IELTS reading

Reading Test 15

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Section 1

Reading Passage 1

Daydreaming

Everyone daydreams sometimes. We sit or lie down, close our eyes and use our imagination to think about something that might happen in the future or could have happened in the past. Most daydreaming is pleasant. We would like the daydream to happen and we would be very happy if it did actually happen. We might daydream that we are in another person's place, or doing something that we have always wanted to do, or that other people like or admire us much more than they normally do. Daydreams are not dreams, because we can only daydream if we are awake. Also, we choose what our daydreams will be about, which we cannot usually do with dreams. With many daydreams, we know that what we imagine is unlikely to happen. At least, if it does happen, it probably will not do so in the way we want it to. However, some daydreams are about things that are likely to happen. With these, our daydreams often help us to work out what we want to do, or how to do it to get the best results. So, these daydreams are helpful. We use our imagination to help us understand the world and other people. Daydreams can help people to be creative. People in creative or artistic careers, such as composers, novelists and filmmakers, develop new ideas through daydreaming. This is also true of research scientists and mathematicians. In fact, Albert Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge because knowledge is limited whereas imagination is not. Research in the 1980s showed that most daydreams are about ordinary, everyday events. It also showed that over 75% of workers in so-called…

Questions 1–8

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text?

1.People usually daydream when they are walking around.

2.Some people can daydream when they are asleep.

Section 2

Reading Passage 2

Tricky Sums and Psychology

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In their first years of studying mathematics at school, children all over the world usually have to learn the times table, also known as the multiplication table, which shows what you get when you multiply numbers together. Children have traditionally learned their times table by going from '1 times 1 is 1' all the way up to '12 times 12 is 144'. Times tables have been around for a very long time now. The oldest known tables using base 10 numbers, the base that is now used everywhere in the world, are written on bamboo strips dating from 305 BC, found in China. However, in many European cultures the times table is named after the Ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras (570-495 BC). And so it is called the Table of Pythagoras in many languages, including French and Italian. In 1820, in his book The Philosophy of Arithmetic, the mathematician John Leslie recommended that young pupils memories the times table up to 25 x 25. Nowadays, however, educators generally believe it is important for children to memorise the table up to 9 x 9, 10 x 10 or 12 x12. The current aim in the UK is for school pupils to know all their times tables up to 12 x 12 by the age of nine. However, many people do not know them, even as adults. Recently, some politicians have been asked arithmetical questions of this kind. For example, in 1998, the schools minister Stephen Byers was asked the answer to 7 x 8. He got the answer wrong, saying 54 rather than 56, and everyone laughed at him. In 2014, a young boy asked the UK Chancellor George Osborne the exact same question. As he had…

Questions 14–19

The text has seven paragraphs, A-G. Which paragraph contains the following information?

14.a 19th-century opinion of what children should learn

Section 3

Reading Passage 3

Care in the Community

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'Bedlam' is a word that has become synonymous in the English language with chaos and disorder. The term itself derives from the shortened name for a former 16th century London institution for the mentally ill, known as St. Mary of Bethlehem. This institution was so notorious that its name was to become a byword for mayhem. Patient 'treatment' amounted to little more than legitimised abuse. Inmates were beaten and forced to live in unsanitary conditions, whilst others were placed on display to a curious public as a side-show. There is little indication to suggest that other institutions founded at around the same time in other European countries were much better. Even up until the mid-twentieth century, institutions for the mentally ill were regarded as being more places of isolation and punishment than healing and solace. In popular literature of the Victorian era that reflected true-life events, individuals were frequently sent to the 'madhouse' as a legal means of permanently disposing of an unwanted heir or spouse. Later, in the mid-twentieth century, institutes for the mentally ill regularly carried out invasive brain surgery known as a 'lobotomy' on violent patients without their consent. The aim was to 'calm' the patient but ended up producing a patient that was little more than a zombie. Such a procedure is well documented to devastating effect in the film 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'. Little wonder then that the appalling catalogue of treatment of the mentally ill led to a call for change from social activists and psychologists alike. Improvements began to be…

Questions 26–31

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

26.Which of the following statements is accurate?

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Answers & explanations

Every answer is available. The first 3 explanations are free; PrepGo Premium unlocks the rest.

40 answers3 explanations open

1
FALSE
The keywords for Q1 are “daydream”, “walking around”. After reading paragraph 1, we can see that “we sit or lie down, close our eyes…”. It means that people don’t daydream when they are walking around. “Sit or lie down” is contradicted with “walking around” in this case. Thus, the correct answer for Q1 should be “False”
2
FALSE
The keywords for Q2 are “daydream”, “asleep”. After reading paragraph 2, we can easily see “We can only daydream if we are awake”, it has contradicted meaning with the information in Q2. Thus, the correct answer for Q2 should be “False”
3
TRUE
The keywords for Q3 are “daydreams”, “more successful in lives”. After reading paragraph 2, we can see “daydreams help us to work out what we want to do, how to get the best results”, “daydreams are helpful and help us understand the world and other people” It means that some daydreams are helpful, and they can help us to be more successful in lives (understanding other people, get the best results) Thus, the correct answer for Q3 should be “True”
4
TRUE
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5
NOT GIVEN
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6
TRUE
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7
NOT GIVEN
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8
FALSE
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9
develop new ideas
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10
problem-solving
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11
C
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12
B
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13
D
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14
C
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15
F
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16
G
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17
A
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18
D
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19
B
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20
FALSE
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21
TRUE
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22
TRUE
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23
FALSE
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24
FALSE
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25
NOT GIVEN
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26
D
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27
B
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28
B
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29
A
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30
B
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31
B
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32
A
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33
C
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34
C
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35
B
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36
B
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37
NOT GIVEN
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38
FALSE
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39
FALSE
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40
TRUE
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Understand why, not only what.

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