Academic Reading IELTS Fever IELTSFever Academic Reading 123

IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 123

Reading Passage 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on the IELTSFever
Academic IELTS Reading Test 123 Reading Passage Animal minds: Parrot Alex below.

Animal minds: Parrot Alex

{A} In 1977 Irene Pepperberg, a recent graduate of Harvard University, did something very bold.
At a time when animals still were considered automatons, she set out to find what was on
another creature's mind by talking to it. She brought a one-year-old African gray parrot she
named Alex into her lab to teach him to reproduce the sounds of the English language. "I
thought if he learned to communicate, I could ask him questions about how he sees the world."

{B} When Pepperberg began her dialogue with Alex, who died last September at the age of 31,
many scientists believed animals were incapable of any thought. They were simply machines,
robots programmed to react to stimuli but lacking the ability to think or feel. Any pet owner would
disagree. We see the love in our dogs' eyes and know that, of course, they has thoughts and
emotions. But such claims remain highly controversial. Gut instinct is not science, and it is all
too easy to project human thoughts and feelings onto another creature. How, then, does a
scientist prove that an animal is capable of thinking - that it is able to acquire information about
the world and act on it? "That's why I started my studies with Alex," Pepperberg said. They were
seated - she at her desk, he on top of his cage, in her lab, a windowless room about the size of
a boxcar, at Brandeis University. Newspapers lined the floor; baskets of bright toys were stacked
on the shelves. They were clearly a team-and because of their work, the notion that animals can
think is no longer so fanciful.

{C} Certain skills are considered key signs of higher mental abilities: good memory, a grasp of
grammar and symbols, self-awareness, understanding others' motives, imitating others, and
being creative. Bit by bit, in ingenious experiments, researchers have documented these talents
in other species, gradually chipping away at what we thought made human beings distinctive
while offering a glimpse of where our own abilities came from. Scrub jays know that other jays
are thieves and that stashed food can spoil; sheep can recognize faces; chimpanzees use a
variety of tools to probe termite mounds and even use weapons to hunt small mammals;
dolphins can imitate human postures; the archerfish, which stuns insects with a sudden blast of
water, can learn how to aim its squirt simply by watching an experienced fish perform the task.
And Alex the parrot turned out to be a surprisingly good talker.

{D} Thirty years after Alex studies began; Pepperberg and a changing collection of assistants
were still giving him English lessons. The humans, along with two younger parrots, also served
as Alex's flock, providing the social input all parrots crave. Like any flock, this one - as small as
it was, had its share of drama. Alex dominated his fellow parrots, acted huffy at times around

https://www.facebook.com/ieltsfever [email protected] 1
Academic Reading IELTS Fever IELTSFever Academic Reading 123

Pepperberg, tolerated the other female humans, and fell to pieces over a male assistant who
dropped by for a visit. Pepperberg bought Alex in a Chicago pet store where she let the store's
assistant pick him out because she didn't want other scientists saying later that she'd particularly
chosen an especially smart bird for her work. Given that Alex's brain was the size of a shelled
walnut, most researchers thought Pepperberg's interspecies communication study would be
futile.

{E} "Some people actually called me crazy for trying this," she said. "Scientists thought that
chimpanzees were better subjects, although, of course, chimps can't speak." Chimpanzees,
bonobos, and gorillas have been taught to use sign language and symbols to communicate with
us, often with impressive results. The bonobo Kanzi, for instance, carries his
symbol-communication board with him so he can "talk" to his human researchers, and he has
invented combinations of symbols to express his thoughts. Nevertheless, this is not the same
thing as having an animal look up at you, open his mouth, and speak. Under Pepperberg's
patient tutelage, Alex learned how to use his vocal tract to imitate almost one hundred English
words, including the sounds for various foods, although he calls an apple a "banerry.""Apples
taste a little bit like bananas to him, and they look a little bit like cherries, so Alex made up that
word for them," Pepperberg said.

{F} It sounded a bit mad, the idea of a bird having lessons to practice, and willingly doing it. But
after listening to and observing Alex, it was difficult to argue with Pepperberg's explanation for
his behaviors. She wasn't handing him treats for the repetitious work or rapping him on the
claws to make him say the sounds. "He has to hear the words over and over before he can
correctly imitate them," Pepperberg said, after pronouncing "seven" for Alex a good dozen times
in a row. "I'm not trying to see if Alex can learn a human language," she added. "That's never
been the point. My plan always was to use his imitative skills to get a better understanding of
avian cognition."

{G} In other words, because Alex was able to produce a close approximation of the sounds of
some English words, Pepperberg could ask him questions about a bird's basic understanding of
the world. She couldn't ask him what he was thinking about, but she could ask him about his
knowledge of numbers, shapes, and colors. To demonstrate, Pepperberg carried Alex on her
arm to a tall wooden perch in the middle of the room. She then retrieved a green key and a
small green cup from a basket on a shelf. She held up the two items to Alex's eye. "What's
same?" she asked. Without hesitation, Alex's beak opened: "Co-lor.""What's different?"
Pepperberg asked. "Shape," Alex said. His voice had the digitized sound of a cartoon character.
Since parrots lack lips (another reason it was difficult for Alex to pronounce some sounds, such
as ba), the words seemed to come from the air around him, as if a ventriloquist were speaking.
But the words - and what can only be called the thoughts - were entirely his.

{H} For the next 20 minutes, Alex ran through his tests, distinguishing colors, shapes, sizes, and
materials (wool versus wood versus metal). He did some simple arithmetic, such as counting the
yellow toy blocks among a pile of mixed hues. And, then, as if to offer final proof of the mind
inside his bird's brain, Alex spoke up. "Talk clearly!" he commanded, when one of the younger
birds Pepperberg was also teaching talked with wrong pronunciation. "Talk clearly!" "Don't be a

https://www.facebook.com/ieltsfever [email protected] 2
Academic Reading IELTS Fever IELTSFever Academic Reading 123

smart aleck," Pepperberg said, shaking her head at him. "He knows all this, and he gets bored,
so he interrupts the others, or he gives the wrong answer just to be obstinate. At this stage, he's
like a teenager; he's moody, and I'm never sure what he'll do."

Questions 1-6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement is True

FALSE if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN If the information is not given in the passage

(1) Firstly, Alex has grasped quite a lot of vocabulary.

(2) At the beginning of study, Alex felt frightened in the presence of humans.

(3) Previously, many scientists realized that animals possess the ability of thinking.

(4). It has taken a long time before people get to know cognition existing in animals.

(5) As Alex could approximately imitate the sounds of English words, he was capable of roughly
answering Irene's questions regarding the world.

(6) By breaking in other parrots as well as producing the incorrect answers, he tried to be
focused

Questions 7-10
Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using no more than
three words from the Reading Passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 7-10 on your answer sheet.

After the training of Irene, Parrot Alex can use his vocal tract to
pronounce more than_________7_________, while other scientists
believe that animals have no this advanced ability of thinking, they
would rather teach________8_________Pepperberg clarified that

https://www.facebook.com/ieltsfever [email protected] 3
Academic Reading IELTS Fever IELTSFever Academic Reading 123

she wanted to conduct a study concerning

_________9___________ but not to teach him to talk. The store's
assistant picked out a bird at random for her for the sake of avoiding
other scientists saying that the bird is
__________10__________afterwards.

Questions 11-13
Answer the questions 11-13 below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each
answer.

(11). What did Alex reply regarding the similarity of the subjects shown to him?

(12). What is the problem of the young parrots except Alex?

(13). To some extent, through the way he behaved, what can we call him?

Reading Passage 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on the IELTSFever
Academic IELTS Reading Test 123 Reading Passage London Swaying Footbridge below.

London Swaying Footbridge

{A} In September 1996 a competition was organized by the Financial Times in association with
the London Borough of Southwark to design a new footbridge across the Thames. The
competition attracted over 200 entries and was won by a team comprising Arup (engineers),
Foster and Partners (architects) and the sculptor Sir Anthony Caro.

{B} The bridge opened to the public on 10 June 2000. Up to 100,000 people crossed it that day
with up to 2000 people on the bridge at any one time. At first, the bridge was still. Then it began
to sway just slightly. Then, almost from one moment to the next, when large groups of people
were crossing, the wobble intensified. This movement became sufficiently large for people to
stop walking to retain their balance and sometimes to hold onto the hand rails for support. It was
decided immediately to limit the number of people on the bridge, but even so the deck
movement was sufficient to be uncomfortable and to raise concern for public safety so that on
12 June the bridge was closed until the problem could be solved.

{C} The embarrassed engineers found the videotape that day which showed the center span
swaying about 3 inches side to side every second. The engineers first thought that winds might

https://www.facebook.com/ieltsfever [email protected] 4
Academic Reading IELTS Fever IELTSFever Academic Reading 123

be exerting excessive force on the many large flags and banners bedecking the bridge for its
gala premiere. What's more, they also discovered that the pedestrians also played a key role.
Human activities, such as walking, running, jumping, swaying, etc. could cause horizontal forces
which in turn could cause excessive dynamic vibration in the lateral direction in the bridge. As
the structure began moving, pedestrians adjusted their gait to the same lateral rhythm as the
bridge. The adjusted footsteps magnified the motion - just like when four people all stand up in a
small boat at the same time. As more pedestrians locked into the same rhythm, the increasing
oscillations led to the dramatic swaying captured on film.

{D} In order to design a method of reducing the movements, the force exerted by the
pedestrians had to be quantified and related to the motion of the bridge. Although there are
some descriptions of this phenomenon in existing literature, none of these actually quantifies the
force. So there was no quantitative analytical way to design the bridge against this effect. An
immediate research program was launched by the bridge's engineering designers Ove Arup,
supported by a number of universities and research organizations.

{E} The tests at the University of Southampton involved a person walking on the spot' on a
small shake table. The tests at Imperial College involved persons walking along a specially built,
7.2m-long platform which could be driven laterally at different frequencies and amplitudes Each
type of test had its limitations. The Imperial College tests were only able to capture 7-8
footsteps, and the ‘walking on the spot' tests, although monitoring many footsteps, could not
investigate normal forward walking. Neither test could investigate any influence of other people
in a crowd on the behavior of the individual being tested.

{F} The results of the laboratory tests provided information which enabled the initial design of a
retro-fit to be progressed. However, the limitations of these tests was clear and it was felt that
the only way to replicate properly the precise conditions of the Millennium Bridge was to carry
out crowd tests on the bridge deck itself. These tests done by the Arup engineers could
incorporate factors not possible in the laboratory tests. The first of these was carried out with
100 people in July 2000. The results of these tests were used to refine the load model for the
pedestrians. A second series of crowd tests was carried out on the bridge in December 2000.
The purpose of these tests was to further validate the design assumptions and to load test a
prototype damper installation The test was carried out with 275 people.

{G} Unless the usage of the bridge was to be greatly restricted only two generic options to
improve its performance were considered feasible The first was to increase the stiffness of the
bridge to move all its lateral natural frequencies out of the range that could be excited by the
lateral footfall forces, and the second was to increase the damping of the bridge to reduce the
resonant response.

Questions 14-17
Choose FOUR letters, A-H.

Write the correct letters in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.

https://www.facebook.com/ieltsfever [email protected] 5
Academic Reading IELTS Fever IELTSFever Academic Reading 123

Which FOUR of the following situations were witnessed at the opening ceremony of the bridge?

(A) The frequency of oscillation increased after some time.

(B) All the engineers went to see the ceremony that day.

(C) The design of the bridge astonished the people.

(D) Unexpected sideway movement of the bridge occurred.

(E) Pedestrians had difficulty walking on the deck.

(F) The bridge fell down when people tried to retain their balance

(G) Vibration could be detected on the deck by the pedestrians.

(H) It was raining when the ceremony began.

Questions 18-22
Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage 2, using NO MORE
THAN THREE WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer

Write your answers in boxes 18-22 on your answer sheet.

After the opening ceremony, the embarrassed engineers tried to find out the reason of the
bridge's wobbling. Judged from the videotape, they thought that 18..........and 19.........might
create excessive force on the bridge. The distribution of 20..........resulted from human activities
could cause 21.......... throughout the structure. This swaying prompted people to start adjusting
the way they walk, which in turn reinforced the 22………...

Questions 23 – 26
Complete the table below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for
each answer.

Research programs launched by universities and organizations

https://www.facebook.com/ieltsfever [email protected] 6
Academic Reading IELTS Fever IELTSFever Academic Reading 123

Universities/People Activity

Test at 23……………………. Limited ability to have 7-8 footsteps

Walking on the spot at Southampton Not enough data on 24…………………….

Crowd test conducted by Aim to verify 26…………………….

25…………………….

Reading Passage 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on the IELTSFever
Academic IELTS Reading Test 123 Reading Passage Decision, Decision ! below.

Decision, Decision !
Research explores when we can make a vital decision quickly and we need to proceed more deliberately

{A} A widely recognised legend tells us that in Gordium (in what is now Turkey) in the fourth
century BC an oxcart was roped to a pole with a complex knot. It was said that the first person
to untie it would become the king of Asia. Unfortunately, the knot proved impossible to untie.
The story continues that when confronted with this problem, rather than deliberating on how to
untie the Gordian knot. Alexander, the famous ruler of the Greeks in the ancient world, simply
took out his sword and cut it in two - then went on to conquer Asia. Ever since, the notion of a
'Gordian solution' has referred to the attractiveness of a simple answer to an otherwise
intractable problem.

{B} Among researchers in the psychology of decision making, however, such solutions have
traditionally held little appeal. In particular, the conflict model of decision making proposed by
psychologists Irving Janis and Leon Mann in their 1977 book, Decision Making, argued that a
complex decision making process is essential for guarding individuals and groups from the peril
of 'group-think'. Decisions made without thorough canvassing, surveying, weighing, examining
and reexamining relevant information and options would be suboptimal and often disastrous.
One foreign affairs decision made by a well-known US political leader in the 1960s is typically
held us as an example of the perils of inadequate thought, whereas his successful handlitig of a
later crisis is cited as an example of the advantages of careful deliberation. However,
examination of these historical events by Peter Suedfield, a psychologist at the University of
British Columbia, and Roderick Kramer, a psychologist at the Stanford Graduate School of
Business, found little difference in the two decision-making processes; both crises required and

https://www.facebook.com/ieltsfever [email protected] 7
Academic Reading IELTS Fever IELTSFever Academic Reading 123

received complex consideration by the political administration, but later only the second one
was deemed to be the effective.

{C} In general, however, organizational and political science offer little evidence that complex
decisions fare better than simpler ones. In fact, a growing body of work suggests that in many
situations simple 'snap' decisions will be routinely superior to more complex ones -an idea that
gained widespread public appeal with Malcolm Gladwell's best-selling book Blink (2005).

{D} An article by Ap Dijksterhuis of the University of Amsterdam and his colleagues, Making the
Right Choice: the Deliberation-without-attention Effect', runs very much in the spirit of Gladwell's
influential text. It's core argument is that to be effective, conscious (deliberative) decision
making requires cognitive resources. Because increasingly complex decisions place increasing
strain on those resources, the quality of our decisions declines as their complexity increases. In
short, complex decisions overrun our cognitive powers. On the other hand, unconscious
decision making (what the author refer to as “deliberation without attention') requires no
cognitive resources, so task complexity does not Effectiveness. The seemingly counterintuitive
conclusion is that although conscious thought enhances simple decisions, the opposite holds
true for more complex decisions.

{E} Dijkstórhuis reports four Simple but elegant studies supporting this argument. In one,
participants assessed the quality of four hypothetical cars by considering either four attributes (a
simple task) or 12 attributes (a complex task). Among participants who considered four
attributes, those who were allowed to engage in undistracted deliberative thought did better at
discriminating between the best and worst cars. Those who were distracted and thus unable to
deliberate had to rely on their unconscious thinking and did less well. The opposite pattern
emerged when people considered 12 criteria. In this case, conscious deliberation led to inferior
discrimination and poor decisions.

{F} In other study, Dijksterhuis surveyed people shopping for clothes (“simple’ products) and
furniture ("complex products). Compared with those who said they had deliberated long and
hard, shoppers who bought with little conscious deliberation felt less happy with their simple
clothing purchase but happier with the complex furniture purchases. Deliberation without
attention actually produced better results as the decisions became more complex.

{G} From there, however, the researchers take a big leap. They write: There is no reason to
assume that the deliberation-without-attention effect does not generalize to other types of
choices - political, managerial or otherwise. In such cases, it should benefit the individual to
think consciously about simple matters and to delegate thinking about more complicated
matters to the unconscious.

{H} This radical inference contradicts standard political and managerial theory but doubtless
comforts those in politics and management who always find the simple solution to the complex
problem an attractive proposition. Indeed, one suspects many of our political leaders already
embrace this wisdom.

https://www.facebook.com/ieltsfever [email protected] 8
Academic Reading IELTS Fever IELTSFever Academic Reading 123

{I} Still it is there, in the realms of society and its governance, that the more problematic
implications of deliberation without attention begin to surface. Variables that can be neatly
circumscribed in decisions about shopping lose clarity in a world of group dynamics, social
interaction, history and politics. Two pertinent questions arise. First, what counts as a complex
decision? And second, what counts as a good outcome?

{J} As social psychologist Kurt Lewin (1890 - 1947) noted, a 'good' decision that nobody
respects is actually bad. His classic studies of decision making showed that participating in
deliberative processes makes people more likely to abide by the results. The issue here is that
when political decision makers make mistakes, it is their politics, or the relation between their
politics and our own, rather than psychology which is at fault.

{K} Gladwell's book and Dijksterhuis's paper are invaluable in pointing out the limitations of the
conventional wisdom that decision quality rises with decision-making complexity. But this work
still tempts us to believe that decision making is simply a matter of psychology, rather than also
a question of politics, ideology and group membership. Avoiding social considerations in a
search for general appeal rather than toward it.

Questions 27-31
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter in boxes 27 - 31 on your answer sheet.

Question 27 The legend of the Gordian knot is used to illustrate the idea that

(A) anyone can solve a difficult problem

(B) difficult problems can have easy solutions

(C) the solution to any problem requires a lot of thought

(D). people who can solve complex problems make good leaders

Question 28 The 'conflict model of decision making proposed by Janis and Mann requires that

(A) opposing political parties be involved

(B) all important facts be considered

(C) people be encouraged to have different ideas

(D) previous similar situations be thoroughly examined

Question 29 According to recent thinking reinforced by Malcolm Gladwell, the best decisions

(A) involve consultation

(B) involve complex thought

https://www.facebook.com/ieltsfever [email protected] 9
Academic Reading IELTS Fever IELTSFever Academic Reading 123

(C) are made very quickly

(D) are the most attractive option

Question 30 Dijksterhuis and his colleagues claim in their article that

(A) our cognitive resources improve as tasks become more complex

(B) conscious decision making is negative affected by task complexity

(C) unconscious decision making is a popular approach

(D) deliberation without attention defines the way we make decisions

Question 31 Dijksterhuis's car study found that, in simple tasks, participants

(A) were involved in lengthy discussions

(B) found it impossible to make decisions quickly

(C) were unable to differentiate between the options

(D) could make a better choice when allowed to concentrate

Questions 32-35
Complete the summary using the list of words A- I below. Write the correct letter, A—I, in boxes
32—35 on your answer sheet.

Dijksterhuis's shopping study and its conclusions

Using clothing and furniture as examples of different types of purchases,

Dijksterhuis questioned shoppers on their satisfaction with what they had
bought. People who spent 32_________ time buying simple clothing items
were more satisfied than those who had not. However, when buying furniture,
shoppers made 33_______ purchasing decisions if they didn't think too hard.
From this, the researchers concluded that in other choices, perhaps more
important than shopping. 34________ decisions are best made by the
unconscious. The writer comments that Dijksterhuis's finding is apparently
35__________ but nonetheless true.

https://www.facebook.com/ieltsfever [email protected] 10
Academic Reading IELTS Fever IELTSFever Academic Reading 123

A more B counterintuitive C simple

D better E conscious F obvious

G complex H less I worse

Questions 36-40
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3?

In boxes 36 - 40 on your answer sheet, write

YES if the statement agrees with the writer

NO if the statement does not agree with the writer

NOT GIVEN if there is no information about this in the passage

(36) Dijksterhuis's findings agree with existing political and management theories.

(37) Some political leaders seem to use deliberation without attention when making complex
decisions.

(38) All political decisions are complex ones.

(39) We judge political errors according to our own political beliefs.

(40) Social considerations must be taken into account for any examination of decision making to
prove useful.

https://www.facebook.com/ieltsfever [email protected] 11