took approximately nine months to
complete. After they were rounded up from their villages and homes, the Cherokee were
assembled in large internment camps, where some waited for weeks before heading out in waves
of approximately 1,000, following different paths, depending on the season.

As many as 4,000 died along the way from dehydration, tuberculosis, whooping cough, and other
hardships- by some accounts, a dozen or more were buried at each stop. Some escaped along the
way and were caught and returned to the march-like criminals. Still, others refused to leave, hiding
out in the mountains, joining others on small farms where, stripped of tribal connections and
burdened with unclear legal status, they faced an uncertain future.

Despite all our historical knowledge of the forced removal, there has been little study of the
archaeology of the trail, the internment camps along the way, and the farms that sheltered those
who stayed behind. The military forts that held the Cherokee in crowded, unsanitary conditions
have been largely consumed by development or otherwise lost. The homesteads back East, where
resistors lived under constant threat of arrest, went undocumented. Buildings, roads, farms, and
floods have claimed almost all of these sites. In addition to a lack of material evidence, there has
long been an uneasy, even contentious, relationship between Native Americans and archaeologists.
Through neglect and distrust, this sad chapter has been at risk of fading from collective memory,
taking with it any chance to understand the relationships between refugees and soldiers, and
cultural information about the Cherokee themselves—what they carried, how they travelled, why
they died.

That now stands to change. In eastern Tennessee, archaeologists are excavating the site of Fort
Armistead, a U.S. Army encampment that served as a holding area and one of the first stops for
North Carolina Cherokee on their forced journey west. Hidden deep in Cherokee National Forest,
the site has managed to escape the damage or destruction that has visited nearly every other
significant trace of the trail and camps.

Vocabulary required:

• groove (n): a long narrow cut in the surface of something hard

• government-mandated (adj): placed under the rule of the government
IELTS 4.0- Unit 4: Food and drink

• escort (n): a person or group of people that travels with somebody/something in order to protect or
guard them
• dehydration (n): the condition of having lost too much water from your body
• tuberculosis (n): a serious infectious disease in which swellings appear on the lungs and other parts
of the body (bệnh lao)
• unsanitary (adj): dirty and likely to spread disease
• refugee (n): a person who has been forced to leave their country or home, because there is a war or
for political, religious or social reasons
• encampment (n): a group of tents, huts, etc. where people live together, usually for only a short
period of time

Complete the sentences below. Write ONLY ONE WORD from the passage for each answer.

1. Cherokee left the land that was being _________ up among white land speculators.

2. Caught Cherokee were returned like ________.

3. The relations between Native Americans and _________ were uneasy.

4. The archaeologists are now __________ the site of Fort Armistead in eastern Tennessee.

Exercise 10. [IELTS Listening: Matching] Listen to the conversation. Which activity (A–E) do the
students need to complete at each location? Write the correct letter (A-G) next to the locations
(1-5).

A do an interview
1 Information centre _____ B watch a short film
2 The space travel building ____ C do a quiz
3 Trains and Travel room ____ D listen to a recording
4 Central Hall ____ E learn to use some equipment
5 ‘Going Second Class’ room ____ F meet their tour guide
G collect their timetable

Exercise 11. [Identify distractors- paraphrase] Read the extracts from the conversation in Exercise
10 and look at the underlined phrases.
Decide if the underlined phrases are essential information (E- that leads to the correct answer) or
distracting information (D- that links to the distractors). Pay attention to how the information is
paraphrased.
IELTS 4.0- Unit 4: Food and drink

Correct answer A do an interview

B watch a short film

Distractors
D listen to the recording

Denise: Well, I think that on a Tuesday – that’s the day we’re going – some people who used to
work as engineers for the railway line come and spend a few hours at the museum talking to
people. So I think the idea is that we (a) prepare a list of questions for them and talk to them and
find out about their lives and the job they used to do.
John: That’s great. (b) Do you think we'll be allowed to film them? The engineers I mean? (c) I could
record them on my phone and we could listen to it later – maybe even play it back to the class!
Denise: That's a good idea, but I don’t know if we can do that. I'll email the museum later and try to
find out.

Correct answer C do a quiz

Distractors B watch a short film

Denise: OK, so what other activities do we have to complete?

John: Well, we have to visit the Space Travel building, right?
Denise: Yes, I’m looking forward to seeing some of the engine designs. (a) I saw a great
documentary on TV recently about how engine design has really progressed over the last 30 years
and it really got me interested.
John: OK, that sounds cool. (b) Anyway, I think that what we have to do is pick up a worksheet from
the tour guide and answer a lot of questions about the different engines and the space missions
they were used for.
3

Correct answer A meet their tour guide

Distractor C collect their timetable

Denise: Great. That’ll be interesting, I expect. Now, what activity did our tutor say we had to
complete when we arrived at the Information Centre at the museum?
IELTS 4.0- Unit 4: Food and drink

John: (a) Well, we’ve already got our timetables for the whole visit, so we don’t need to pick those
up.
Denise: (b) Oh, I remember – we’re supposed to introduce ourselves to someone from the
museum – the person who’s going to show us around the museum later on and talk to us about
some of the exhibits.
John: You’re right. That’s it. OK, well, we’d better do that first.

Exercise 12. [IELTS Listening: Matching] Classify the university courses named in the table which
are likely to:

A disappear in the near future

B see reduced numbers of students
C continue to be important for many years
Name of course Future security

architecture 1____________

medicine 2____________

computer programming 3____________

fashion 4____________

creative writing 5____________

Exercise 13. [IELTS Listening: Matching]

What office equipment do the speakers say will help with the following options?

A sleeping better
B being more creative
C feeling happy at work
Write the correct letter A, B, or C next to the questions. You may choose any letter more than
once.

1. yellow ________ 4 large windows ________

2 picture ________ 5 soft lighting ________

3 plants ________
IELTS 4.0- Unit 4: Food and drink

Exercise 14. [IELTS Listening: Matching]

Exercise 15. [IELTS Listening: Matching] Listen and match

Question 37-40
Write the correct letter A, B, or C next to questions 37-40.
Where are the following places located?
37. The Globe
38. Henley Street
39. Ann Hathaway’s cottage
40. Holy Trinity Church

A. is in the center of Stratford-upon-Avon

B. is close to Stratford-upon-Avon

C. is far from Stratford-upon-Avon

IELTS 4.5- Unit 5: Consumerism

Full name:.................................

Lesson 1 Topic: Consumerism WID: IELTS4.5_1_R

IELTS Reading skills QR code:
- Grammar Future Tenses (optional)
Skills - Paraphrase ……pts/10
- Main and supporting ideas in reading
- Matching headings

Exercise 1. [Main and supporting ideas] Match the main ideas with the sentences from Paragraphs
A–H.
Final sentence of Paragraph A: ‘… It was also necessary for landowners to know their family
background – so they could prove that a large castle or manor house really belonged to them, and
not to another person further along a branch of the family tree who wanted it for themselves.’
First sentence of Paragraph B: ‘An interest in knowing who your ancestors were and what they did
is, of course, something which is common in all cultures.’
First sentence of Paragraph C: ‘While some people are still interested in family trees as a way of
making sure they can receive money or valuable items from a great-uncle or great-great
grandparent, others have different motivations.’
First sentence of Paragraph D: ‘Part of what makes family-tree research so fascinating is the sense
of uncovering a mystery as you find more clues – just like a detective would.’
First sentence of Paragraph E: ‘Before the age of the internet, if you wanted to find out about your
family history, you would have needed to travel to different locations.’
First sentence of Paragraph F: ‘Researching your family tree has now become an ever more popular
activity, partly for the reason that it has become much easier, faster and more convenient.’
First sentence of Paragraph G: ‘Despite the advances of modern technology, it can still be a
challenge to find your distant ancestors.’
Final sentence of Paragraph H: ‘… Rather than writing out the family tree in a book in the
traditional way, they record stories, images and voices using audio and video recordings for their
descendants to see one day.’

Paragraph A ______ 1. a description of how people feel about ancestry

Paragraph B ______ 2. a method of storing information about ancestry
IELTS 4.5- Unit 5: Consumerism

Paragraph C ______ 3. a reason why people enjoy researching their family history
Paragraph D ______ 4. a reason why people needed to know their ancestry in the past
Paragraph E ______ 5. different reasons why people might be interested in ancestry
Paragraph F ______ 6. problems in learning about ancestry
Paragraph G ______ 7. reasons why more people are learning about ancestry now
Paragraph H ______ 8. a method of learning about ancestry

Exercise 2. [Main and supporting ideas] Read the text and answer the questions.
A. Read paragraph 1 of the passage on the next page. Underline the sentence that best describes
the main idea. Circle at least one supporting idea in the paragraph.
B. Skim the rest of the passage, then read the following sentences. Choose the sentence that best
describes the main idea of each paragraph.
Paragraph 2
a. Multiple-choice style tests are not very effective.
b. Tests are easy to grade but the scores might not be useful.
Paragraph 3
a. Reformers say that other assessment methods are better than tests.
b. Group interviews and portfolios are two ways to assess a person’s abilities.
Paragraph 4
a. Some schools do not focus on giving tests to their students.
b. Students can learn from other students as well their teachers.
Paragraph 5
a. New test methods will continue to develop.
b. There is no one best way to test learners.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 5: Consumerism
IELTS 4.5- Unit 5: Consumerism

Exercise 3. [IELTS Reading: Paraphrasing] Paraphrase each sentence. There may be more than one
way to rewrite each one. Remember to change vocabulary, phrases and sentence structure
wherever you can.
1. Despite their massive size, elephants are known for being agile.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
2. Because elephants consume up to 500 pounds of food a day, they are able to strip a forest bare
in no time.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
3. Over the centuries, lions have been used in art to represent power and magnificence.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
4. Lions are social animals with one dominant male in each pride.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
5. George Washington Carver was a dedicated teacher, in addition, he was known as a talent artist,
musician, and researcher who made valuable contributions to his people and his country.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
6. Archibald McLeish, known for his poetry, was appointed head of the library of congress by
President Roosevelt in 1939.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Exercise 4. [IELTS Reading: Paraphrasing] Match the words highlighted in yellow in the text with
the synonyms/ paraphrases below, then check your answers.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 5: Consumerism

• through
• amounts
• competitors
• the way of living
• kept it under wraps
• buy their stock of

Exercise 5. [IELTS Reading: Paraphrasing] Read the text. Fill in the gaps with synonyms.

Ancient Egyptian Powder

Crime scene investigators are about to get an assist from the land of the Pharaohs. New research
has shown that a pigment called Egyptian blue, formulated from 5,250 years ago, can be used as
dusting powder to detect fingerprints on complicated surfaces. The earliest known synthetic
pigment, Egyptian blue is found in some of the paint that still colours ancient statues, coffins, and
tomb walls. Modern scientists were intrigued by this long-lasting tint and figured out its chemical
components decades ago. More recently, they discovered that it emits near-infrared radiation when
exposed to a certain kind of light.

Below is a summary of the passage above. Fill in the gaps using the word list given below. Make sure
the summary is grammatically correct when you insert the word.

Choose words to fill in the gaps. The meaning should be the same as the original paragraph.

make identify observe revealed about particular

names found using creates known as over

The pigment (1)_________ Egyptian blue, which was formulated (2)_________ 5,250 years ago, can
now be used to (3)_________ finger prints on complicated surfaces. This pigment was used in
painting of statues and tomb wall reliefs in Ancient Egypt. However, it has now been (4)_______
that, when it is exposed to a (5)_________ light, it emits near-infrared radiation.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 5: Consumerism

Exercise 6. [IELTS Reading: Matching headings] Read the paragraphs in the passage below one by
one to choose the correct headings.

A. There are no easy answers to the problems of traffic congestion. Traffic congestion affects people
throughout the world. Traffic jams cause smog in dozens of cities across both the developed and
developing world.

In the U.S., commuters spend an average of a full work week each year sitting in traffic, according to
the Texas Transportation Institute. While alternative ways of getting around are available, most
people still choose their cars because they are looking for convenience, comfort and privacy.

B. The most promising technique for reducing city traffic is called congestion pricing, whereby cities
charge a toll to enter certain parts of town at certain times of day.

In theory, if the toll is high enough, some drivers will cancel their trips or go by bus or train. And in
practice it seems to work: Singapore, London and Stockholm have reduced traffic and pollution in
city centers thanks to congestion pricing.

C. Another way to reduce rush hour traffic is for employers to implement flexitime, which lets
employees travel to and from work at off-peak traffic times to avoid the rush hour.

Those who have to travel during busy times can do their part by sharing cars. Employers can also
allow more staff to telecommute (work from home) so as to keep more cars off the road altogether.

List of Headings

i A solution which is no solution

ii Changing working practices

1. Paragraph A _________
iii Closing city centres to traffic
2. Paragraph B _________
iv Making cars more environmentally friendly
3. Paragraph C _________
v Not doing enough

vi Paying to get in

vii A global problem

IELTS 4.5- Unit 5: Consumerism

Exercise 7. [IELTS Reading: Matching headings] Read the information. Then skim the paragraph
and choose the correct heading.
Paragraph A
Up until relatively recently, English school children were often obliged to learn the names of the
kings and queens that ruled the country from the 8th century to the 18th, and understand how they
were related. This was no easy task. Sometimes a king would pass his kingdom to his son, but very
often it would be a much more distant relative that took over. To become king, you would have to
show you had royal blood in the family tree, and to do this, you would need to know exactly who all
your ancestors were. It was also necessary for landowners to know their family background – so
they could prove that a large castle or manor house really belonged to them, and not to another
person further along a branch of the family tree who wanted it for themselves.
Paragraph B
An interest in knowing who your ancestors were and what they did is, of course, something which is
common in all cultures. Not all cultures, however, have a phrase which translates as family tree for
when they want to describe earlier generations of the same family. We use this particular phrase
because it was traditional in the past in some countries to put the oldest generations at the top of a
drawing and the youngest generation at the bottom – sometimes just the child of a recently married
couple. This meant the image would be wider at the top and narrower at the bottom – just like a
tree.
Paragraph C
While some people are still interested in family trees as a way of making sure they can receive
money or valuable items from a great-uncle or great-great grandparent, others have different
motivations. Some people choose to research their family tree because they are simply curious
about their origins. Or perhaps they have heard an unusual story about an ancestor and wish to
discover the truth. They may even have a more serious and useful purpose, for example wanting to
find out about a medical condition which runs in the family.
Paragraph D
Part of what makes family-tree research so fascinating is the sense of uncovering a mystery as you
find more clues – just like a detective would. This kind of process was shown in the hugely popular
programme ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’, which featured well-known TV personalities exploring
their family origins. The show’s researchers often found surprising information. One person,
interviewer Jeremy Paxman, was disinterested at first. He believed it was more important to be
‘forward-looking’ – and think about the future rather than the past. Then he learnt that his great-
grandmother had managed to raise nine children by herself after her husband died, even though
IELTS 4.5- Unit 5: Consumerism

she was extremely poor. He soon wanted to know more. Certainly this kind of programme has
encouraged people to look for their own ancestors.
Paragraph E
Before the age of the internet, if you wanted to find out about your family history, you would have
needed to travel to different locations. People used to visit churches to look at their records, for
example of the names of people who were born and died in the area. Another way to investigate
family history would be to look through old newspapers that were stored in the basements of
libraries, or to search through birth and marriage certificates at the local town-council building. Not
all of these visits, of course, would be successful. You needed to be very patient and have a lot of
spare time to find out about your past.
Choose the correct heading for Paragraph A-E from the list of headings (i-vi) below.

i. Practical and personal reasons for finding out about ancestors

1. Paragraph A ______ ii. The appeal of making unexpected discoveries
2. Paragraph B ______ iii. The problems people face in carrying out family-tree research
3. Paragraph C ______ iv. Why we use ‘family tree’ to refer to our family background
4. Paragraph D ______ v. Traditional ways of researching family tree
5. Paragraph E ______ vi. How knowing your family tree could bring power and property
vii. Creating family tree for future generations

Exercise 8. [IELTS Reading: Matching headings] Read the passage and match the headings with
paragraphs.

Why reading online may be slowing your brain down

A If the person reading this article were reading online, I would need to keep things brief. A lot of
you would have left already. For every 150 ‘readers’ who open an article on the internet, one in
three of them will leave within seconds. Of the 100 who stay, only 95 will be able to concentrate
and look beyond the photograph and headline on the top. Even fewer will get to even the middle of
the article. Put simply, only a very small number of people actually read articles on the web.

B Not being able to stay focused is a problem. Deeper levels of thinking and understanding may be
something we are losing now much of our reading is going online. A.V. Kak found in one study that
people were able to remember more information from an article that they read on paper, that a
similar group who read the same article online. Imagine the effect of this on a medical student who
IELTS 4.5- Unit 5: Consumerism

only studies papers online. Surfing the internet may seem like an efficient way of reading, but
getting the physical text out of the library means you’re less likely to forget.

C Even more dispiriting is the way these poor understandings are being passed on to others.
Evidence suggests that people are creating links to articles they have not fully read, and even adding
comments before getting to the end. Josh Scharts, a data expert, studies the reading styles of
people online. Data was not available on the exact moment when a person stopped reading and
then left a recommendation. However, his research suggests that the overall number of comments
and the number of people who scrolled down to the end of the article did not match. This suggests
that there is a very loose relationship between reading to the end and commenting. Commenting
without reading everything only creates more and more misinformation.
D Studies of the brain have suggested that we should be more concerned about this than we are.
Michael Merzenich has long argued against the argument that the brain is formed in the early years
of childhood, then remains stable. Many believed that, once damaged, parts of the brain would
never recover again. In fact, the brain is constantly changing and re-organizing itself, losing the
connections that it does not need. As people spend less time thinking for longer periods of time,
their brains react by re-writing, deleting the bits associated with careful thought, making it much
harder in the future to think hard about issues.

E Many have argued that this is nothing new. People have always started novels and not finished
them. Even films, which require a relatively short commitment of only an hour or so of our time, are
sometimes unable to keep our attention to the end. However, Alvin Toffler argued that the amount
of free information that is thrown at us every day is different from anything that came before. We
now have so much choice that many people refuse to waste their time on anything unless
something is truly fascinating.

F The problem is even worse when you consider the kind of things we read online. Unfortunately,
just as our bodies are programmed to want to eat fats and sugars, things which we know are not
good for us, our brains prefer to read things that are shocking, such as gossiping, describing the
embarrassment of others or just looking at attractive people. In other words, we read things we
know we should not. Some experts have referred to this as ‘psychological obesity’.

G Editors of respectful newspapers are aware that this kind of content is popular, but they put
important news stories on the front cover anyway. They know that unpleasant stories, such as the
events in war-torn areas, or poverty, matter and people should know about things beyond their
daily lives. Online news sites only recommend articles on things we have shown an interest in
before. In other words, that Nicholas Negroponte called the “The Daily Me”, bringing personalized
content, also means that you miss being introduced to new concepts. With modern online news
IELTS 4.5- Unit 5: Consumerism

providers, you could exist quite happily even knowing what is happening outside of your personal
interests.

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B-G from the list of headings below. Write the correct
number, i-ix.

List of headings

i Sharing half-understood ideas

ii An old situation that’s now more intense
E.g. Paragraph A iv
iii Too much knowledge can be bad
1. Paragraph B ______
iv Statistics showing how people read
2. Paragraph C ______
v Pleasure in unhealthy content
3. Paragraph D ______
vi Longer-lasting memories from books
4. Paragraph E ______
vii Increased capacity for critical thought
5. Paragraph F ______
viii Living in a word of your own
6. Paragraph G ______
ix Only reading the reviews
x A biological response to habits
IELTS 4.5- Unit 5: Consumerism

Full name:.................................

Lesson 2 Topic: Consumerism WID: IELTS4.5_2_L

IELTS Listening skills: QR code:
- Multiple choice questions
……pts/10
- Identify "distractors"
- Recognise paraphrase and synonyms

Exercise 1. [IELTS Listening: Identify distractors] Read the information. Then read the three
extracts from the recording. Each extract matches one of the incorrect options (the distractors), A,
D and E.
Which TWO people are taking part in the conversation about the new library?
A an architect
B a member of the library
C a library assistant
D a computer specialist
E a local journalist
Extract 1: ‘We’ve got a lot more screens here for people to use. But people also bring in their own
laptops and tablets and things so they can do some work or study and use the wi-fi.’
Extract 2: ‘Yes, we’re very pleased with the design. It’s a lot more open and we have a good view of
the park outside now.’
Extract 3: ‘But I was having a look at the local newspaper and I saw that the new library had finally
been opened.’
Match the extract (1-3) with the distractor and explanation.
1_________ matches the distractor in option A and is incorrect because the speaker only says that
she likes the design. She doesn’t say that she planned it.
2_________ matches the distractor in option D and is incorrect because the speaker only describes
the kind of computer equipment that the library has. She doesn’t say that she knows a lot about
computers.
3_________ matches the distractor in option E and is incorrect because the speaker read some
information in the local newspaper. He doesn’t say that his job is to write articles for it.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 5: Consumerism

Exercise 2. [IELTS Listening: Multiple choice questions] Listen and choose the correct answer.
1. The volunteer program relates to ____.
A. all kinds of turtles B. only Olive Ridley turtles C. various kinds of turtles
2. Volunteers can join the program for____.
A. as long as they want B. no more than 12 weeks C. one week
3. Accommodation is ____
A. luxury with a local family.
B. with a local family in the best house.
C. basic with a local family.
4. Volunteers must be ____
A. individuals of 18 years old.
B. individuals or groups with experience.
C. over the age of 18 but do not need experience.
5. Volunteers will ____
A. clear the beach of rubbish.
B. relocate baby turtles.
C. help adult turtles move along the beach.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 5: Consumerism

Exercise 3. [IELTS Listening: Multiple choice questions] Listen and choose the correct answer.
1. Don Norman says good-looking objects___
A. cause a reduction in feelings of anxiety.
B. remind us of attractive things in our lives.
C. are the result of a simple design.
2. To lower our stress levels, the speaker suggests___
A. looking around more.
B. buying new items.
C. living in the countryside.
3. According to the speaker, we can experience beauty by___
A. growing things in our gardens.
B. simplifying our home environment.
C. using all five of our senses.
4. The speaker recommends taking ‘a mental vacation’ by___
A. bringing the natural world indoors.
B. looking for beauty in unattractive places.
C. searching for attractive photos online.
5. Evelyn Underhill suggests that___
A. we fail to notice the beauty around us.
B. more research on beauty is needed.
C. beauty is less important in modern life.

Exercise 4. [IELTS Listening: Multiple choice questions] Listen and choose the correct answer.
1. Which method of communication is often forgotten?
A. online messaging B. body language C. discussions
2. The speaker is positive that the audience has
A. shown similar behavior to an animal.
B. been in a position of power in their career.
C. seen certain body language on television.
3. The speaker believes that job interviewees
A. would prefer to appear small.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 5: Consumerism

B. usually sit high up straight in their seat.

C. reflect the body language of the interviewer.
4. People who produce less cortisol feel
A. successful B. relaxed C. depressed
5. The speaker suggests that each morning, people
A. try to achieve an ambition.
B. do a task more effectively.
C. stand in a particular way.
6. Some participants were left out of the Columbia research findings because
A. they did not complete the activity.
B. they did not understand what to do.
C. they refused to do what they were told.

Exercise 5. [IELTS Listening: Multiple choice questions] Listen and choose the correct answer.
21. One reason why Spiros felt happy about his marketing presentation was that
A. he was not nervous.
B. his style was good.
C. the presentation was the best in his group,
22. What surprised Hiroko about the other students’ presentations?
A. Their presentations were not interesting.
B. They found their presentations stressful.
C. They didn’t look at the audience enough.
23. After she gave her presentation, Hiroko felt
A. delighted. B. dissatisfied. C. embarrassed.
24. How does Spiros feel about his performance in tutorials?
A not very happy B really pleased C fairly confident
25. Why can the other students participate so easily in discussions?
A. They are polite to each other.
B. They agree to take turns in speaking.
C. They know each other well.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 5: Consumerism

26. Why is Hiroko feeling more positive about tutorials now?

A. She finds the other students’ opinions more interesting.
B. She is making more of a contribution.
C. The tutor includes her in the discussion.
27. To help her understand lectures, Hiroko
A. consulted reference materials.
B. had extra tutorials with her lecturers.
C. borrowed lecture notes from other students.
28. What does Spiros think of his reading skills?
A. He reads faster than he used to.
B. It still takes him a long time to read.
C .He tends to struggle with new vocabulary.
29. What is Hiroko s subject area?
A. environmental studies B. health education C. engineering
30. Hiroko thinks that in the reading classes the students should
A. learn more vocabulary.
B. read more in their own subject areas.
C. develop better reading strategies.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 6: Leisure time

Full name:.................................
Lesson 5 Topic: Leisure time WID: IELTS4.5_05_R
QR code:
IELTS Reading
- scan a text to find information quickly ...... pts/10
Skills
- answer True/False/Not Given questions
- complete a summary of a text (Summary completion)
Grammar Focus: Comparatives

Exercise 1. [Grammar: Comparatives] Complete each sentence with the comparative form.
The words in parentheses are adjectives or adverbs.
1. She is ____________ I am. (old)
2. These shoes are ____________ those shoes. (expensive)
3. I think this pizza tastes ____________ the one we ordered from them the last time. (good)
4. The weather today is ____________ it was yesterday. (bad)
5. Jorge got home much ____________ last night ____________ he ever has. (late)
6. The state of Minnesota is a lot ____________ the state of Delaware. (big)
7. I wake up much ____________ noww ____________ I did when I was younger. (early)
8. The sun is ____________ away from the earth ____________ the moon. (far)
9. Spanish is an ____________ language to learn ____________ English.
10. Riding a motorcycle is ____________ riding a bike. (dangerous)

Exercise 2. [Grammar: Comparatives] Choose the word or phrase that best completes the
sentence.
1. According to a recent survey, young and inexperienced drivers are the ____________ to have
an accident.
A. likely B. more likely C. likelier D. most likely
2. Many people believe traditional education is ____________ than online education.
A. effective B. most effective C. the most effective D. more effective
3. A tiger is as ____________ as a lion.
A. more dangerous C. most dangerous C. so dangerous D. dangerous
IELTS 4.5- Unit 6: Leisure time

4. The paper of a dollar bill is ____________ than a regular sheet of paper.

A. thicker B. more thick C. thickest D. as thick
5. My laptop is kind of big. Yours is much ____________.
A. small B. smallest C. as small D. smaller

Exercise 3.[IELTS Reading: Synonyms and paraphrases] Read the information. Then read the
statements 1–7. Match the synonyms and paraphrases in the box with the bold words and
phrases in the statements.

dangerous event great is now acceptable

outsiders realise what the challenges were work hard for

1. Most photographers understand how hard it was to take photographs in the 19th century.

2. Some of the chemicals that Du Camp used for his photography were unsafe.

3. There is a lot of luck involved in taking really good photographs.

4. It’s usually photographs that require a lot of effort that professional photographers are most
pleased with.

5. All Souls Day in the Philippines is an older festival than the Day of the Dead inMexico.

6. Mexican locals are happy for foreigners to attend Day of the Deadcelebrations.

7. It has become common for some native American groups to photograph important
ceremonies.

Exercise 4. [IELTS Reading: Scanning] Read the paragraph carefully. Which four ideas (from A
– G) are found in the text?
One question that people often ask is whether it’s possible to make a reasonable living in the
travel photography industry today. Gone are the easy days when photographers simply shot
photos for magazines and newspapers, sent them to an editor and got paid at the end of every
month: these forms of media now usually buy photos for their stories directly from companies
that store millions of them. As a result, photographers now need to be more flexible about the
kind of projects they work on. One way to do this is by working for big businesses. In the past,
photographers often decided where they would like to go, and could perhaps experiment more
with the kinds of photographs they took. However, working for a big business often means that
you are sent where the company wants you to go; perhaps to a beach or a mountain if they
want to promote these as tourist destinations. The desert is another popular place: many car
IELTS 4.5- Unit 6: Leisure time

companies like to shoot this kind of background to advertise their new vehicles. Of course,
nowadays this kind of well-paid work opportunity is very popular, so a huge number of
photographers will all apply for the same job; a situation which you didn’t see so much in the
past. Nevertheless, in my experience, whether photographers are amateurs or professionals,
there is a generally positive feeling between them: they are supportive of each other and
willing to share advice about work opportunities and the risks that travelling to foreign
destinations sometimes involves.
A. Some photographers like to take photographs of serious subjects while others like to take
amusing ones.
B. The typical career of a photographer is not the same today as it was in the past.
C. Newspapers no longer buy so many photographs from individual photographers.
D. Big businesses sometimes use photographers to take pictures of their products or services.
E. The internet has made it much easier to see the work of many photographers.
F. There are a huge number of training courses if people want to study photography.
G. Photographers talk to each other about their experiences and provide useful information.

Exercise 5. [IELTS Reading: True/False/ Not given] Read the passage and answer the
questions.
The greatest of Victorian engineers
A. In the hundred years up to 1860, the work of a small group of construction engineers carried
forward the enormous social and economic change that we associate with the Industrial
revolution in Britain. The most important of these engineers was Isambard Kingdom Brunel,
whose work in shipping, bridge-building and railway construction, to name just three fields,
both challenged and motivated his colleagues. He was the driving force behind a number of
hugely ambitious projects, some of which resulted in works which are still in use today.
B. The son of an engineer, Brunel apprenticed with his father at an early age on the building of
the Thames Tunnel. At the age of just twenty, he became the engineer in charge of the project.
This impressive plan to bore under the Thames twice suffered major disasters when the river
broke through into the tunnel. When the second breach occurred in 1827, Brunel was seriously
injured during rescue operations and further work was halted.
C While recovering from his injuries, Brunel entered a design competition for a new bridge over
the Avon Gorge near Clifton, Bristol. The original judge of the competition was Thomas Telford,
a leading civil engineer of his day, who rejected all entries to the competition in favour of his
own design. After considerable scandal, a second contest was held and Brunel’s design was
accepted. For reasons of funding, however, exacerbated by social unrest in Bristol, the project
IELTS 4.5- Unit 6: Leisure time

was abandoned in 1843 with only the towers completed. After Brunel’s death, it was decided to
begin work on it again, partly so that the bridge could form a fitting memorial to the great
engineer. Work was finally completed in 1864. Today, the well known Clifton Suspension Bridge
is a symbol of Bristol, just as the Opera House is of Sydney. Originally intended only for horse-
drawn traffic, the bridge now bears over four million motor vehicles a year.
Questions 1-7
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage?
Write: TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
1. Brunel was less important than the other construction engineers in Britain during the
Industrial Revolution.
2. Brunel was less involved in railway construction than other engineering fields.
3. Brunel worked only on shipping, bridge-building and railway construction.
4. Brunel’s work was largely ignored by his colleagues.
5. All projects Brunel contributed to are still used today.
6. Brunel became an apprentice with his father at the same age as other engineers.
7. The Thames Tunnel Project was more difficult than any previous construction venture
undertaken in Britain.

Exercise 6. [IELTS Reading: True/ False/ Not given] Read the passage and answer the
questions.
Deforestation and desertification
A The Sahel zone lies between the Sahara desert and the fertile savannahs of northern Nigeria
and southern Sudan. The word sahel comes from Arabic and means marginal or transitional,
and this is a good description of these semi-arid lands, which occupy much of the West African
countries of Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad.
B Unfortunately, over the last century the Sahara desert has steadily crept southwards eating
into once productive Sahel lands. United Nations surveys show that over 70 per cent of the dry
land in agricultural use in Africa has deteriorated over the last 30 years. Droughts have become
more prolonged and more severe, the most recent lasting over twenty years in parts of the
Sahel region. The same process of desertification is taking place across southern Africa as the
Kalahari desert advances into Botswana and parts of South Africa.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 6: Leisure time

C One of the major causes of this desert advance is poor agricultural land use, driven by the
pressures of increasing population. Overgrazing-keeping too many farm animals on the land-
means that grasses and other plants cannot recover, and scarce water supplies are exhausted.
Overcultivation-trying to grow too many crops on poor land- results in the soil becoming even
less fertile and drier, and beginning to break up. Soil erosion follows, and the land turns into
desert.
D Another cause of desertification is loss of tree cover. Trees are cut down for use as fuel and
to clear land for agricultural use. Tree roots help to bind the soil together, to conserve
moisture, and to provide a habitat for other plants and animals. When trees are cut down, the
soil begins to dry and loosen, wind and rain erosion increase, other plant species die, and
eventually the fertile topsoil may be almost entirely lost, leaving only bare rock and dust.
E The effects of loss of topsoil and increased drought are irreversible. They are, however,
preventable. Careful conservation of tree cover and sustainable agricultural land use have been
shown to halt deterioration of soils and lessen the effects of shortage of rainfall. One project in
Kita in south-west Mali funded by the UNDP has involved local communities in sustainable
management of forest, while at the same time providing a viable agricultural economy based
on the production of soaps, beekeeping, and marketing shea nuts. This may be a model for
similar projects in other West African countries.
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage?
Write: TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
1. The Sahara has spread slowly northwards into the Sahel region.
2. Just over 70 per cent of the dry land in agricultural use in Africa has deteriorated over the last
30 years.
3. Desertification is taking place faster in southern Africa than in the Sahel.
4. The advance of the desert is not the result of poor agricultural land use.
5. The loss of tree cover is a minor cause of desertification.
6. If there is a loss of tree cover, the deterioration in the soil is halted.
7. Tree conservation is more effective than sustainable agricultural land use in reducing the
consequences of lack in rain.
Exercise 7. [IELTS Reading: Summary completion] Read the final paragraph of the text again.
Then choose the correct words or phrases to complete the summary.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 6: Leisure time

One question that people often ask is whether it’s possible to make a reasonable living in the
travel photography industry today. Gone are the easy days when photographers simply shot
photos for magazines and newspapers, sent them to an editor and got paid at the end of every
month: these forms of media now usually buy photos for their stories directly from companies
that store millions of them. As a result, photographers now need to be more flexible about the
kind of projects they work on. One way to do this is by working for big businesses. In the past,
photographers often decided where they would like to go, and could perhaps experiment more
with the kinds of photographs they took. However, working for a big business often means that
you are sent where the company wants you to go; perhaps to a beach or a mountain if they
want to promote these as tourist destinations. The desert is another popular place: many car
companies like to shoot this kind of background to advertise their new vehicles. Of course,
nowadays this kind of well-paid work opportunity is very popular, so a huge number of
photographers will all apply for the same job; a situation which you didn’t see so much in the
past. Nevertheless, in my experience, whether photographers are amateurs or professionals,
there is a generally positive feeling between them: they are supportive of each other and
willing to share advice about work opportunities and the risks that travelling to foreign
destinations sometimes involves.
Summary:
Nowadays photographers no longer receive (regular income/ exhibitions) from the work they
do, and they need to look for different kinds of project. One option is to get a job with a large
company and take photographs for (marketing purposes/ public interest). A job like this is
attractive to many photographers, and there is (great competition/ new ideas) between them.
However, it is also true that in general, photographers form (work experience/ good
relationships) with each other, no matter whether they take photos for fun or as a career.

Exercise 8. [IELTS Reading: Summary completion] Read the passage and complete the
summary.
Fermented foods
Fermentation is a process in which an agent (typically bacteria and yeast) cause an organic
substance to break down into simpler substances; especially, the anaerobic (no oxygen)
breakdown of suger into alcohol, i.e. the making of beer or wine.
Fermentation in food processing is the conversion of carbohydrates (plant foods) to alcohols
and carbon dioxide, or organic acids, using yeasts, bacteria, or a combination thereof, under
anaerobic (no oxygen) conditions. Fermentation usually implies that the action of
microorganisms is desirable, and the process is used to produce alcoholic beverages such as
IELTS 4.5- Unit 6: Leisure time

wine, beer, and cider. Fermentation is also employed in the leavening of bread, and food
preservation techniques to create lactic acid in sour foods such as sauerkraut, dry sausages,
kimchi and yogurt, or vinegar (acetic acid) for use in pickling foods.
Nobel Prize winner Dr. Elie Metchnikoff was one of the first scientsts to recognise the benefits
of earing fermented foods. His research in the early 1900’s focused on the Bulgarians. He
belived the daily ingestion of yogurt was a major contribution to their superior health and
longevity.
Bulgarians perfected the art of detoxifying and preserving milk (removing the lactose and
predigesting the proteins) and transforming it into yogurt and cheese. For centuries, European
used wine as a source of clean, durable water. The Caucasians used Kefir grains for the same
purpose: detoxify milk products to make Kefir. Vegetables were also fermented to preserve
them from spoilage, such as kimchi in Korea. Most of the picked products found on our grocery
shelves were at one time a fermented product: pickes, saurkraut, and even catsup (a Chinese
word for picked fish brine). However, since fermentation isn’t always a uniform process,
manufacturers found another way to make these products.
Complete the summary using the list of words (A-J) below. Write the correct letter on your
answer sheet, in boxes 1-6.
International Uses for Fermentation
At the start of the 20th century, Dr. Elie Metchnikoff put forward his belief that the (1)____________ and
good health of Bulgarians could be attributed to eating fermented food each day. By (2)____________
and preserving milk, they were able to convert it into (3)____________ and (4)____________. In other
parts of Europe, fermented (5)____________ was consumed as a replacement for clean water. Some
(6)____________ were fermeted which gave them a longer lifespan but nowadays this is done by
pickling.

A. ingesting B. yoghurt C. longevity D. picked products E. wine

F. food G. kimchi H. cheese I. detoxifying J. vegetables

http://ieltsliz.com/food-ielts-summary-reading-practice/
IELTS 4.5- Unit 6: Leisure time

Exercise 9. [IELTS Reading: Summary completion] Read the passage and complete the
summary.
The future of food
Studies suggest that, over the next 25 years or so, the population of the world will grow by
more than 25 percent. This means that there will be 9 billion people on earth by then. We must,
therefore, change the systems we use to produce food or it will not be possible to feed a
population of this size.
With this in mind, business people and governments are investing in a range of unusual new
ways of producing food. Some companies, for example, are using technology to develop new
artificial food which develops meat that does not involve killing animals. What that actually
means is that scientists create something that looks and tastes like meat. Another company
called Beyond Meat already has such products in shops in the US. Its range includes ‘burgers’,
‘chicken’ strips and ‘beef’ for stews. Although they are actually made out of plant proteins,
these products are almost impossible to distinguish from meat and shoppers find them on the
same supermarket shelves as the genuine meat products. Another company, Hampton Creek,
sells products that are made with man-made eggs. The main ingredient is a type of pea.
Hampton Creek is already selling its food to US hospitals, retirement homes, universities and
other institutions.
A more extreme approach to dealing with the problem of getting enough food to feed the
world involves drinking a special drink and not eating any food at all. Every day a businessman
called Rob Rhinehart drinks three glasses of a thick, brownish liquid, which he says has all the
nutrients the body needs. He has put his drink on sale and it is doing surprisingly well.
Rhinehart says that this type of product will not only help to deal with food shortages but will
also provide people with more time. “There’s no need to waste time cooking. I drink a litre of
my liquid every day and don’t even need to stop what I’m doing.”
However, the high-tech solutions that Rhinehart, Modern Meadows and others are suggesting
worry many people. Food writer, Joanna Blythman, for example, does not like the idea of eating
things that we do not know enough about. She even worries about foods that are already
familiar to us. Packets of salad leaves, for example, can be weeks old but still look fresh because
of the chemicals are not always named on the label because they are not food. So consumers
have no idea what they are eating. Blythman says, ‘There are many examples of products we
once thought were safe and then later discovered they weren’t’. She prefers to cook her family
meals during locally produced natural food that people have eaten for centuries. ‘It’s tried and
tested, and we know it’s healthy.’
It is easy to understand this point of view, but it is still very important to find some way to solve
the problem of feeding the world. The answer must be to make sure we check very carefully
the quality and safety of the high-tech solutions that scientists are developing.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 6: Leisure time

Read the passage and complete the summary. Use ONLY ONE WORD for each gap.
Some developments in high-tech food
Both companies and (1)__________ are putting money into developing high-tech ways of
producing artificial foods. One such business says that its aim is to create meat in labs without
hurting (2)__________. Another is already selling products that resemble meat but are actually
made from (3)__________ from plants. You can find their range in the supermarket next to
ordinary meat products. A third company produce food using artificial (4)__________. This
company’s products are already selling to educational and health (5)__________ of different
types in the USA. There is also a business which has put an unusual drink on the market. This,
its developer says, will help consumers save time and solve the problem of food (6)__________.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 6: Leisure time

Full name:.................................
Lesson 6 Topic: Leisure time WID: IELTS4.5_06_L

Listening skills QR code:

- label a map ...... pts/10

- recognize distractors

Exercise 1. [IELTS Listening: Recognizing distractors] Read the answers and distractors. Then
read the extracts from the conversations. Match the extracts with the correct answers and
the distractors. 1A has been done as an example.
1 Why has the woman come to the university?
A. to borrow some books (False) iii
B. to start a new job (False) ___
C. to have an interview (True) ___
2 According to the woman, 19th-century paintings
A. developed in an interesting way (True) ___
B. were as popular as photographs (False) ___
C. became an affordable hobby for the average person (False) ___
i. She wants to know more about me. You know, ask me questions about the subjects I'm doing
at school, about my interests, about why I want to do the course – that kind of thing.
ii. In that case, you should go to her office.
iii. The library? I think I walked past it already.
iv. Photography had become more popular by that time …
v. In fact, by the 1860s, photography was already quicker and cheaper than painting. In fact,
there were quite a few amateur photographers at that time.
vi. … a lot of painters decided to change the way they made their pictures – they didn't need to
look like photos any more. So art became much more exciting and imaginative in those years.

Exercise 2. [IELTS Listening: Label map] You are going to hear two young people discussing
what there is for university students to do in their town. Listen and label the map below.

A. Restaurant 1. __________
IELTS 4.5- Unit 6: Leisure time

B. Bowling alley 2. __________

C. Swimming baths 3. __________
D. Park 4. __________
E. Disco 5. __________
F. Cafe
G. Leisure centre
IELTS 4.5- Unit 6: Leisure time

Exercise 3. [IELTS Listening: Label map] Label the plan below. Write NO MORE THAN THREE
WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer

Exercise 4. [IELTS Listening: Label map] Listen and complete the map. Write the correct letter
(A-G), next to questions 1-3.

1. gift shop
2. restaurant
3. picnic area
IELTS 4.5- Unit 6: Leisure time

Exercise 5. [IELTS Listening: Label map] Listen and complete the map. Choose 5 answers (A-I)
from the box and write the correct letters next to questions 11-15.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 7: Fame and the media

Full name:.................................
WID: IELTS4.5_11_RL
Lesson 11 Topic: Fame and the media
QR code:
IELTS Reading:
- match features of the passage
- identify the writer's views ...... pts/10
- write first conditional sentences
- matching information
Skills
IELTS Listening:
- Complete a flow-chart
- Predict what information is missing in a flow chart ...... pts/10
- Deal with technical or scientific flow-charts
- Complete a Diagram

Exercise 1. [Grammar focus: First conditional sentence] Read the questions and answers from an
IELTS Speaking test. Decide if the underlined verbs are correct or not. Tick (✓) them if they are
right and correct them if they are wrong.

Examiner: Is it better to have one special friend or lots of good ones?

I think that if you have lots of friends, you 1 will be lucky. However,
I feel that everyone should have someone special. If you 2 won’t 1 are lucky
Test taker:
have a special friend, you won’t have someone to talk to at difficult 2 _________
times in your life.

Examiner: When do people make most friends?

Well, everyone makes friends when they are at school. If you 3 are 3 _________
Test taker: in an environment where everyone is your own age, you 4 would
probably make friends. 4 _________

Examiner: Do you think that friends need to be similar ages?

Well, generally friends from school are similar ages. But when you 5 5 _________
started work, for example, you meet people of different ages. If you
Test taker: 6 _________
get on well with someone and you 6 will have a lot in common,
then age 7 won’t be important. 7 _________

Examiner: Do people need to have things in common to be friends?

Well, yes. If you 8 like the same things, you will probably get on
well. But having said that, I have a very good friend who is
8 _________
Test taker: completely different from me. She loves sport and I hate it. If you
asked me why we were friends, I wouldn’t be able to say! Maybe 9 _________
it’s just chance – if you are in a certain place at a certain time, you
9 become friends, but if you met the same person at a different
IELTS 4.5- Unit 7: Fame and the media

time in a different place, it may not happen.

Examiner: What different roles do friends play in people’s lives?

Well, your friends are the people you choose to be with. And if you
Test taker: 10 will need help, you often turn to your friends. It works the other 10 _________
way too. When your friends need you, you help them.

Exercise 2. [IELTS Reading: Matching features]

Changing habits in accessing the news

There are many different ways to get the news nowadays. The Pew Research Center in the US
recently conducted a survey with 3,612 adults nationwide. Researchers wanted to find out how
they currently learn about the news. They ended up classifying the people they interviewed into
four groups: Traditionalists, Net-newsers, Integrators, and the Disengaged.
The researchers called the largest group Traditionalists. As the name suggests, they prefer to
access the news in a traditional way, typically by watching television. They do this in a great deal –
in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. They explain that they understand the news
better when they see pictures rather than just reading or listening to a news story. Their level of
education is relatively low, with over 60 percent of this group having no more than a high school
education. This group tends to be middle-aged or older, and is less well-paid than people who
access the news in other ways. They say they like to get information about the weather but do not
find stories about science and technology interesting. Most people in this group have a computer
at home but they almost never use it to find out about the news. Although they are still a large
group – 46 percent of the population – their numbers have been going down for ten years now.
Net-newsers, on the other hand, choose to get the majority of their news from the internet.
Sometimes, they read online news articles or blogs and sometimes, they watch video clips of new
stories. Their online access to the news is highest during the day. They use technology in other
aspects of their lives too and like to follow stories relating to science. The smallest of the four
groups, they are also the youngest, with a typical age of 35. They are better educated than other
groups; eight in ten of them have at least attended college. Nearly 60 percent of the group are
men and they also tend to be relatively well-off. Although the Internet is by far the main source of
news for Net-newsers, they do occasionally use other sources too. They are, for example, at least
as likely as Integrators and Traditionalists to read serious news magazines.
The third group are the Integrators. These are people who regularly use both television and the
internet as their source of news. They usually watch the news on television in the evenings and log
on to the internet from work in order to keep up with the news during the day. Almost half of
IELTS 4.5- Unit 7: Fame and the media

them also get some of their news from the radio. Integrators are people with a particular strong
interest in the news and spend more time following it than any of the other groups. They keep up-
to-date with national and international politics and they also follow sports news. They currently
represent 23 percent of the population but this proportion is growing steadily. They typically have
higher education and a high salary. Most of them are middle-aged.
The researchers reported that 14 percent of the US population fall into the fourth and final group,
which they called the Disengaged. This group has little or no interest in the news. Almost half of
the group do not watch the television news even once a day and one-fifth do not know which
party is in power in Washington. In general, they have even fewer academic qualifications than the
Traditionalists. They are signs that the proportion of young people in the Disengaged category is
rising. Slightly over one-third of the under-25 age group reported that on a typical day, they read
or see no news, up from one quarter in 1998.
The Pew Centre’s research study highlights interesting trends in the ways people access news
today. One of these is the fact that there are increasing extremes of behavior in the US
population. While there are many people who are accessing news stories much more frequently
and in a variety of ways, the number of people who pay no attention at all to the news is also on
the increase.

Features of groups

1. _____ well-informed about political affairs

2. _____ a smaller proportion of women in this group Groups of people

3. _____ have technology but do not use it fully A. Traditionalists

4. _____ one particular section of this group is growing B. Net-newsers

5. _____ earn a lot of money C. Integrators
6. _____ prefer a visual presentation of information D. Disengaged
7. _____ have typically spent the least time in education
8. _____ fewer people in this group than the other groups

Exercise 3. [IELTS Reading: Matching Features] Read the text. Match each item (Questions 1-7)
with the group which first invented or used them.
Write the correct letter A-E in boxes 7-10 on your answer sheet.
You may use any letter more than once.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 7: Fame and the media

Vocabulary required:
• depression: a period of time where there is a lot of unemployment and poverty because there is very
little economic activity
• crisis: a difficult or dangerous situation
• decline: to become less or worse
• temporary: existing for only a limited period of time
• recover: to begin to get stronger and return to its earlier state
IELTS 4.5- Unit 7: Fame and the media

Match each statement with the correct date. You may use any letter more than once.

1. One fifth of the population were without work.

2. New jobs were created and the banking system was changed. A. 1920s
3. The economic situation in the USA improved. B. 1929
4. The stock market crashed. C. 1932
5. Millions of people lost their homes. D. 1933
6. There was enough money and jobs for people. E. 1954
7. Farmers suffered due to bad weather and failing food prices.

Exercise 4. [IELTS Reading: Matching information] Read the passage and answer the questions.
A With growing concerns about congested roads, air pollution, and petroleum supplies, alternative
forms of transportation are receiving increasing attention. People are looking for ways to get
around that don't involve driving alone in a car. Carpooling, walking, and use of public
transportation systems such as buses and trains are some of the methods people are using in
place of the traditional private car. Studies suggest that bicycle riding, in particular, is a form of
transportation that is rising in popularity.

B In cities around the world, bicycles are being seen in the street in increasing numbers. While
there are a number of reasons for the bicycle's popularity, this form of transportation has its
drawbacks, as well. Bike enthusiasts highlight the fitness aspects, including weight maintenance
and strengthening of the heart and immune system, as well as the psychological benefits of mood
elevation and stress reduction that regular exercise provides. Enthusiasts also favor the bike over
buses and trains because of the freedom it allows them. Rather than making plans around bus or
train routes and schedules, bicycles allow riders to go where they want when they want, and
because they don't require paying a fare, they are advantageous to those who need to economize.

C When we look at the rising cost of living in modern society, the bicycle clearly comes out a
winner. Bicycles are much less expensive to buy and maintain than a private car. And the cost
advantage reaches beyond the interest of the individual as bikes cause much less wear and tear on
roads, which are maintained with public money. The bicycle does, however, have its detractors,
even including those who support the need for alternative forms of transportation. They point out
that not everyone can use a bicycle. It is not suitable, for example, for those with health issues,
and its ease of use is dependent on the weather as well as on the distances one must travel.
Furthermore, the proliferation of bicycles on city streets that are not designed for them gives rise
to safety concerns.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 7: Fame and the media

D Whatever position one may take on the issue, whatever reasons one may cite in favor or
against, bicycles are here to stay, and we will be seeing more and more of them in the coming
years. There is no question that cities must make room for the bicycle along with other alternative
forms of transportation. A good place to start would be with creating bike lanes and off-road bike
paths as well as educating the driving public about sharing the road safely with cyclists.

Which paragraph contains the following information? You may use any letter more than once.

1. reasons for opposition to bicycles

2. a comparison of bicycles with public transportation

3. examples of alternative transportation

4. the health benefits of bicycles

5. the writer’s suggestions for the future

6. the economic advantages of bicycles

Exercise 5. [IELTS Reading: Matching information] Read the passage and answer the questions.

The meaning of culture

A Culture is a term for which it is very difficult to give a precise meaning. The word means so many
different things to different people, so devising a single acceptable definition is more problematic
than may be first thought. The idea of culture as something share is inherently complex. Even
people neighbouring each other, or sharing a common language, or possessing certain common
core values may actually have as many differences as similarities.

B Anthropologists have proposed over one hundred different definitions. A number of these are
variations on the idea that culture consists of 'shared patterns of behaviour' as may be observed
by the researcher. This is the definition put forward by Margaret Mead, for example, in her study
of indigenous ritual in Samoa. This kind of definition, however, does not take account of the fact
that studying culture is not just a question of observation. It also involves studying the meaning of
this observed behaviour.

C Accordingly, other anthropologists, such as Max Weber, speak of culture as consisting of systems
of shared meaning; as he puts it, 'man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself
has spun.' Similarly, Claude Levi-Strauss also speaks of culture as a product of the implicit beliefs
which underlie it. The problem with this approach is that the meaning of cultural behaviour is not
always easy to establish. Explanations may be offered up to a point, but the underlying
assumptions often remain obscure. Indeed, they are often not understood by insiders. As Chris
IELTS 4.5- Unit 7: Fame and the media

Argyris and Donald Schon point out, what people say to explain their cultural behaviour and what
really drives this behaviour are often widely different. The search for meaning can therefore be a
long and painstaking process, invoking long periods of 45 observation and interviews in order to
build possible theories.

D While there are some cultures which have remained isolated for long periods of time, many
others have built up commercial links with other groups. Eventually, this may lead to adopting
elements of the other group's rituals and behaviour which then become integrated into those of
the original group. Some cultures have clashed with less powerful neighbours only to find that
over time their culture became heavily influenced by these subordinates, like the Romans by the
Greeks. In this way, the original meaning of an aspect of cultural behaviour may be lost in history
and may originally have been part of a belief system very different from that which prevails in the
culture today. This dynamism is, perhaps, the major reason why researching the meaning behind
cultural behaviour is far from easy.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

1. the idea that researching a culture is not just about observation

2. the fact that countries close to each other can be dissimilar

3. the fact that theories about culture can take a long time to develop

4. various anthropologists' ways of looking at the concept of culture

Exercise 6. [IELTS Reading: Matching information – Matching features] Read the passage and
answer the questions.

The Andes Mountains

A The Andes create an environment of extreme climate and weather conditions. The region’s
climate is influenced by water and air currents that flow north from Antarctica along the Pacific
coast. The ocean current, called the Peru Current, brings extremely cold water that is full of food
to the surface, supporting a rich supply of fish, birds and sea life. But the cold Peru Current causes
clouds to release moisture before they reach land, creating one of the driest deserts in the world
along the west coast of South America. The winds, cooled by the Peru Current, then warmed by
the coastal plains, do not produce significant amounts of rain until they rise high into the Andes,
where rain falls at certain times in the mountain valleys of the western slope.

B The Andes Mountains stretch from Colombia to Chile, creating three distinct areas - the costa
(coast), the sierra (mountains), and the selva (tropical rainforest). The costa is a strip of land
bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the west. One of the driest deserts in the world, it is crossed by
IELTS 4.5- Unit 7: Fame and the media

many rivers that run down from the mountains and can be used for irrigation. The western slope
of the sierra is extremely dry.

C Between the two mountain slopes lies the altiplano, a dry, high plain in southern Peru and
northern Bolivia. Areas above 10,000 feet are called the highlands. They are above the tree-li ne
and consist of grassland. Villages extend up to about 1750 feet. The eastern slopes of the Andes,
called the ceja de selva (“eyebrow of the rainforest”), enjoy warmer, wet weather that supports
thick, low vegetation. To the east lies the selva, the beginning of the Amazonian rainforest.

D Although the Andes create extreme weather conditions and make transport difficult, they have
hidden advantages that Andean people have learned to use. The difference in altitude between
the mountain tops and valley bottoms can be thousands of feet, creating wide differences in
temperature and rainfall at different altitudes. This creates a variety of ecological zones which are
situated one on top of the other where different types of animals and plants can survive. So,
instead of having to travel hundreds of miles to arrive in a different climate, Andean people can
walk as little as 60 mi les to go from a tropical forest in the lowlands to the frozen highlands. An
Andean family group might make its base in the temperate zone located in the highlands, where
family members would grow maize, beans and garden vegetables.

E This system, called a "vertical economy," has many advantages in the harsh Andean climate.
First, it gives a community access to a wide variety of foods and other products. Second, it
protects them against the impact of harsh and unpredictable weather conditions - if frost or
drought destroy the crop at one place, the community can fall back on the harvest in another.
Andean farmers also plant several (sometimes dozens) of varieties of one crop like potatoes in a
single field so that at least some plants will survive the season's unpredictable temperature and
rainfall.
Vocabulary required:

• current (n): dòng, dòng chảy

• stretch from (v): kéo dài, trải dài từ
• irrigation (n): hệ thống tưới tiêu
• highland (n): cao nguyên
• slope (n): sườn, dốc nghiêng (núi)
• harsh (adj): khắc nghiệt

I. The reading passage has five paragraphs, A-E. Which paragraph contains the following
information?

1. the ease of movement between climate zones in the Andes

2. a farming method to survive in an unreliable climate

IELTS 4.5- Unit 7: Fame and the media

3. the number of geographical regions the Andes contain

4. what makes the altiplano different from the selva

5. a detailed description of the Andean climate

II. Classify the following features according to whether the writer states they are found in

6. thick low vegetation ______

A. the ‘costa’
7. a number of rivers ______
B. the ‘altiplano’
8. open countryside ______
C. neither the ‘costa’ nor the ‘altiplano’
9. dense tree growth ______

Exercise 7. [IELTS Listening: Flow chart completion] Listen and complete the flow chart. Write
ONE WORD for each answer.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 7: Fame and the media

Exercise 8. [IELTS Listening: Flow chart completion] Complete the flowchart below

Exercise 9. [IELTS Listening: Flow chart completion] You are going to hear a tutor and a student
discussing the process of doing a research project on alternative energy. Listen and complete
the flow chart. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 7: Fame and the media

Exercise 10. [IELTS Listening: Diagram labeling] Listen and label the diagram below. Write ONE
OR TWO WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER for each answer.

DRINKS MACHINE FOR STAFF ROOM

Exercise 11. [IELTS Listening: Diagram labeling] Label the diagram below. Write the correct
letter, A-G, next to questions 21-25 below.

21. Waste container _________ 22 Slurry _________ 23 Water inlet _________

24 Gas _________ 25 Overflow tank _________

IELTS 4.5- Unit 7: Fame and the media

Exercise 12. [IELTS Listening: Diagram labeling] Label the diagram below. Choose FIVE answers
from the box and write the correct letters A-H next to questions 1-6.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 8: Natural world

Full name:.................................

Lesson 14 Topic: Natural World WID: IELTS4.5_14_RL

QR code:
IELTS Reading:
- complete notes with words from the text - match ...... pts/10
sentence endings with their beginnings- Grammar
Skills Focus: use modals of possibility and ability

IELTS Listening:
complete notes in a task - use the speaker's ...... pts/10
"signposting" words to help you follow notes

Exercise 1. [Grammar focus: Modals of possibility and ability] Choose the best modal for each
sentence. (optional)
1. The family can't decide where to go on vacation. They ____________ go to Los Angeles or they
____________ go to Hawaii.
A. may / are able to B. might / may C. could / couldn't
2. ____________ you play the piano when you were a child?
A. May B. Can C. Could
3. I'm going to bring an umbrella today because it ____________ rain.
A. is able to B. might C. can
4. My cat ____________ jump, but it ____________ talk.
A. can / can't B. can't / can
5. Sara ____________ Italian food and she ____________ French food too!
A. can cook / is able to cook C. can cook / can cooking
6. ____________ I borrow your dictionary?
A. May B. Might C. Am I able to
7. ____________ dogs fly? No, of course not!
A. Can B. May C. Do can
8. George is absent from class today. He ____________ be sick.
A. is able to B. could C. can
IELTS 5.0- Unit skills

9. When Vera was young, she ____________ type quickly. She took a typing class and now she
____________ type very quickly!
A. could not / can to B. can / could C. could not / can
10. Peter ____________ swim when he was a child, but now he ____________. In fact, he swims
every day!
A. couldn't / can't B. couldn't / can C. could / can't
Source: https://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/330-modals-ability1.htm

Exercise 2. [Grammar focus: Modals of possibility and ability] Use the best modal to complete
each sentence; use a negative form when necessary.
1. __________ I borrow your pencil? Thanks!

2. James and Sara were so sad because they __________ go to their brother's wedding. They
were too sick.

3. The students __________ understand the instructions for the test yesterday, so many of them
failed.

4. A: We have a big problem. What __________ we do? B: I don't know. Maybe we __________
ask our boss for help.

5. When Tina was a child, she __________ speak three languages: French, Arabic and English. She
rarely practiced French, so she __________ speak it anymore.

6. I'm sorry. I __________ hear you. Please speak more loudly.

7. My little brother __________ play piano and guitar.

8. Excuse me. __________ I ask you a question?

9. A: What are you going to do on the weekend? B: I'm not sure yet. We __________ go to a
movie or we __________ stay home and relax.

10. I __________ go to school tomorrow because I'm feeling sick right now. I'm not sure.
Source: https://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/330-modals-ability2.htm
IELTS 5.0- Unit skills

Exercise 3. [IELTS Reading: Note completion] Read the passage and complete the notes.

Personal training in the UK

Studies have shown that average weights for British men, women and children have increased
considerably over the last 20 years. Recent research predicts that half the UK population will be
seriously overweight by the year 2050.
Reports of this type often lead to a sudden rush of people deciding to join a gym or buy an exercise
bike to use at home. The fitness industry has become very big business and now worth
approximately £3.92 billion. One aspect of this that is growing particularly fast at the moment is
the personal training business. More and more people are choosing to pay a coach to give them
regular individual fitness advice. And more and more people are choosing to become personal
trainers.
Once only the rich- successful film starts and professional footballers, for example, used personal
trainers but now they provide their services for bank clerks, teachers and builders as well. A
number of recent television programmers have raised people’s awareness of personal training and
made them realize that it is no longer something that only the identified personal training- either
for individuals or for small groups of friends- as a key area of future growth. The company
understands that people prefer a more tailored and personal programme over one-size-fits-all
approach.
The main reason for this preference is the clients’ belief that personalized training will be matched
to their individual fitness needs and so will help them achieve the great results they want. But there
is another reason as well. Many people feel uncomfortable working out in a gym where everyone
else seems so much more athletic. People like this feel much happier exercising in privacy at home.
Of course, they could do this without a personal trainer but most people find it motivating to have
someone else give them encouragement.
For all these reasons, then, it is a good time to set up a personal training business and there are
only a few requirements for anyone wishing to do so. Firstly, they must get a general qualification
in personal training. This can cost them from £300 to several thousand, depending on their
previous knowledge and on the specific focus of the course. They must also take out insurance and
they will need transport and access to fitness equipment. They should also identify a specialism to
offer their clients. This could mean focusing on helping people to lose weight or to improve their
muscle tone, or it could mean specializing in helping women during pregnancy or athletes.

Complete the notes below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.
IELTS 5.0- Unit skills

Personal training in the UK today

● 1_____________ in UK valued at just under £4 billion.
● Becoming 2_____________ is getting more and more popular.
● People like using a trainer because:
o training is personalized
o they prefer the environment of their 3_____________
o they like the 4_____________ a trainer provides
● To set up a personal training business, people need:
o qualifications
o 5_____________
o transport
o access to 6_____________

Exercise 4. [IELTS Reading: Note completion] Read the passage and complete the note.

Ochre find reveals ancient knowledge of chemistry

The oldest ochre-processing toolkits and workshop ever found have been unearthed, indicating
that as far back as 100000 years ago, human ha an understanding of chemistry.

South Africa's Blommbos Cave lies within a limestone cliff on the southern Cape coast, 300 km
east of Cape Town. It's known for its 75000-year-old rich deposits of artefacts such as beads,
bone tools and ochre engravings. Some engravings date as far back as 100000 years.

Archaeologist Christopher S. Henshilwood from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg

and University of Bergen, Norway has been excavating at the site since 1992, and has reported
the discovery of a mixture, rich in ochre, stored in two abalone shells. It dates back to the Middle
Stone Age - 100000 years ago. Ochre is a term used to describe a piece of earth or rock
containing red or yellow oxides or hydroxides of iron. It can be used to make pigments, or paints,
ranging from golden-yellow and light yellow-brown to a rich red. Its use spans the history of
humans - from those living more than 200000 years ago, to modern indigenous communities.

Made from an array of materials, this mixture, which could have functioned as wall, object and
skin decoration or skin protection (acting in a similar way to modern-day sunscreen), indicates
the early developments that occurred in the people who originally used the site.
IELTS 5.0- Unit skills

"[Judging from] the complexity of the material that has been collected from different parts of the
landscape and brought to the site, they [the people] must have had an elementary knowledge of
chemistry to be able to combine these materials to produce this form. It's not a straightforward
process," said Henshilwood.

Choose NO MORE THAN ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage.

Blombos Cave discovery

Background
● location: South Africa
● the date digging began: 1_____________
● Previous ancient objects found in this area
✔ 2_____________
✔ 3_____________
✔ 4_____________
Recent findings
● a mixture containing a substance called 5_____________ (used to provide colour)
● equipment
● a range of additional 6_____________ including animal bone and charcoal
Conclusion
● in prehistoric times, humans knew basic 7_____________

Exercise 5. [IELTS Reading: Matching sentence endings] Read the passage and answer the
questions.
Talk your way into another language
Need to learn another language for a job abroad?
Textbooks and tutors may be the worst approach.
Go into a coffee bar, sit down, relax and try to talk to someone. It may look to others as though
you are wasting your time. It may even feel that way to you. But so long as you are doing this in a
foreign country, where you speak the language badly or not at all, you are probably acquiring a
new language better than you ever could by formal study with a teacher and a textbook.
The social situation, properly used, beats the classrooms hollow. It is full of native speakers asking
you questions, telling you to do things, urging you to take an active part in conversation, and using
IELTS 5.0- Unit skills

gestures freely to make their intentions clearer – just like your parents did when you were an
infant. So plunge in. All you have to do is talk back.
The proposition that infants can acquire languages by prolonged exposure to them is self-evidently
true: it is the only way available to them. Older children and teenagers who move to a different
country can pickup a new language with a speed that baffles their parents. But in adulthood, we
find ourselves envying our rare contemporaries who can still acquire languages easily.
There may be biological reasons why the capacity to learn languages falls away with age, even more
than the capacity to learn other things. The brain may be designed to do its best language-learning
in infancy, and then to redeploy its resources at puberty. But psychological factors play a big part
too. As we get older, we get more self-conscious, more inhibited, more dependent on other
people’s judgements. This process may undermine our capacity to acquire a new language,
because language underpins our sense of personality and identity. We fear to make mistakes in it.
Stephen Krashen, an expert on second-language acquisition, makes a strong case for the
dominance of psychological factors. According to Mr Krashen, people with outgoing personalities
do best at learning a new language because ‘they have the ego to make the necessary mistakes
involved in learning’.
When we want to learn a new language in mid-life for reasons of career or curiosity, we commonly
but wrongly tackle it with the sense of doing something difficult and unnatural. We turn to
grammar books and compact discs expecting a fight. We are going to ‘struggle’ with the language.
We will ‘master’ it, unless it defeats us. And with that sort of attitude it probably will.
All other things being equal, the best learner will be the person who is the most relaxed in
conversation, and the most self-confident.
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-H below.
1. For adult language learners, an informal setting is better than
2. It is obviously the case that children learn language as a result of
3. Adults who have a natural talent for new languages are generally
4. Confident people learn languages fast because they are not afraid of
5. Middle age language learners are often unaware that they are
A taking a negative approach. E losing all sense of identity.
B demonstrating an unusual ability. F producing errors in front of others.
C worrying about the views of others. G moving to another country.
D being in a classroom situation. H living with other speakers of the language.
 IELTS 4.5- Unit 8: Natural world

Exercise 6. [IELTS Reading: Matching sentence endings] Read the passage and answer the
questions.

Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-G below.

1. Continuing with our modern lifestyle into the future….. A makes us eat more bad foods.

2. Our body’s response to danger.….. B may make us feel more secure.

3. A chemical present when we are stressed.….. C may be very stressful.

 IELTS 4.5- Unit 8: Natural world

4. Getting enough sleep.….. D may cause people to die at a young age.

5. Taking part in open-air activities.….. E makes us feel more positive

6. Being with other people.….. F makes us age more slowly.

G is designed to keep us safe.

H helps us recover when we are not well.

Exercise 7. [IELTS Listening: Note completion] Complete the notes below. Write NO MORE THAN
TWO WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER for each answer.

Customer’s name: Igor Petrov

Length of holiday: 1___________

Will pay up to £ 2___________

Told him about 3___________ for advance payments

Needs quote for 4____________ during holiday

Requires 5___________ on plane

Must check if he needs a 6____________

Exercise 8. [IELTS Listening: Note completion] Complete the notes below. Write NO MORE THAN
TWO WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER for each answer.

The Volunteer Agency

● has recruited 1__________ people for environmental projects.

● project abroad involves doing 2__________ or going into the rain forest

● major project for dealing with 3__________ in the countryside

● project for improving conditions for 4__________

● 5__________ projects in urban areas

● some projects do not have any 6__________

Exercise 9. [IELTS Listening: Note completion] Complete the notes below. Write ONE WORD for
each answer.
IELTS 4.5- Unit 8: Natural world

Exercise 10. [IELTS Listening: Note completion] You are going to hear two students talking about
a project. Listen and complete the notes. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A
NUMBER for each answer.

Lightning Safety: Presentation Plan

Part 1: Planning for lightning

● Important to be prepared
● Go inside before it 1____________

Part 2: If inside

● Stay away from water, doors, windows, and telephones

● Turn off 2____________

Part 3: If outside

● Avoid trees, open spaces, and metal objects

● If the lightning comes near you, 3____________ and cover your ears

Part 4: If someone gets hit

● Get help from a 4____________

IELTS 4.5- Unit 8: Natural world

● Call an ambulance
● Don’t worry: 5____________ of lightning victims survive!

Exercise 11. [IELTS Listening: Note completion] Listen and complete the notes. Write ONE WORD
ONLY for each answer 1-10.