IELTS Mock Test 2026 January Reading Practise Test 2

Burying greenhouse gases to slow global warming A. One way to slow global warming is to take the greenhouse gases that cause it and bury them. That is the idea behind projects now under way to capture emissions from power plants and factories and force them underground or deep into the ocean. There, proponents argue, they could be trapped for thousands of years. B. This concept, known as carbon sequestration, is already being used by oil companies to improve the efficiency of oil wells, and now engineers have begun exploring ways to capture carbon dioxide emissions from power plants to reduce their impact on the environment. At a recent conference, delegates from fourteen industrialised and developing countries agreed to engage in cooperative research into capturing and storing carbon dioxide. C. The goal is to stabilise emissions of greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere. Over the past century, airborne carbon dioxide concentrations have risen by nearly a third, according to Scott Klara, sequestration manager at the US National Energy Technology Laboratory. Unless emissions are slashed by two thirds worldwide, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that concentrations will rise to double the levels of the early 1700s, before the Industrial Revolution. These increased levels of carbon-based compounds in the atmosphere are believed to be the cause of rising temperatures and sea levels around the world. Ignoring the problem is therefore not an option. D. Limiting emissions, however, is not an easy undertaking since increased energy consumption…

A. Violins made by long-dead Italian craftsmen from the Cremona region are beautiful works of art, coveted by collectors as well as players. Particularly outstanding violins have reputedly changed hands for over a million pounds. In contrast, fine modern instruments can be bought for under £100. Do such figures really reflect such large differences in quality? After more than a hundred years of vigorous debate, this question remains highly contentious, provoking strongly held but divergent views among musicians, violin makers and scientists alike. B. Every violin, whether a Stradivarius or the cheapest factory- made copy, has a distinctive 'voice’ of its 0. Just as any musician can immediately recognise the difference between Domingo and Pavarotti singing the same operatic aria, so a skilled violinist can distinguish between different qualities in the sound produced by individual Stradivari or Guarneri violins. Individual notes on a single instrument sound different each time they are played, which suggests that the perceived tone of a violin must be related to the overall design of the instrument, rather than the frequencies of particular resonances on it. But although various attempts have been made to analyse such global properties, it is extremely difficult to distinguish between a fine Stradivarius instrument and an indifferent modern copy on the basis of the measured response alone. The ear is a supreme detection device, and a system has yet to be developed which can match the brain's sophisticated ability to assess complex sounds. C. So how do skilled violinmakers…

Music has long been considered a uniquely human concept. In fact, most psychologists agree that music is a universal human instinct. Like any ability, however, there is great variation in people's musical competence. For every brilliant pianist in the world, there are several people we refer to as ‘tone deaf’. It is not simply that people with tone deafness (or ‘amusia’) are unable to sing in tune; they are also unable to discriminate between tones or recognize familiar melodies. Such a ‘disorder’ can occur after some sort of brain damage, but recently research has been undertaken in an attempt to discover the cause of congenital amusia (when people are born with the condition), which is not associated with any brain damage, hearing problems, or lack of exposure to music. According to the research of Dr. Isabelle Peretz of the University of Montreal, amusia is more complicated than the inability to distinguish pitches. An amusic (a person who has the condition of amusia) can distinguish between two pitches that are far apart but cannot tell the difference between intervals smaller than a half step on the Western diatonic scale, while most people can easily distinguish differences smaller than that. When listening to melodies that have had a single note altered so that it is out of key with the rest of the melody, amusics do not notice a problem. As would be expected, amusics perform significantly worse at singing and tapping a rhythm along with a melody than do non-amusics. The most fascinating aspect of amusia is how specific to music it is. Because of music’s close ties…