IELTS reading

Cambridge 14 · Academic Reading Test 1

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Section 1

Reading Passage 1

THE IMPORTANCE OF CHILDREN’S PLAY

Brick by brick, six-year-old Alice is building a magical kingdom. Imagining fairy-tale turrets and fire-breathing dragons, wicked witches and gallant heroes, she’s creating an enchanting world. Although she isn’t aware of it, this fantasy is helping her take her first steps towards her capacity for creativity and so it will have important repercussions in her adult life. Minutes later, Alice has abandoned the kingdom in favour of playing schools with her younger brother. When she bosses him around as his ‘teacher’, she’s practising how to regulate her emotions through pretence. Later on, when they tire of this and settle down with a board game, she’s learning about the need to follow rules and take turns with a partner. ‘Play in all its rich variety is one of the highest achievements of the human species,’ says Dr David Whitebread from the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, UK. ‘It underpins how we develop as intellectual, problem-solving adults and is crucial to our success as a highly adaptable species.’ Recognizing the importance of play is not new: over two millennia ago, the Greek philosopher Plato extolled its virtues as a means of developing skills for adult life, and ideas about play-based learning have been developing since the 19th century. But we live in changing times, and Whitebread is mindful of a worldwide decline in play, pointing out that over half the people in the world now live in cities. ‘The opportunities for free play, which I experienced almost every day of my childhood, are becoming increasingly scarce,’ he says. Outdoor play…

Questions 1–8

Complete the notes below.

ONE WORD ONLY

1.building a 'magical kingdom' may help develop ___

2.board games involve ___ and turn-taking

Section 2

Reading Passage 2

The Growth Of Bike-sharing Schemes Around The World

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How Dutch engineer Luud Schimmelpennink helped to devise urban bike-sharing schemes The original idea for an urban bike-sharing scheme dates back to a summer’s day in Amsterdam in 1965. Provo, the organization that came up with the idea, was a group of Dutch activists who wanted to change society. They believed the scheme, which was known as the Witte Fietsenplan, was an answer to the perceived threats of air pollution and consumerism. In the centre of Amsterdam, they painted a small number of used bikes white. They also distributed leaflets describing the dangers of cars and inviting people to use the white bikes. The bikes were then left unlocked at various locations around the city, to be used by anyone in need of transport. Luud Schimmelpennink, a Dutch industrial engineer who still lives and cycles in Amsterdam, was heavily involved in the original scheme. He recalls how the scheme succeeded in attracting a great deal of attention – particularly when it came to publicising Provo’s aims – but struggled to get off the ground. The police were opposed to Provo’s initiatives and almost as soon as the white bikes were distributed around the city, they removed them. However, for Schimmelpennink and for bike-sharing schemes in general, this was just the beginning. ‘The first Witte Fietsenplan was just a symbolic thing,’ he says. ‘We painted a few bikes white, that was all. Things got more serious when I became a member of the Amsterdam city council two years later.’ Schimmelpennink seized this opportunity to present a more elaborate Witte Fietsenplan to the city council.…

Questions 14–18

The Reading Passage has seven paragraphs, A-G.

14.a description of how people misused a bike-sharing scheme

Section 3

Reading Passage 3

Motivational Factors And The Hospitality Industry

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A critical ingredient in the success of hotels is developing and maintaining superior performance from their employees. How is that accomplished? What Human Resource Management (HRM) practices should organizations invest in to acquire and retain great employees? Some hotels aim to provide superior working conditions for their employees. The idea originated from workplaces – usually in the non-service sector – that emphasized fun and enjoyment as part of work-life balance. By contrast, the service sector, and more specifically hotels, has traditionally not extended these practices to address basic employee needs, such as good working conditions. Pfeffer (1994) emphasizes that in order to succeed in a global business environment, organizations must make investment in Human Resource Management (HRM) to allow them to acquire employees who possess better skills and capabilities than their competitors. This investment will be to their competitive advantage. Despite this recognition of the importance of employee development, the hospitality industry has historically been dominated by underdeveloped HR practices (Lucas, 2002). Lucas also points out that ‘the substance of HRM practices does not appear to be designed to foster constructive relations with employees or to represent a managerial approach that enables developing and drawing out the full potential of people, even though employees may be broadly satisfied with many aspects of their work’ (Lucas, 2002). In addition, or maybe as a result, high employee turnover has been a recurring problem throughout the hospitality…

Questions 27–31

Look at the following statements and the list of researchers below.

27.Hotel managers need to know what would encourage good staff to remain.

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Answers & explanations

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40 answers3 explanations open

1
creativity
The correct answer 'creativity' fits because the excerpt mentions that the child's play is helping her develop her capacity for creativity by engaging in fantasy play like building a 'magical kingdom'. This emphasizes the importance of play in fostering creativity in children.
2
rules
The correct answer is 'rules' because the excerpt specifically highlights that children learn about the need to follow rules while playing board games. This aligns with the concept of rules being an essential aspect of games to ensure fair play and order.
3
cities
The correct answer matches with the information given in the excerpt about the increasing population living in cities. It directly corresponds to the word 'cities' mentioned in the passage.
4
traffic
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5
crime
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6
competition
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7
evidence
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8
life
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9
TRUE
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10
TRUE
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11
NOT GIVEN
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12
FALSE
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13
TRUE
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14
E
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15
C
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16
F
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17
C
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18
A
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19
B
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20
D
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21
D
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22
E
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23
activists
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24
consumerism
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25
leaflets
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26
police
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27
E
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28
D
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29
B
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30
D
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31
C
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32
YES
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33
NO
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34
NO
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35
NOT GIVEN
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36
restaurants
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37
performance
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38
turnover
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39
goals
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40
characteristics
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Understand why, not only what.

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