READING PRACTICE

Exercise 1: Matching Definitions

Instructions: Match each vocabulary word on the left with the correct definition on
the right.
Vocabulary Words Definitions
1. Industrial Revolution A. A small-scale, home-based manufacturing business.
2. Urbanisation B. A process of changing metal from ore through heating.
3. Innovations C. A significant period of industrial change.
4. Cottage industry D. The increase in population density in cities.
5. Luddites E. New ideas or methods that improve processes.
6. Efficient F. Workers who protested against machinery use.
7. Smelting G. Performing tasks with minimal waste.

Exercise 2: Fill in the Blanks

Instructions: Fill in the blanks with the appropriate vocabulary word from the list
below. You may need to change the form of the word to fit the sentence.
Vocabulary List: Industrial Revolution, agrarian, textiles, machine-breaking,
sanitation, urbanisation, efficient, innovations, locomotive, Luddites.
1. The __________ led to significant changes in manufacturing and transportation
in the 18th and 19th centuries.
2. Many people moved from an __________ lifestyle to city life during this
period.
3. The production of __________ like cotton and wool became mechanized.
4. The group known as the __________ fought against the introduction of new
machinery in factories.
5. Improvements in __________ helped reduce disease in crowded cities.
6. The steam engine was a key __________ that transformed industries during the
revolution.
7. New __________ in farming techniques helped increase food production.

SIMPLIFIED VERSION
 The Industrial Revolution in Britain

The Industrial Revolution started in Britain in the mid-1700s and spread

to other parts of the world, including the United States, by the 1830s and
1840s. During this time, Britain changed from a mainly farming society
to an industrial and urban one. Goods that were once made by hand
began to be produced in large amounts by machines in factories. This
change was possible because of the invention of steam power and new
machines used in industries like textiles and iron-making.

The roots of the Industrial Revolution go back to the early 1700s when
Thomas Newcomen invented the first modern steam engine. This engine
was used to pump water out of mines. In the 1760s, James Watt
improved Newcomen’s engine, making it more efficient. Watt worked
with Matthew Boulton to create a new type of steam engine that used
both forward and backward strokes to create rotary motion. This
innovation allowed steam power to be used more widely in British
industries.

As the Industrial Revolution progressed, the demand for coal grew

quickly because it was a cheap energy source. Coal was needed to run
factories and steam-powered transportation. In the early 1800s, Richard
Trevithick built the first steam-powered locomotive, and by 1830, goods
and passengers were being transported between Manchester and
Liverpool. Steam-powered boats were also used to move goods along
canals and across the Atlantic.

Before the Industrial Revolution, Britain produced textiles like wool,

linen, and cotton through small home-based businesses. This was known
as the ‘cottage industry’. Starting in the mid-1700s, machines like the
spinning jenny and the power loom made it easier to weave cloth and
spin yarn. With these machines, less labor was needed to produce fabric,
and new factories quickly met the growing demand for cloth.

The British iron industry also changed significantly during this time.
One major improvement was using coke (made by heating coal) to smelt
iron ore instead of traditional charcoal. This method was cheaper and
produced better-quality iron. As a result, Britain’s iron and steel
production grew to meet demands from the Napoleonic Wars and the
expansion of railways in the 1830s.

Later in the Industrial Revolution, communication methods improved. In

1837, inventors William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patented the
first commercial telegraph system, which was soon used for railway
signaling in the UK. As trains became faster, efficient communication
was essential to avoid accidents.
The Industrial Revolution had a huge impact on people’s lives. Many
people moved to cities from rural areas, which increased dramatically
with industrialization. The rise of large factories turned small towns into
major cities quickly. However, this rapid growth created problems, as
overcrowded cities faced pollution and poor sanitation.

While industrialization improved the economy and living standards for

many middle and upper-class people, many poor workers continued to
struggle. Factory workers often had to work long hours in dangerous
conditions for very low pay. These hardships led to opposition against
industrialization. A group of workers known as the ‘Luddites’ protested
against the use of machines that replaced skilled jobs. They feared
losing their livelihoods to unskilled machine operators. Some Luddites
began breaking machines in factories, taking their name from Ned Ludd,
an apprentice rumored to have destroyed a machine in 1779.

The first major machine-breaking incidents occurred in 1811 in

Nottingham and spread across the country. Luddites attacked factories
and even clashed with guards. They wanted employers to stop using new
machines, but the British government responded harshly, making
machine-breaking a capital offense. The situation escalated in April
1812 when Luddites were shot during an attack on a mill. Many were
arrested, and some were executed or sent to Australia. By 1813, the
Luddite movement had nearly disappeared.
 IELTS VERSION

The Industrial Revolution in Britain

The Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the mid-1700s and by the 1830s and
1840s has spread to many other parts of the world, including the United States. In
Britain, it was a period when a largely rural, agrarian* society was transformed into an
industrialised, urban one. Goods that had once been crafted by hand started to be
produced in mass quantities by machines in factories, thanks to the invention of steam
power and the introduction of new machines and manufacturing techniques in textiles,
iron-making and other industries.
The foundations of the Industrial Revolution date back to the early 1700s, when the
English inventor Thomas Newcomen designed the first modern steam engine. Called
the ‘atmospheric steam engine’, Newcomen’s invention was originally used to power
machines that pumped water out of mines. In the 1760s, the Scottish engineer James
Watt started to adapt one of Newcomen’s models, and succeeded in making it far more
efficient. Watt later worked with the English manufacturer Matthew Boulton to invent
a new steam engine driven by both the forward and backward strokes of the piston,
while the gear mechanism it was connected to produced rotary motion. It was a key
innovation that would allow steam power to spread across British industries.
The demand for coal, which was a relatively cheap energy source, grew rapidly during
the Industrial Revolution, as it was needed to run not only the factories used to
produce manufactured goods, but also steam-powered transportation. In the early
1800s, the English engineer Richard Trevithick built a steam-powered locomotive, and
by 1830 goods and passengers were being transported between the industrial centres of
Manchester and Liverpool. In addition, steam-powered boats and ships were widely
used to carry goods along Britain’s canals as well as across the Atlantic.
Britain had produced textiles like wool, linen and cotton, for hundreds of years, but
prior to the Industrial Revolution, the British textile business was a true ‘cottage
industry’, with the work performed in small workshops or even homes by individual
spinners, weavers and dyers. Starting in the mid-1700s, innovations like the spinning
jenny and the power loom made weaving cloth and spinning yarn and thread much
easier. With these machines, relatively little labour was required to produce cloth, and
the new, mechanised textile factories that opened around the country were quickly able
to meet customer demand for cloth both at home and abroad.
The British iron industry also underwent major change as it adopted new innovations.
Chief among the new techniques was the smelting of iron ore with coke (a material
made by heating coal) instead of the traditional charcoal. This method was cheaper and
produced metals that were of a higher quality, enabling Britain’s iron and steel
production to expand in response to demand created by the Napoleonic Wars (1803-
15) and the expansion of the railways from the 1830s.
The latter part of the Industrial Revolution also saw key advances in communication
methods, as people increasingly saw the need to communicate efficiently over long
distances. In 1837, British inventors William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patented
the first commercial telegraphy system. In the 1830s and 1840s, Samuel Morse and
other inventors worked on their own versions in the United States. Cooke and
Wheatstone’s system was soon used for railway signalling in the UK. As the speed of
the new locomotives increased, it was essential to have a fast and effective means of
avoiding collisions.
The impact of the Industrial Revolution on people’s lives was immense. Although
many people in Britain had begun moving to the cities from rural areas before the
Industrial Revolution, this accelerated dramatically with industrialisation, as the rise of
large factories turned smaller towns into major cities in just a few decades. This rapid
urbanisation brought significant challenges, as overcrowded cities suffered from
pollution and inadequate sanitation.
Although industrialisation increased the country’s economic output overall and
improved the standard of living for the middle and upper classes, many poor people
continued to struggle. Factory workers had to work long hours in dangerous conditions
for extremely low wages. These conditions along with the rapid pace of change fuelled
opposition to industrialisation. A group of British workers who became known as
‘Luddites’ were British weavers and textile workers who objected to the increased use
of mechanised looms and knitting frames. Many had spent years learning their craft,
and they feared that unskilled machine operators were robbing them of their
livelihood. A few desperate weavers began breaking into factories and smashing textile
machines. They called themselves Luddites after Ned Ludd, a young apprentice who
was rumoured to have wrecked a textile machine in 1779.
The first major instances of machine breaking took place in 1811 in the city of
Nottingham, and the practice soon spread across the country. Machine-breaking
Luddites attacked and burned factories, and in some cases they even exchanged
gunfire with company guards and soldiers. The workers wanted employers to stop
installing new machinery, but the British government responded to the uprisings by
making machine-breaking punishable by death. The unrest finally reached its peak in
April 1812, when a few Luddites were shot during an attack on a mill near
Huddersfield. In the days that followed, other Luddites were arrested, and dozens were
hanged or transported to Australia. By 1813, the Luddite resistance had all but
vanished.
——————————–
* agrarian: relating to the land, especially the use of land for farming

Questions 1–7
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 1–7 on your answer sheet.
Britain’s Industrial Revolution
Steam power
● Newcomen’s steam engine was used in mines to remove water.
● In Watt and Boulton’s steam engine, the movement of the 1………………. was
linked to a gear system.
● A greater supply of 2………………. was required to power steam engines.
Textile industry
● Before the Industrial Revolution, spinners and weavers worked at home and
in 3………………. .
● Not as much 4………………. was needed to produce cloth once the spinning jenny
and power loom were invented.
Iron industry
● Smelting of iron ore with coke resulted in material that was better 5……………….
.
● Demand for iron increased with the growth of the 6………………. .
Communications
● Cooke and Wheatstone patented the first telegraphy system.
● The telegraphy system was used to prevent locomotives colliding.
Urbanisation
● Small towns turned into cities very quickly.
● The new cities were dirty, crowded and lacked sufficient 7………………. .

Questions 8–13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 8–13 on your answer sheet, 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
8 Britain’s canal network grew rapidly so that more goods could be transported
around the country.
9 Costs in the iron industry rose when the technique of smelting iron ore with coke
was introduced.
10 Samuel Morse’s communication system was more reliable than that developed by
William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone.
11 The economic benefits of industrialisation were limited to certain sectors of
society.
12 Some skilled weavers believed that the introduction of the new textile machines
would lead to job losses.
13 There was some sympathy among local people for the Luddites who were arrested
near Huddersfield.
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14–26, which are based on Reading
Passage 2 below.
Athletes and stress
A
It isn’t easy being a professional athlete. Not only are the physical demands greater
than most people could handle, athletes also face intense psychological pressure during
competition. This is something that British tennis player Emma Raducanu wrote about
on social media following her withdrawal from the 2021 Wimbledon tournament.
Though the young player had been doing well in the tournament, she began having
difficulty regulating her breathing and heart rate during a match, which she later
attributed to ‘the accumulation of the excitement and the buzz’.
B
For athletes, some level of performance stress is almost unavoidable. But there are
many different factors that dictate just how people’s minds and bodies respond to
stressful events. Typically, stress is the result of an exchange between two factors:
demands and resources. An athlete may feel stressed about an event if they feel the
demands on them are greater than they can handle. These demands include the high
level of physical and mental effort required to succeed, and also the athlete’s concerns
about the difficulty of the event, their chance of succeeding, and any potential dangers
such as injury. Resources, on the other hand, are a person’s ability to cope with these
demands. These include factors such as the competitor’s degree of confidence, how
much they believe they can control the situation’s outcome, and whether they’re
looking forward to the event or not.
C
Each new demand or change in circumstances affects whether a person responds
positively or negatively to stress. Typically, the more resources a person feels they
have in handling the situation, the more positive their stress response. This positive
stress response is called a challenge state. But should the person feel there are too
many demands placed on them, the more likely they are to experience a negative stress
response – known as a threat state. Research shows that the challenge states lead to
good performance, while threat states lead to poorer performance. So, in Emma
Raducanu’s case, a much larger audience, higher expectations and facing a more
skilful opponent, may all have led her to feel there were greater demands being placed
on her at Wimbledon – but she didn’t have the resources to tackle them. This led to her
experiencing a threat response.
D
Our challenge and threat responses essentially influence how our body responds to
stressful situations, as both affect the production of adrenaline and cortisol – also
known as ‘stress hormones’. During a challenge state, adrenaline increases the amount
of blood pumped from the heart and expands the blood vessels, which allows more
energy to be delivered to the muscles and brain. This increase of blood and decrease of
pressure in the blood vessels has been consistently related to superior sport
performance in everything from cricket batting, to golf putting and football penalty
taking. But during a threat state, cortisol inhibits the positive effect of adrenaline,
resulting in tighter blood vessels, higher blood pressure, slower psychological
responses, and a faster heart rate. In short, a threat state makes people more anxious –
they make worse decisions and perform more poorly. In tennis players, cortisol has
been associated with more unsuccessful serves and greater anxiety.
E
That said, anxiety is also a common experience for athletes when they’re under
pressure. Anxiety can increase heart rate and perspiration, cause heart palpitations,
muscle tremors and shortness of breath, as well as headaches, nausea, stomach pain,
weakness and a desire to escape in more extreme cases. Anxiety can also reduce
concentration and self-control and cause overthinking. The intensity with which a
person experiences anxiety depends on the demands and resources they have. Anxiety
may also manifest itself in the form of excitement or nervousness depending on the
stress response. Negative stress responses can be damaging to both physical and
mental health – and repeated episodes of anxiety coupled with negative responses can
increase risk of heart disease and depression.
F
But there are many ways athletes can ensure they respond positively under pressure.
Positive stress responses can be promoted through the language that they and others –
such as coaches or parents — use. Psychologists can also help athletes change how
they see their physiological responses – such as helping them see a higher heart rate as
excitement, rather than nerves. Developing psychological skills, such as visualisation,
can also help decrease physiological responses to threat. Visualisation may involve the
athlete recreating a mental picture of a time when they performed well, or picturing
themselves doing well in the future. This can help create a feeling of control over the
stressful event. Recreating competitive pressure during training can also help athletes
learn how to deal with stress. An example of this might be scoring athletes against
their peers to create a sense of competition. This would increase the demands which
players experience compared to a normal training session, while still allowing them to
practise coping with stress.
Questions 14–18
Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A–F.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A–F, in boxes 14–18 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
14 reference to two chemical compounds which impact on performance
15 examples of strategies for minimising the effects of stress
16 how a sportsperson accounted for their own experience of stress
17 study results indicating links between stress responses and performance
18 mention of people who can influence how athletes perceive their stress responses
Questions 19–22
Complete the sentences below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 19–22 on your answer sheet.
19 Performance stress involves many demands on the athlete, for example, coping
with the possible risk of ……………………… .
20 Cortisol can cause tennis players to produce fewer good ……………………… .
21 Psychologists can help athletes to view their physiological responses as the effect
of a positive feeling such as ……………………… .
22 ……………………… is an example of a psychological technique which can
reduce an athlete’s stress responses.
Questions 23 and 24
Choose TWO letters, A–E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 23 and 24 on your answer sheet.
Which TWO facts about Emma Raducanu’s withdrawal from the Wimbledon
tournament are mentioned in the text?
A the stage at which she dropped out of the tournament
B symptoms of her performance stress at the tournament
C measures which she had taken to manage her stress levels
D aspects of the Wimbledon tournament which increased her stress levels
E reactions to her social media posts about her experience at Wimbledon
Questions 25 and 26
Choose TWO letters, A–E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 25 and 26 on your answer sheet.
Which TWO facts about anxiety are mentioned in Paragraph E of the text?
A the factors which determine how severe it may be
B how long it takes for its effects to become apparent
C which of its symptoms is most frequently encountered
D the types of athletes who are most likely to suffer from it
E the harm that can result if athletes experience it too often

READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27–40, which are based on Reading
Passage 3 below.
An inquiry into the existence of the gifted child
Let us start by looking at a modern ‘genius’, Maryam Mirzakhani, who died at the
early age of 40. She was the only woman to win the Fields Medal – the mathematical
equivalent of a Nobel prize. It would be easy to assume that someone as special as
Mirzakhani must have been one of those ‘gifted’ children, those who have an
extraordinary ability in a specific sphere of activity or knowledge. But look closer and
a different story emerges. Mirzakhani was born in Tehran, Iran. She went to a highly
selective girls’ school but maths wasn’t her interest – reading was. She loved novels
and would read anything she could lay her hands on. As for maths, she did rather
poorly at it for the first couple of years in her middle school, but became interested
when her elder brother told her about what he’d learned. He shared a famous maths
problem from a magazine that fascinated her – and she was hooked.
In adult life it is clear that she was curious, excited by what she did and also resolute in
the face of setbacks. One of her comments sums it up. ‘Of course, the most rewarding
part is the “Aha” moment, the excitement of discovery and enjoyment of
understanding something new … But most of the time, doing mathematics for me is
like being on a long hike with no trail and no end in sight.’ That trail took her to the
heights of original research into mathematics.
Is her background unusual? Apparently not. Most Nobel prize winners were
unexceptional in childhood. Einstein was slow to talk as a baby. He failed the general
part of the entry test to Zurich Polytechnic – though they let him in because of high
physics and maths scores. He struggled at work initially, but he kept plugging away
and eventually rewrote the laws of Newtonian mechanics with his theory of relativity.
There has been a considerable amount of research on high performance over the last
century that suggests it goes way beyond tested intelligence. On top of that, research is
clear that brains are flexible, new neural pathways can be created, and IQ isn’t fixed.
For example, just because you can read stories with hundreds of pages at the age of
five doesn’t mean you will still be ahead of your contemporaries in your teens.
While the jury is out on giftedness being innate and other factors potentially making
the difference, what is certain is that the behaviours associated with high levels of
performance are replicable and most can be taught – even traits such as curiosity.
According to my colleague Prof Deborah Eyre, with whom I’ve collaborated on the
book Great Minds and How to Grow Them, the latest neuroscience and psychological
research suggests most individuals can reach levels of performance associated in
school with the gifted and talented. However, they must be taught the right attitudes
and approaches to their learning and develop the attributes of high performers –
curiosity, persistence and hard work, for example – an approach Eyre calls ‘high
performance learning’. Critically, they need the right support in developing those
approaches at home as well as at school.
Prof Anders Ericsson, an eminent education psychologist at Florida State University,
US, is the co-author of Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. After research
going back to 1980 into diverse achievements, from music to memory to sport, he
doesn’t think unique and innate talents are at the heart of performance. Deliberate
practice, that stretches you every step of the way, and around 10,000 hours of it, is
what produces the goods. It’s not a magic number – the highest performers move on to
doing a whole lot more, of course. Ericsson’s memory research is particularly
interesting because random students, trained in memory techniques for the study, went
on to outperform others thought to have innately superior memories – those who you
might call gifted.
But it is perhaps the work of Benjamin Bloom, another distinguished American
educationist working in the 1980s, that gives the most pause for thought. Bloom’s
team looked at a group of extraordinarily high achieving people in disciplines as
varied as ballet, swimming, piano, tennis, maths, sculpture and neurology. He found a
pattern of parents encouraging and supporting their children, often in areas they
enjoyed themselves. Bloom’s outstanding people had worked very hard and
consistently at something they had become hooked on when at a young age, and their
parents all emerged as having strong work ethics themselves.
Eyre says we know how high performers learn. From that she has developed a high
performing learning approach. She is working on this with a group of schools, both in
Britain and abroad. Some spin-off research, which looked in detail at 24 of the 3,000
children being studied who were succeeding despite difficult circumstances, found
something remarkable. Half were getting free school meals because of poverty, more
than half were living with a single parent, and four in five were living in disadvantaged
areas. Interviews uncovered strong evidence of an adult or adults in the child’s life
who valued and supported education, either in the immediate or extended family or in
the child’s wider community. Children talked about the need to work hard at school, to
listen in class and keep trying.
Let us end with Einstein, the epitome of a genius. He clearly had curiosity, character
and determination. He struggled against rejection in early life but was undeterred. Did
he think he was a genius or even gifted? He once wrote: ‘It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s
just that I stay with problems longer. Most people say it is the intellect which makes a
great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.’
Questions 27–32
Complete the summary using the list of phrases, A–K, below.
Write the correct letter, A–K, in boxes 27–32 on your answer sheet.
Maryam Mirzakhani
Maryam Mirzakhani is regarded as 27………………… in the field of mathematics
because she was the only female holder of the prestigious Fields Medal – a record that
she retained at the time of her death. However, maths held little 28…………………
for her as a child and in fact her performance was below average until she
was 29………………… by a difficult puzzle that one of her siblings showed her.
Later, as a professional mathematician, she had an inquiring mind and proved herself
to be 30………………… when things did not go smoothly. She said she got the
greatest 31………………… from making ground-breaking discoveries and in fact she
was responsible for some extremely 32………………… mathematical studies.

A appeal B determined
C intrigued
D single E achievement
F devoted
G involved H unique
I innovative
J satisfaction K intent

Questions 33–37
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 33–37 on your answer sheet, write
YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
33 Many people who ended up winning prestigious intellectual prizes only reached
an average standard when young.
34 Einstein’s failures as a young man were due to his lack of confidence.
35 It is difficult to reach agreement on whether some children are actually born
gifted.
36 Einstein was upset by the public’s view of his life’s work.
37 Einstein put his success down to the speed at which he dealt with scientific
questions.
Questions 38–40
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 38–40 on your answer sheet.
38 What does Eyre believe is needed for children to equal ‘gifted’ standards?
A strict discipline from the teaching staff
B assistance from their peers in the classroom
C the development of a spirit of inquiry towards their studies
D the determination to surpass everyone else’s achievements
39 What is the result of Ericsson’s research?
A Very gifted students do not need to work on improving memory skills.
B Being born with a special gift is not the key factor in becoming expert.
C Including time for physical exercise is crucial in raising performance.
D 10,000 hours of relevant and demanding work will create a genius.
40 In the penultimate paragraph, it is stated the key to some deprived children’s
success is
A a regular and nourishing diet at home.
B the loving support of more than one parent.
C a community which has well-funded facilities for learning.
D the guidance of someone who recognises the benefits of learning.