travel books reading ielts

If Muslim and Chinese peoples dominated travel and travel writing in post- classical times, European explorers, conquerors, merchants, and missionaries took centre stage during the early modern era (about 1500 to 1800 CE). By no means did Muslim and Chinese travel come to a halt in early modern times. But European peoples ventured to the distant corners of the globe, and European printing presses churned out thousands of travel accounts that described foreign lands and peoples for a reading public with an apparently insatiable appetite for news about the larger world. The volume of travel litera­ture was so great that several editors, including Giambattista Ramusio, Rich­ard Hakluyt, Theodore de Biy, and Samuel Purchas, assembled numerous travel accounts and made them available in enormous published collections.

During the 19th century, European travellers made their way to the interior regions of Africa and the Americas, generating a fresh round of travel writing as they did so. Meanwhile, European colonial administrators devoted numer­ous writings to the societies of their colonial subjects, particularly in Asian and African colonies they established. By mid-century, attention was flowing also in the other direction. Painfully aware of the military and technological prowess of European and Euro-American societies, Asian travellers in particu­lar visited Europe and the United States in hopes of discovering principles useful for the organisation of their own societies. Among the most prominent of these travellers who made extensive use of their overseas observations and experiences in their own writings were the Japanese reformer Fukuzawa Yu-kichi and the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen.

With the development of inexpensive and reliable means of mass transport, the 20th century witnessed explosions both in the frequency of long-distance travel and in the volume of travel writing. While a great deal of travel took place for reasons of business, administration, diplomacy, pilgrimage, and mis­sionary work, as in ages past, increasingly effective modes of mass transport made it possible for new kinds of travel to flourish. The most distinctive of them was mass tourism, which emerged as a major form of consumption .for individuals living in the world’s wealthy societies. Tourism enabled consumers to get away from home to see the sights in Rome, take a cruise through the Caribbean, walk the Great Wall of China, visit some wineries in Bordeaux, or go on safari in Kenya. A peculiar variant of the travel account arose to meet the needs of these tourists: the guidebook, which offered advice on food, lodging, shopping, local customs, and all the sights that visitors should not miss seeing. Tourism has had a massive economic impact throughout the world, but other new forms of travel have also had considerable influence in contemporary times. >> IELTS TUTOR lưu ý: PHÂN TÍCH ĐỀ THI THẬT TASK 2 (dạng advantages & disadvantages) Some students work while studying. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this trend and give your opinion?NGÀY 04/8/2020 IELTS WRITING GENERAL MÁY TÍNH (kèm bài được sửa hs đi thi)

Questions 27-28

A. Because travellers record their own experiences.

B Because travellers reflect upon their own society and life. C Because it increases knowledge of foreign cultures. D Because it is related to the development of human society.

Questions 29-36 Complete the table on the next page. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from Reading Passage 234 for each answer

Questions 37-40

A. meet the public’s interest . B. explore new business opportunities. C. encourage trips to the new world. D. record the larger world.

A. The production of travel books B. The literary status of travel books C. The historical significance of travel books. >> IELTS TUTOR lưu ý: Phân tích"Some people do not mind to spend their leisure time with their colleagues while some people prefer to keep their private life separate from their work life. Is it a great idea to spend leisure time with your colleagues?"IELTS WRITING (kèm bài viết thi thật HS đạt 6.0) D. The development of travel books

27. C 28. B 29. Persian wars 30. allies 31. geographical knowledge 32. pilgrimage 33. India 34. colonies 35. organisation 36. wealthy 37. D 38. B 39. A 40. D

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Preparing for IELTS: 10 techniques for the most effective test preparation

By ielts expert, 03 june 2024 - 10:56.

IELTS is recognised by over 12,000 organisations worldwide, and has helped many people meet their goals both at home and abroad. But how can you prepare for it?

Effective IELTS test preparation is the best way to familiarise yourself with the test structure. Understanding how it works will help you approach the test with confidence and increase your chances of success. 

Sign up to IELTS Ready Member and start preparing now!

10 effective techniques for test preparation 

1. create a daily routine.

For the most effective IELTS test preparation, the first step is to establish a schedule you can follow every day. You must stick to this schedule, even if it’s just half an hour. Committing to a routine and learning gradually are the best ways to get good results.

Organise your schedule so you can set aside the same time every day. That way, studying will become a habit. Don’t forget that studying for half an hour every day is more effective than studying for a couple of hours once a week.

Only add new activities to your study schedule when you’re familiar with previous ones to avoid overwhelming yourself - and make sure all your sessions connect to IELTS topics. 

2. Focus on your weaknesses

You make better progress in test preparation when you know about your strengths and weaknesses. You’ll know exactly which skills you’ll need to work on as you prepare for IELTS. By focusing on the areas where you need to improve, you’ll make the most of your study time. 

For example, if you have strong reading skills but you’re not great at writing, it might be tempting to keep practising reading exercises - but you’ll get a better overall score if you include more writing exercises in your study sessions. 

3. Underline important points

The underlining technique is a common way to help us memorise what we learn. When you underline important information, it immediately stands out when you look at the page.

You can also use it alongside other study techniques. It’s especially helpful when you want to create a summary or outline based on keywords in a text. 

Here’s how to use the underlining technique:

• Skim the text to get the general idea.
• Read more carefully to find important points.
• Read again and underline, highlight, or mark what you want to remember.
• Do one last reading to look for any points you’ve missed.

4. Create mind or concept maps

Mapping is one of the most common study techniques. It’s a visual technique for capturing and remembering information. It’s so effective for test preparation because we process what we see more quickly than what we hear or read.

Use a mind map to visualise ideas and link them to one important point. This kind of map usually uses a radial structure with the key idea at its core, and then related ideas linked by lines. This type of graph is great for associating words with images and colours which makes them more memorable.

On the other hand, use a concept map to organise words and ideas you’ve learnt together. This type of map looks more like a tree, with one or more central ideas in boxes, and then new ideas emerging from them and connecting with one another, like branches of a tree.

5. Summarise what you’ve learned

Taking the main idea and contextual clues from a lesson can save you time. When revising, you have a shorter amount to read and fewer unnecessary, distracting details.

Here are the steps to build a great summary:

• Read the text you want to summarise a few times.
• Separate it into different sections (these can be based on paragraphs)
• Write the main idea for each section
• Underline or highlight any contextual clues
• Use all this information to write the summary

6. Make flashcards

Flashcards are excellent for memorising a new language and combining it with what you’ve already learnt. They can help you revise the language you’ll need to use in your IELTS test.

One advantage is that you can design them in a way that suits you. Personalising them can help you memorise what’s on them more effectively.

Here are some tips for creating flashcards as part of your test preparation:

• Identify the topic or language area you need to learn.
• If there’s more than one topic or language area, give them different colours.
• Number the cards so you can order them.
• Give them titles and subtitles.
• Highlight the most important points.
• Store them safely together in a plastic wallet or a folder. 

7. Focus on the core four skills

Practising all four language skills by yourself - reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills - is essential for thorough test preparation. 

Here are some exercises you can do to improve your skills:

• Read in English for 30 minutes every day.
• Find books, magazines, and online articles that interest you.
• Try to guess new language from context before looking it up.
• Write small essays about your experiences and interests, for example, travel and hobbies.
• Use the new vocabulary you’ve learnt in your writing.
• Summarise a news article or short story in English.
• Listen to songs and write as many of the lyrics as you can.
• Listen and watch things like songs, TV shows, and news broadcasts in English.
• Get familiar with different accents in English.
• Practise listening to audio repeatedly to see if you can understand details you didn’t the first time.
• Speak to yourself to build your confidence and practise your pronunciation.
• Join a conversation club so you can practise speaking with others.
• See if your family, friends, or colleagues are happy to spend 15 minutes speaking in English sometimes.   

8. Study the format of the IELTS test

It’s best to know and understand the structure of any test before you take it so you can prepare yourself. So, an important part of preparing for IELTS is learning exactly what you’ll be asked in each section of the test, getting to know the task types, and learning techniques for completing these test tasks. 

In our  online preparation courses , the British Council gives you a breakdown of what’s included in all the sections. We tell you the number of questions and explain how you should answer them.

You’ll also learn the best strategies for test preparation and more tips on how to prepare.   

9. Make the most of apps

The British Council has many  apps  you can use to practise different skills or get recommendations on how to study. For example, there are the free Learn English Podcast and Learn English Videos apps.

You can download apps from Google Play or the App Store to your device. That means you’ll be able to study when you’re on the go. 

Apps have lots of different activities to help with test preparation, including grammar tips, quizzes, and sample questions - so you won’t get bored!   

10. Practise with mock tests

The British Council offers free IELTS practice tests for all four skills, covering both the Academic and General Training tests.

It's essential to practise with these mock tests under timed conditions, simulating the actual test duration. This approach will help you be better prepared on test day.

After completing the practice tests, you can compare your answers with the model answers available on the British Council website. These model answers include explanations, helping you understand how different answers are scored. 

Remember that good test preparation is key to success with IELTS. By improving your skills and boosting your confidence, you can achieve high scores. Experiment with the techniques mentioned above to find the ones that work best for you.

Sign up to IELTS Ready Member and start preparing now

Academic reading practice test 37 Going bananas , Travel Books , Coastal Archaeology of Britain

Please  download  the PDF file offline and give exam for any information contact at [email protected]

ieltsfever-academic-reading-practice-test-37-pdf

Answer Sheet blank pdf

answers-ieltsfever-academic-reading-practice-test-37-pdf

you can also download in zip file password= “ieltsfever.com”

ieltsfever-academic-reading-practice-test-37-ZIP

READING PASSAGE 1 Questions 1 – 13 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1 – 13 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.

 going bananas.

The banana is among the world’s oldest crops. Agricultural scientists believe that the first edible banana was discovered around 10,000 years ago. It has been at an evolutionary standstill ever since it was first propagated in the jungles of South-East Asia at the end of the last Ice Age. Normally the wild banana, a giant jungle herb card Musa acuminata, contains a mass of hard seeds that make the fruit virtually inedible. But now-and-then, hunter-gatherers must have discovered rare mutant plants that produced seamless, edible fruits. Geneticists now know that the vast majority of these soft-fruited plants resulted from genetic accidents that gave their cells three copies of each chromosome instead of the usual two. This imbalance prevents seeds and pollens from developing normally, rendering the mutant plants sterile. And that is why some scientists believe the worst – the most popular fruit could be doomed. It lacks the genetic diversity to fight off pests and diseases that are invading the banana plantations of Central America and smallholdings of Africa and Asia alike.

In some ways, the banana today resembles the potato before blight brought famine to Ireland a century and a half ago. But it holds a lesson for other crops too, says Emile Frison, top banana at the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plaintain in Montpellier, France. The state of the banana, Frison warns, can teach a broader lesson: the increasing standardization of food crops around the world is threatening their ability to adapt and survive.

The first Stone Age plant breeders cultivated these sterile freaks by replanting cuttings from their stems. And the descendants of those original cuttings are the bananas we still eat today. Each is a virtual clone, almost devoid of genetic diversity. And that uniformity makes it ripe for disease like no other crop on Earth. Traditional varieties of sexually reproducing crops have always had a much broader genetic base, and the genes will recombine in new arrangements in each generation. This gives them much greater flexibility in the evolving response to disease – and far more genetic resources to draw on in the face of an attack. But that advantage is fading fast, as growers increasingly plant the same few high-yielding varieties. Plant breeders work feverishly to maintain resistance in these standardized crops. Should these efforts falter, yields of even the most productive crop could swiftly crash. “When some pests or disease comes along severe epidemics can occur,” says Geoff Hawtin, director of the Rome-based International Plant Genetic Resources Institute.

The banana is an excellent case in point. Until the 1950s, one variety, the Gros Michel, The banana is an excellent case in point. Until the 1950s, one variety, the Gros Michel, dominated the world’s commercial business. Found by French botanists in Asia in the 1820s, the Gros Michel was by all accounts a fine banana, richer and sweeter than today’s standard banana, and without the latter’s bitter aftertaste when green. But it was vulnerable to a soil fungus that produced a wilt known as Panama disease. “Once the fungus gets into the soil, it remains there for many years. There is nothing farmers can do. Even chemical spraying wont get rid of it,” says Rodomiro Ortiz, director of the international Institute for Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan, Nigeria. So plantation owners played a running game, abandoning infested fields and moving to “clean” land – until they ran out of clean land in the 1950s and had to abandon the Gros Michel. Its successor, and still the reigning commercial king, is the Cavendish banana, a 19th century British discovery from southern China. The Cavendish is resistance to Panama disease and, as a result, it literally saved the international banana industry. During the 1960s, it replaced the Gros Michel on supermarket shelves. If you buy a banana today, it is almost certainly a Cavendish. But even so, it is a minority in the world’s banana crop.

Half a billion people in Asia and Africa depend on bananas. Bananas provide the largest source of calories and are eaten daily. Its name is synonymous with food. But the day of reckoning maybe coming for the Cavendish and its indigenous kin. Another fungal disease, Black Sigatoka – which causes brown wounds on leaves and premature fruit ripening – cuts fruit yields by 50 to 70% and reduces the productive life of banana plants from 30 years to as little as two or three. Commercial growers keep Sigatoka at bay by a massive chemical assault. 40 sprayings of fungicide a year is typical. But even so, diseases such as Black Sigatoka are getting more and more difficult to control. “As soon as you bring in a new fungicide, they develop resistance,” says Frison. “One thing we can be sure of is that the Sigatoka won’t lose in the battle.” Pool farmers, who cannot afford chemicals, have it even worse. They can do little more than watch their plants die. “Most of the banana trees in Amazonia have already been destroyed by the disease” says Luadir Gesparotto, Brazil’s leading banana pathologist with the government research agency EMBRAPA. Production is likely to fall by 70% as the disease spreads, he predicts. The only option would be to find a new variety.

But how? Almost all edible varieties are susceptible to the diseases, so growers cannot simply change to a different banana. With most crops, such a threat would unleash an army of breeders, scouring the world for resistant relatives whose traits they can breed into commercial varieties. Not so with the banana. Because all edible varieties are sterile, bringing in new genetic traits to help cope with pests and dis-eases is nearly

impossible. Nearly, but not totally. Very rarely, a sterile banana will experience a geneticimpossible. Nearly, but not totally. Very rarely, a sterile banana will experience a geneticaccident that allows an almost normal seed to develop, giving breeders a tiny windowfor improvement. Breeders at the Honduran Foundation of Agricultural Research havetried to exploit this to create disease-resistant varieties. Further backcrossing with wildbananas yielded a new seedless banana resistant to both black Sigatoka and Panama disease.

Neither Western supermarket consumers nor peasant growers like the new hybrid. Some accuse it of tasting more like an apple than a banana. Not surprisingly, the majority of plant breeders have until now turned their backs on the banana and got to work on easier plants. And commercial banana companies are now washing their hands of the whole breeding effort, preferring to fund a search for new fungicides instead. “We supported a breeding programme for 40 years, but it wasn’t able to develop an alternative to Cavendish. It was very expensive and we got nothing back,” says Ronald Romero, head of research at Chiquita, one of the Big Three companies that dominate the international banana trade.

Last year, a global consortium of scientists led by Frison announced plans to sequence the banana genome within five years. It would be the first edible fruit to be sequenced. Well, almost edible. The group will actually be sequencing inedible wild bananas from East Asia because many of these are resistant to black Sigatoka. If they can pinpoint the genes that help these wild varieties to resist black Sigatoka, the protective genes could be introduced into laboratory tissue cultures of cell from edible varieties. These could then be propagated into new, resistant plants and passed on to farmers.

It sounds promising, but the big banana companies have, until now, refused to get involved in GM research for fear of alienating their customers. “Biotechnology is extremely expensive and there are serious questions about consumer acceptance,” says David McLaughlin, Chiquita’s senior director for environmental affairs. With scant funding from the companies, the banana genome researchers are focusing on the other end of the spectrum. Even if they can identify the crucial genes, they will be a long way from developing new varieties that smallholders will find suitable and affordable. But whatever biotechnology’s academic interest, it is the only hope for the banana. Without it, banana production worldwide will head into a tailspin We may even see the extinction of the banana as both a lifesaver for hungry and impoverished Africans and as the most popular product on the world’s supermarket shelves.

Questions 1-3 Complete the sentences below with NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage. Write your answers in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet. 1. The banana was first eaten as a fruit by humans almost………years ago. 2. Bananas were first planted in ……… 3. The taste of wild bananas is adversely affected by its……….. Questions 4-10 Look at the following statements (Questions 4-10) and the list of people below. Match each statement with the correct person, A-F. Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 4-10 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once. 4. A pest invasion may seriously damage the banana industry. 5. The effect of fungal infection in soil is often long-lasting. 6. A commercial manufacturer gave up on breeding bananas for disease resistant species. 7. Banana disease may develop resistance to chemical sprays. 8. A banana disease has destroyed a large number of banana plantations. 9. Consumers would not accept genetically altered crop. 10. Lessons can be learned from bananas for other crops.

List of people A   Rodomiro Oritz B  David McLaughlin C   Emile Frison D   Ronald Romero E   Luadir Gasparotto F   Geoff Hawtin

Questions 11-13 Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 11-13 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 11. The banana is the oldest known fruit. 12. The Gros Michel is still being used as a commercial product. 13. Banana is the main food in some countries.

READING PASSAGE 2    Questions 14 – 26 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14 – 26 which are based on Reading Passage 2 on the following pages.

Coastal archaeology of britain.

The recognition of the wealth and diversity of England’s coastal archaeology has been The recognition of the wealth and diversity of England’s coastal archaeology has been one of the most important developments of recent years. Some elements of this enormous resource have long been known. The so-called ‘submerged forests’ off the coasts of England, sometimes with clear evidence of human activity, had attracted the interest of antiquarians since at least the eighteenth century, but serious and systematic attention has been given to the archaeological potential of the coast only since the early 1980s.

It is possible to trace a variety of causes for this concentration of effort and interest. In the 1980s and 1990s scientific research into climate change and its environmental impact spilled over into a much broader public debate as awareness of these issues grew; the prospect of rising sea levels over the next century, and their impact on current coastal environments, has been a particular focus for concern. At the same time archaeologists were beginning to recognise that the destruction caused by natural processes of coastal erosion and by human activity was having an increasing impact on the archaeological resource of the coast.

The dominant process affecting the physical form of England in the post-glacial period has been the rise in the altitude of sea level relative to the land, as the glaciers melted and the Iandmass re-adjusted. The encroachment of the sea, the loss of huge areas of land now under the North Sea and the English Channel, and especially the loss of the land bridge between England and France, which finally made Britain an island, must have been immensely significant factors in the lives of our pre-historic ancestors. Yet the way in which prehistoric communities adjusted to these environmental changes has seldom been a major theme in discussions of the period. One factor contributing to this has been that, although the rise in relative sea level is comparatively well documented, we know little about the constant reconfiguration of the coastline. This was affected by many processes, mostly quite localised, which have not yet been adequately researched. The detailed reconstruction of coastline histories and the changing environments available for human use will be an important theme for future research.

So great has been the rise in sea level and the consequent regression of the coast that much of the archaeological evidence now exposed in the coastal zone, whether being eroded or exposed as a buried land surface, is derived from what was originally terrestrial occupation. Its current location in the coastal zone is the product of later

unrelated processes, and it can tell us little about past adaptation to the sea. Estimates unrelated processes, and it can tell us little about past adaptation to the sea. Estimates of its significance will need to be made in the context of other related evidence from dry land sites. Nevertheless, its physical environment means that preserva-tion is often excellent, for example in the case of the Neolithic structure excavated at the Stumble in Essex.

In some cases these buried land surfaces do contain evidence for human exploitation of what was a coastal environment, and elsewhere along the modern coast there is similar evidence. Where the evidence does relate to past human exploitation of the resources and the opportunities offered by the sea and the coast, it is both diverse and as yet little understood. We are not yet in a position to make even preliminary estimates of answers to such fundamental questions as the extent to which the sea and the coast affected human life in the past, what percentage of the population at any time lived within reach of the sea, or whether human settlements in coastal environments showed a dis-tinct character from those inland.

The most striking evidence for use of the sea is in the form of boats, yet we still have much to learn about their production and use. Most of the known wrecks around our coast are not unexpectedly of post-medieval date, and offer an unparalleled opportunity for research, which has as yet been little used. The prehistoric sewn-plank boats such as those from the Humber estuary and Dover all seem to belong to the second millennium BC; after this there is a gap in the record of a millen-nium, which cannot yet be explained, before boats reappear, but built using a very different technology. Boatbuilding must have been an extremely important activity around much of our coast, yet we know almost nothing about it. Boats were some of the most complex artefacts produced by pre-modern societies, and further research on their production and use make an important contribution to our understanding of past attitudes to technology and technological change.

Boats needed landing places, yet here again our knowledge is very patchy. In many cases the natural shores and beaches would have sufficed, leaving little or no archaeological trace, but especially in later periods, many ports and harbours, as well as smaller faculties such as quays, wharves, and jetties, were built. Despite a growth of interest in the waterfront archaeology of some of our more important Roman and medieval towns, very little attention has been paid to the multitude of smaller landing places. Redevelopment of harbour sites and other development and natural pres-sures along the coast are subjecting these important locations to unprecedented threats, yet few surveys of such sites have been undertaken.

One of the most important revelations of recent research has been the extent of One of the most important revelations of recent research has been the extent of industrial activity along the coast. Fishing and salt production are among the better documented activities, but even here our knowledge is patchy. Many forms of fishing will leave little archaeological trace, and one of the surprises of recent survey has been the extent of past investment in facilities for procuring fish and shellfish. Elaborate wooden fish weirs, often of considerable extent and responsive to aerial photography in shallow water, have been identified in areas such as Essex and the Severn estuary. The production of salt, especially in the late Iron Age and early Roman periods, has been recognised for some time, especially in the Thames estuary and around the Solent and Poole Harbour, but the reasons for the decline of that industry and the nature of later coastal salt working are much less well understood. Other industries were also located along the coast, either because the raw materials outcropped there or for ease of working and transport: mineral resources such as sand, gravel, stone, coal, ironstone, and alum were all exploited. These industries are poorly docu-mented, but their remains are sometimes extensive and striking

Some appreciation of the variety and importance of the archaeological remains preserved in the coastal zone, albeit only in preliminary form, can thus be gained from recent work, but the complexity of the problem of managing that resource is also being realised. The problem arises not only from the scale and variety of the archaeological remains, but also from two other sources: the very varied natural and human threats to the resource, and the complex web of organisations with authority over, or interests in, the coastal zone. Human threats include the redevelopment of his-toric towns and old dockland areas, and the increased importance of the coast for the leisure and tourism industries, resulting in pressure for the increased provision of facilities such as marinas. The larger size of ferries has also caused an increase in the damage caused by their wash to fragile deposits in the intertidal zone. The most significant natural threat is the predicted rise in sea level over the next century, especially in the south and east of England. Its impact on archaeology is not easy to predict, and though it is likely to be highly localised, it will be at a scale much larger than that of most archaeological sites. Thus protecting one site may simply result in transposing the threat to a point further along the coast. The management of the archaeological remains will have to be considered in a much longer time scale and a much wider geographical scale than is common in the case of dry land sites, and this will pose a serious challenge for archaeologists.

Questions 14-16 Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write answers in boxes 14-16 on your sheet. 14. What has caused public interest in coastal archaeology in recent years? A. The rapid development of England’s coastal archaeology B. The rising awareness of climate change C. The discovery of an underwater forest D. The systematic research conducted on coastal archaeological findings 15. What does the passage say about the evidence of boats? A. There’s enough knowledge of the boat building technology of the pre-historic people. B. Many of the boats discovered were found in harbours. C. The use of boats had not been recorded for a thousand years. D. Boats were first used for fishing. 16. What can be discovered from the air? A. Salt mines B. Roman towns C. Harbours D. Fisheries

QUESTIONS 17-23

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Passage 2? 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

17 . England lost much of its land after the Ice Age due to the rising sea level.

18 . The coastline of England has changed periodically.

19 . Coastal archaeological evidence may be well-protected by sea water.

20 . The design of boats used by pre-modem people was very simple.

21 . Similar boats were also discovered in many other European countries.

22 . There are few documents relating to mineral exploitation.

23 . Large passenger boats are causing increasing damage to the seashore.

Questions 24-26

Choose THREE letters from A-G. Write your answer in boxes 24-26 on your  answer sheet. Which THREE of the following statements are mentioned in the  passage?

A How coastal archaeology was originally discovered.

B It is difficult to understand how many people lived close to the sea.

C How much the prehistoric communities understand the climate change. 

D Our knowledge of boat evidence is limited.

E Some fishing grounds were converted to ports.

F Human development threatens the archaeological remains.

G Coastal archaeology will become more important in the future.

READING PASSAGE 3 Questions 27 – 40

You should spend about 20 minutes on questions 27 – 40 which are based on reading passage 3 below..

Travel Books

There are many reasons why individuals have traveled beyond their own societies. Some  travelers  may  have  simply  desired  to  satisfy  curiosity  about  the  larger  world.  Until  recent  times,  however,  did  travelers  start  their  journey  for  reasons  other  than  mere  curiosity. While the travelers’ accounts give much valuable information on these foreign  lands  and  provide  a  window  for  the  understanding  of  the  local  cultures  and  histories,

they are also a mirror to the travelers themselves, for these accounts help them to have a better understanding of themselves.

Records of foreign travel appeared soon after the invention of writing, and fragmentary  travel  accounts  appeared  in  both  Mesopotamia  and  Egypt  in  ancient  times.  After  the  formation  of  large,  imperial  states  in  the  classical  world,  travel  accounts  emerged  as  a  prominent literary genre in many lands, and they held especially strong appeal for rulers  desiring  useful  knowledge  about  their  realms.  The  Greek  historian  Herodotus  reported  on  his  travels  in  Egypt  and  Anatolia  in  researching  the  history  of  the  Persian  wars.  The  Chinese  envoy  Zhang  Qian  described  much  of  central  Asia  as  far  west  as  Bactria  (modern-day  Afghanistan)  on  the  basis  of  travels  undertaken  in  the  first  century  BCE  while searching for allies for the Han dynasty. Hellenistic and Roman geographers such  as Ptolemy, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder relied on their own travels through much of the  Mediterranean world as well as reports of other travelers to compile vast compendia of  geographical knowledge.

During  the  postclassical  era  (about  500  to  1500  CE),  trade  and  pilgrimage  emerged  as  major  incentives  for  travel  to  foreign  lands.  Muslim  merchants  sought  trading  opportunities  throughout  much  of  the  eastern  hemisphere.  They  described  lands,  peoples,  and  commercial  products  of  the  Indian  Ocean  basin  from  east  Africa  to  Indonesia, and they supplied the first written accounts of societies in Sub-Saharan West  Africa.  While  merchants  set  out  in  search  of  trade  and  profit,  devout  Muslims  traveled  as  pilgrims  to  Mecca  to  make  their  hajj  and  visit  the  holy  sites  of  Islam.  Since  the  prophet  Muhammad’s  original  pilgrimage  to  Mecca,  untold  millions  of  Muslims  have  followed  his  example,  and  thousands  of  hajj  accounts  have  related  their  experiences.  East  Asian  travelers  were  not  quite  so  prominent  as  Muslims  during  the  postclassical  era,  but  they  too  followed  many  of  the  highways  and  sea  lanes  of  the  eastern  hemisphere. Chinese merchants frequently visited southeast Asia and India, occasionally  venturing  even  to  east  Africa,  and  devout  East  Asian  Buddhists  undertook  distant  pilgrimages.  Between  the  5th  and  9th  centuries  CE,  hundreds  and  possibly  even  thousands  of  Chinese  Buddhists  traveled  to  India  to  study  with  Buddhist  teachers, collect  sacred  texts,  and  visit  holy  sites.  Written  accounts  recorded  the  experiences  of  many  pilgrims,  such  as  Faxian,  Xuanzang,  and  Yijing.  Though  not  so  numerous  as  the  Chinese pilgrims, Buddhists from Japan, Korea, and other lands also ventured abroad in  the interests of spiritual enlightenment.

Medieval  Europeans  did  not  hit  the  roads  in  such  large  numbers  as  their  Muslim  and  East Asian counterparts during the early part of the postclassical era, although gradually  increasing  crowds  of  Christian  pilgrims  flowed  to  Jerusalem,  Rome,  Santiago  de- Compostela  (in  northern  Spain),  and  other  sites.  After  the  12th  century,  however,  merchants,  pilgrims,  and  missionaries  from  medieval  Europe  traveled  widely  and  left  numerous travel accounts, of which Marco Polo’s description of his travels and sojourn  in China is the best known. As they became familiar with the larger world of the eastern  hemisphere—-and  the  profitable  commercial  opportunities  that  it  offered—European  people worked to find new and more direct routes to Asian and African markets. Their  efforts took them not only to all parts of the eastern hemisphere, but eventually to the Americas and Oceania as well.

If  Muslim  and  Chinese  peoples  dominated  travel  and  travel  writing  in  postclassical  times,  European  explorers,  conquerors,  merchants,  and  missionaries  took  center  stage  during  the  early  modern  era  (about  1500  to  1800  CE).  By  no  means  did  Muslim  and  Chinese travel come to a halt in early modern times. But European peoples ventured to  the distant corners of the globe, and European printing presses churned out thousands  of travel accounts that described foreign lands and peoples for a reading public with an  apparently  insatiable  appetite  for  news  about  the  larger  world.  The  volume  of  travel  literature  was  so  great  that  several  editors,  including  Giambattista  Ramusio,  Richard  Hakluyt,  Theodore  de  Bry,  and  Samuel  Purchas,  assembled  numerous  travel  accounts  and made them available in enormous published collections.

During  the  19th  century,  European  travelers  made  their  way  to  the  interior  regions  of  Africa  and  the  Americas,  generating  a  fresh  round  of  travel  writing  as  they  did  so.  Meanwhile,  European  colonial  administrators  devoted  numerous  writings  to  the  societies  of  their  colonial  subjects,  particularly  in  Asian  and  African  colonies  they  established.  By  midcentury,  attention  was  flowing  also  in  the  other  direction.  Painfully  aware  of  the  military  and  technological  prowess  of  European  and  Euro-American  societies,  Asian  travelers  in  particular  visited  Europe  and  the  United  States  in  hopes  of  discovering  principles  useful  for  the  reorganisation  of  their  own  societies.  Among  the  most  prominent  of  these  travelers  who  made  extensive  use  of  their  overseas observations  and  experiences  in  their  own  writings  were  the  Japanese  reformer   Fukuzawa Yukichi and the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen.

With  the  development  of  inexpensive  and  reliable  means  of  mass  transport,  the  20th  century  witnessed  explosions  both  in  the  frequency  of  long-distance  travel  and  in  the  volume of travel writing. While a great deal of travel took place for reasons of business,  administration, diplomacy, pilgrimage, and missionary work, as in ages past, increasingly  effective  modes  of  mass  transport  made  it  possible  for  new  kinds  of  travel  to  flourish.  The  most  distinctive  of  them  was  mass  tourism,  which  emerged  as  a  major  form  of  consumption  for  individuals  living  in  the  world’s  wealthy  societies.  Tourism  enabled  consumers to get away from home to see the sights in Rome, take a cruise through the  Caribbean, walk the Great Wall of China, visit some wineries in Bordeaux, or go on safari

in  Kenya.  A  peculiar  variant  of  the  travel  account  arose  to  meet  the  needs  of  these  tourists: the guidebook, which offered advice on food, lodging, shopping, local customs,  and  all  the  sights  that  visitors  should  not  miss  seeing.  Tourism  has  had  a  massive  economic  impact  throughout  the  world,  but  other  new  forms  of  travel  have  also  had  considerable influence in contemporary times.

(peoples – The human beings of a particular nation , community or ethnic group)  Anywhere else the use of the word peoples is wrong

Questions 27-28

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write your answers in boxes 27-28 on your answer sheet.

27 . What were most people traveling for in the early days? 

A Studying their own cultures

C Knowing other people and places better

D Writing travel books

28 . Why did the author say writing travel books is also “a mirror” for travelers themselves?

A Because travelers record their own experiences.

B Because travelers reflect upon their own society and life.

C Because it increases knowledge of foreign cultures.

D Because it is related to the development of human society.

Questions 29-36  

Complete the table below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from passage 3

Questions 37-40

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write your answers in boxes 37-40

37 . Why were the imperial rulers especially interested in these travel stories? 

A  Reading travel stories was a popular pastime.

B  The accounts are often truthful rather than fictional.

C  Travel books played an important role in literature.

D  They desired knowledge of their empire.

38  .Who were the largest group to record their spiritual trip during the postclassical era? 

A     Muslim traders

B     Muslim pilgrims

C     Chinese Buddhists

D     Indian Buddhist teachers

39  .During the early modern era, a large number of travel books were published to 

A     Meet the public’s interest.

B     Explore new business opportunities.

C     Encourage trips to the new world.

D     Record the larger world.

40  .What’s the main theme of the passage?

A     The production of travel books

B     The literary status of travel books

C     The historical significance of travel books

D     The development of travel books

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Dịch đề & phân tích đáp án IELTS Reading trong Actual Test Vol 2 Test 1

Passage 1: going bananas, 1. bài đọc & bản dịch tiếng việt.

Going Bananas

The world’s favorite fruit could disappear forever in 10 years’ time

Loại trái cây được yêu thích nhất thế giới có thể biến mất vĩnh viễn sau 10 năm nữa

A . The banana is among the world’s oldest crops. Agricultural scientists believe that the first edible banana was discovered around ten thousand years ago. It has been at an evolutionary standstill ever since it was first propagated in the jungles of South-East Asia at the end of the last ice age. Normally the wild banana, a giant jungle herb called Musa acuminata, contains a mass of hard seeds that make the fruit virtually inedible. But now and then, hunter-gatherers must have discovered rare mutant plants that produced seedless, ed­ible fruits. Geneticists now know that the vast majority of these soft-fruited plants resulted from genetic accidents that gave their cells three copies of each chromosome instead of the usual two. This imbalance prevents seeds and pol­len from developing normally, rendering the mutant plants sterile . And that is why some scientists believe the world’s most popular fruit could be doomed. It lacks the genetic diversity to fight off pests and diseases that are invading the banana plantations of Central America and the smallholdings of Africa and Asia alike.

Chuối là một trong những cây trồng lâu đời nhất trên thế giới. Các nhà khoa học nông nghiệp tin rằng quả chuối ăn được đầu tiên được phát hiện vào khoảng 10.000 năm trước. Quá trình tiến hoá của chuối đã dừng lại kể từ khi nó sinh sôi đầu tiên ở vùng nhiệt đới Đông Nam Á vào kỳ băng hà cuối cùng. Thông thường, chuối dại, một loại thảo mộc nhiệt đới khổng lồ có tên là Musa acuminata, gồm nhiều hạt cứng khiến quả hầu như không ăn được. Nhưng thỉnh thoảng, những người săn bắn hái lượm đã phát hiện ra những loài thực vật đột biến hiếm hoi cho ra quả không hạt, ăn được. Giờ đây, các nhà di truyền học biết rằng phần lớn những cây có quả mềm này là kết quả của những tai nạn di truyền đã tạo cho tế bào của chúng ba bản sao của mỗi nhiễm sắc thể thay vì hai bản sao thông thường. Sự mất cân bằng này ngăn không cho hạt và phấn hoa phát triển bình thường, khiến cây đột biến trở nên vô sinh . Và đó là lý do tại sao một số nhà khoa học tin rằng loại trái cây phổ biến nhất thế giới có thể bị diệt vong. Nó thiếu sự đa dạng di truyền để chống lại sâu bệnh đang xâm chiếm các đồn điền trồng chuối ở Trung Mỹ cũng như các nông trại nhỏ ở Châu Phi và Châu Á.

B . In some ways, the banana today resembles the potato before blight brought famine to Ireland a century and a half ago. But “it holds a lesson for other crops, too,” says Emile Frison, top banana at the International Network for the Im­provement of Banana and Plantain in Montpellier, France. “The state of the ba­nana,” Frison warns, “can teach a broader lesson: the increasing standardization of food crops around the world is threatening their ability to adapt and survive.”

Theo một số cách, chuối ngày nay giống với khoai tây trước khi bệnh bạc lá dẫn đến nạn đói ở Ireland cách đây một thế kỷ rưỡi. Nhưng “nó cũng là một bài học cho các loại cây trồng khác,” Emile Frison, chuyên gia về chuối hàng đầu tại Mạng lưới quốc tế về cải tiến chuối và chuối ở Montpellier, Pháp, cho biết. Frison cảnh báo: “Tình trạng của chuối có thể cho ta một bài học lớn hơn: tiêu chuẩn hóa ngày càng tăng của cây lương thực trên khắp thế giới đang đe dọa khả năng thích nghi và tồn tại của chúng”.

C . The first Stone Age plant breeders cultivated these sterile freaks by replanting cuttings from their stems. And the descendants of those original cuttings are the bananas we still eat today. Each is a virtual clone, almost devoid of genetic diversity. And that uniformity makes it ripe for diseases like no other crop on Earth. Traditional varieties of sexually reproducing crops have always had a much broader genetic base, and the genes will recombine in new arrangements in each generation. This gives them much greater flexibility in evolving re­sponses to disease – and far more genetic resources to draw on in the face of an attack. But that advantage is fading fast, as growers increasingly plant the same few, high-yielding varieties. Plant breeders work feverishly to maintain resistance in these standardized crops. Should these efforts falter, yields of even the most productive crop could swiftly crash. “When some pest or dis­ease comes along, severe epidemics can occur,” says Geoff Hawtin, director of the Rome-based International Plant Genetic Resources Institute.

Những nhà nhân giống cây trồng thời kỳ đồ đá đầu tiên đã trồng những cây kỳ dị vô sinh này bằng cách trồng lại những cành giâm từ thân của chúng. Và hậu duệ của những cành giâm ban đầu đó là những quả chuối mà chúng ta vẫn ăn ngày nay. Mỗi loài là một bản sao ảo, hầu như không có sự đa dạng di truyền. Và tính đồng nhất đó khiến nó miễn nhiễm với các loại bệnh tật mà không loại cây trồng nào khác trên Trái đất có thể mắc phải. Các giống cây trồng sinh sản hữu tính truyền thống luôn có cơ sở di truyền rộng hơn nhiều và các gen sẽ tái tổ hợp theo cách sắp xếp mới trong mỗi thế hệ. Điều này giúp chúng linh hoạt hơn nhiều trong việc phát triển các phản ứng đối với bệnh tật – và nhiều nguồn gen hơn để sử dụng khi đối mặt với một cuộc tấn công. Nhưng lợi thế đó đang mất dần nhanh chóng, khi người trồng ngày càng trồng cùng một số ít giống có năng suất cao. Các nhà nhân giống cây trồng làm việc cật lực để duy trì sức đề kháng ở những cây trồng tiêu chuẩn hóa này. Nếu những nỗ lực này không thành công, sản lượng của ngay cả vụ mùa năng suất cao nhất cũng có thể nhanh chóng sụp đổ. Geoff Hawtin, giám đốc Viện Tài nguyên Di truyền Thực vật Quốc tế có trụ sở tại Rome cho biết: “Khi một số loại sâu bệnh hoặc dịch bệnh xuất hiện, dịch bệnh nghiêm trọng có thể xảy ra.

D . The banana is an excellent case in point. Until the 1950s, one variety, the Gros Michel, dominated the world’s commercial banana business. Found by French botanists in Asia in the 1820s, the Gros Michel was by all accounts a fine banana, richer and sweeter than today’s standard banana and without the latter’s bitter aftertaste when green. But it was vulnerable to a soil fungus that produced a wilt known as Panama disease. “Once the fungus gets into the soil, it remains there for many years. There is nothing farmers can do. Even chemical spraying won’t get rid of it,” says Rodomiro Ortiz, director of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan, Nigeria. So planta­tion owners played a running game, abandoning infested fields and moving to “clean” land – until they ran out of clean land in the 1950s and had to abandon the Gros Michel. Its successor, and still the reigning commercial king, is the Cavendish banana, a 19th-century British discovery from southern China. The Cavendish is resistant to Panama disease and, as a result, it literally saved the international banana industry. During the 1960s, it replaced the Gros Michel on supermarket shelves. If you buy a banana today, it is almost certainly a Cavendish. But even so, it is a minority in the world’s banana crop.

Chuối là một ví dụ điển hình. Cho đến những năm 1950, một giống chuối Gros Michel đã thống trị ngành kinh doanh chuối thương mại trên thế giới. Được tìm thấy bởi các nhà thực vật học người Pháp ở châu Á vào những năm 1820, Gros Michel về mọi mặt là một loại chuối hảo hạng, đậm đà và ngọt hơn chuối tiêu chuẩn ngày nay và không có dư vị đắng của loại chuối này khi còn xanh. Nhưng nó dễ bị nhiễm một loại nấm đất gây bệnh héo rũ được gọi là bệnh Panama. “Một khi nấm xâm nhập vào đất, nó sẽ ở đó trong nhiều năm. Nông dân không thể làm gì. Rodomiro Ortiz, giám đốc Viện Nông nghiệp Nhiệt đới Quốc tế ở Ibadan, Nigeria, cho biết ngay cả việc phun hóa chất cũng không loại bỏ được chúng. Vì vậy, các chủ đồn điền đã chơi một trò chơi bỏ chạy, từ bỏ những cánh đồng bị nhiễm bệnh và chuyển đến vùng đất “sạch” – cho đến khi họ hết đất sạch vào những năm 1950 và phải từ bỏ Gros Michel. Kế vị của nó, và vẫn là vua thương mại đang trị vì, là chuối Cavendish, một phát hiện của người Anh vào thế kỷ 19 từ miền nam Trung Quốc. Giống Cavendish có khả năng kháng bệnh Panama và kết quả là nó đã cứu ngành chuối quốc tế theo đúng nghĩa đen. Trong những năm 1960, nó đã thay thế Gros Michel trên kệ siêu thị. Nếu bạn mua một quả chuối ngày hôm nay, nó gần như chắc chắn là chuối Cavendish. Nhưng ngay cả như vậy, nó chỉ là thiểu số trong các vụ chuối trên thế giới.

E . Half a billion people in Asia and Africa depend on bananas. Bananas provide the largest source of calories and are eaten daily. Its name is synonymous with food. But the day of reckoning may be coming for the Cavendish and its in­digenous kin. Another fungal disease, black Sigatoka, has become a global epi­demic since its first appearance in Fiji in 1963. Left to itself, black Sigatoka – which causes brown wounds on leaves and premature fruit ripening – cuts fruit yields by 50 to 70 per cent and reduces the productive lifetime of banana plants from 30 years to as little as 2 or 3. Commercial growers keep black Sigatoka at bay by a massive chemical assault. Forty sprayings of fungicide a year is typical. But despite the fungicides, diseases such as black Sigatoka are getting more and more difficult to control. “As soon as you bring in a new fun­gicide, they develop resistance,” says Frison. “One thing we can be sure of is that black Sigatoka won’t lose in this battle.” Poor farmers, who cannot afford chemicals, have it even worse. They can do little more than watching their plants die. “Most of the banana fields in Amazonia have already been destroyed by the disease,” says Luadir Gasparotto, Brazil’s leading banana pathologist with the government research agency EMBRAPA. Production is likely to fall by 70 per cent as the disease spreads, he predicts. The only option will be to find a new variety.

Nửa tỷ người ở châu Á và châu Phi phụ thuộc vào chuối. Chuối cung cấp nguồn calo lớn nhất và được ăn hàng ngày. Tên của nó đồng nghĩa với thức ăn. Nhưng ngày phán xét có thể đến với Cavendish và họ hàng bản địa của nó. Một bệnh nấm khác, Sigatoka đen, đã trở thành dịch bệnh toàn cầu kể từ lần đầu tiên xuất hiện ở Fiji vào năm 1963. Còn lại, bệnh Sigatoka đen – gây ra vết thương màu nâu trên lá và làm quả chín sớm – làm giảm năng suất quả từ 50 đến 70% và giảm thời gian sản xuất của cây chuối từ 30 năm xuống chỉ còn 2 hoặc 3 năm. Những người trồng thương mại ngăn chặn Sigatoka đen bằng một cuộc tấn công hóa học lớn. Bốn mươi lần phun thuốc diệt nấm một năm là điển hình. Nhưng bất chấp thuốc diệt nấm, các bệnh như Sigatoka đen ngày càng khó kiểm soát hơn. Frison cho biết: “Ngay khi bạn sử dụng một loại thuốc diệt nấm mới, chúng sẽ phát triển tính kháng thuốc. “Có một điều chúng ta có thể chắc chắn là Sigatoka đen sẽ không thua trong trận chiến này.” Những người nông dân nghèo, những người không thể mua hóa chất, thậm chí còn tồi tệ hơn. Họ không thể làm gì hơn ngoài việc nhìn cây của mình chết. Luadir Gasparotto, nhà nghiên cứu bệnh học chuối hàng đầu của Brazil thuộc cơ quan nghiên cứu của chính phủ EMBRAPA cho biết: “Hầu hết các cánh đồng chuối ở Amazonia đã bị phá hủy bởi căn bệnh này. Ông dự đoán, sản lượng có thể giảm 70% khi dịch bệnh lây lan. Lựa chọn duy nhất sẽ là tìm một giống mới.

F . But how? Almost all edible varieties are susceptible to the diseases, so growers cannot simply change to a different banana. With most crops, such a threat would unleash an army of breeders, scouring the world for resistant relatives whose traits they can breed into commercial varieties. Not so with the ba­nana. Because all edible varieties are sterile, bringing in new genetic traits to help cope with pests and diseases is nearly impossible. Nearly, but not totally. Very rarely, a sterile banana will experience a genetic accident that allows an almost normal seed to develop, giving breeders a tiny window for improve­ment. Breeders at the Honduran Foundation of Agricultural Research have tried to exploit this to create disease-resistant varieties. Further back-crossing with wild bananas yielded a new seedless banana resistant to both black Sigatoka and Panama disease.

Nhưng bằng cách nào? Hầu như tất cả các giống chuối ăn được đều dễ bị nhiễm bệnh, vì vậy người trồng không thể đơn giản đổi sang một loại chuối khác. Với hầu hết các loại cây trồng, mối đe dọa như vậy sẽ giải phóng một đội quân các nhà lai tạo, lùng sục khắp thế giới để tìm những họ hàng kháng thuốc có những đặc điểm mà họ có thể nhân giống thành các giống thương mại. Nhưng chuối không phải như vậy. Bởi vì tất cả các giống ăn được đều là giống vô trùng, việc mang lại những đặc điểm di truyền mới để giúp đối phó với sâu bệnh là điều gần như không thể. Gần như nhưng cũng không phải hoàn toàn. Rất hiếm khi một quả chuối vô sinh gặp phải một sự cố di truyền cho phép một hạt giống gần như bình thường phát triển, mang lại cho các nhà lai tạo một cơ hội nhỏ để cải thiện. Các nhà lai tạo tại Tổ chức Nghiên cứu Nông nghiệp Honduras đã cố gắng khai thác điều này để tạo ra các giống kháng bệnh. Tiếp tục lai ngược với chuối dại đã tạo ra một giống chuối không hạt mới có khả năng chống lại cả bệnh đen Sigatoka và bệnh Panama.

G . Neither Western supermarket consumers nor peasant growers like the new hybrid. Some accuse it of tasting more like an apple than a banana. Not sur­prisingly, the majority of plant breeders have till now turned their backs on the banana and got to work on easier plants. And commercial banana companies are now washing their hands of the whole breeding effort, preferring to fund a search for new fungicides instead. “We supported a breeding programme for 40 years, but it wasn’t able to develop an alternative to the Cavendish. It was very expensive and we got nothing back,” says Ronald Romero, head of research at Chiquita, one of the Big Three companies that dominate the international banana trade.

Cả người tiêu dùng siêu thị phương Tây lẫn nông dân trồng trọt đều không thích giống lai mới. Một số người cho rằng nó có vị giống táo hơn là chuối. Không có gì ngạc nhiên khi phần lớn các nhà nhân giống cây trồng cho đến nay đã quay lưng lại với cây chuối và bắt tay vào nghiên cứu những cây dễ trồng hơn. Và các công ty chuối thương mại hiện đang phủi tay với toàn bộ nỗ lực nhân giống, thay vào đó họ muốn tài trợ cho việc tìm kiếm các loại thuốc diệt nấm mới. “Chúng tôi đã hỗ trợ một chương trình nhân giống trong 40 năm, nhưng nó không thể phát triển một giải pháp thay thế cho Cavendish. Ronald Romero, người đứng đầu bộ phận nghiên cứu của Chiquita, một trong ba công ty lớn thống trị thương mại chuối quốc tế, cho biết: “Nó rất đắt và chúng tôi không nhận lại được gì.

H . Last year, a global consortium of scientists led by Frison announced plans to sequence the banana genome within five years. It would be the first edible fruit to be sequenced. Well, almost edible. The group will actually be sequen­cing inedible wild bananas from East Asia because many of these are resistant to black Sigatoka. If they can pinpoint the genes that help these wild varieties to resist black Sigatoka, the protective genes could be introduced into labora­tory tissue cultures of cells from edible varieties. These could then be propa­gated into new disease-resistant plants and passed on to farmers.

Năm ngoái, một nhóm các nhà khoa học toàn cầu do Frison đứng đầu đã công bố kế hoạch giải trình tự bộ gen của chuối trong vòng 5 năm. Nó sẽ là loại trái cây ăn được đầu tiên được giải trình tự. Và gần như ăn được. Nhóm thực sự sẽ giải trình tự các loại chuối hoang dã không ăn được từ Đông Á vì nhiều loại trong số này có khả năng kháng Sigatoka đen. Nếu họ có thể xác định chính xác các gen giúp các giống hoang dã này chống lại Sigatoka đen, thì các gen bảo vệ có thể được đưa vào nuôi cấy mô trong phòng thí nghiệm của các tế bào từ các giống ăn được. Những thứ này sau đó có thể được nhân giống thành cây kháng bệnh mới và truyền lại cho nông dân.

I . It sounds promising, but the big banana companies have, until now, refused to get involved in GM research for fear of alienating their customers. “Biotech­nology is extremely expensive and there are serious questions about consumer acceptance,” says David McLaughlin, Chiquita’s senior director for environmental affairs. With scant funding from the companies, the banana genome researchers are focusing on the other end of the spectrum. Even if they can identify the crucial genes, they will be a long way from developing new varieties that smallholders will find suitable and affordable. But whatever biotechnology’s academic interest, it is the only hope for the banana. Without it, banana pro­duction worldwide will head into a tailspin. We may even see the extinction of the banana as both a lifesaver for hungry and impoverished Africans and the most popular product on the world’s supermarket shelves.

Nghe có vẻ hứa hẹn, nhưng cho đến nay, các công ty chuối lớn vẫn từ chối tham gia vào nghiên cứu biến đổi gen vì sợ làm mất lòng khách hàng của họ. David McLaughlin, giám đốc cấp cao về các vấn đề môi trường của Chiquita cho biết: “Công nghệ sinh học cực kỳ tốn kém và có những câu hỏi nghiêm túc về sự chấp nhận của người tiêu dùng. Với nguồn tài trợ ít ỏi từ các công ty, các nhà nghiên cứu bộ gen chuối đang tập trung vào đầu kia của quang phổ. Ngay cả khi họ có thể xác định được các gen quan trọng, thì họ vẫn còn một chặng đường dài để phát triển các giống mới mà các hộ sản xuất nhỏ sẽ thấy phù hợp và giá cả phải chăng. Nhưng bất kể lợi ích học thuật của công nghệ sinh học là gì, đó là hy vọng duy nhất cho loài chuối. Không có nó, sản xuất chuối trên toàn thế giới sẽ rơi vào tình trạng khó khăn. Chúng ta thậm chí có thể coi sự tuyệt chủng của chuối vừa là cứu cánh cho những người châu Phi đói khát và nghèo khó, vừa là sản phẩm phổ biến nhất trên kệ siêu thị thế giới.

2. Câu hỏi 

Questions 1-3

Complete the sentences below with NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet.

1. Banana was first eaten as a fruit by humans almost ……………………… years ago.

2. Banana was first planted in ………………………

3. Wild banana’s taste is adversely affected by its ………………………

Questions 4-10

Look at the statements (Questions 4-10) and the list of people. Match each statement with the correct person A-F.

Write the correct letter A-F in boxes 4-10 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

4. A pest invasion may seriously damage the banana industry.

5. The effect of fungal infection in soil is often long-lasting.

6. A commercial manufacturer gave up on breeding bananas for disease-resistant

7. Banana disease may develop resistance to chemical sprays.

8. A banana disease has destroyed a large number of banana plantations.

9. Consumers would not accept genetically altered crops.

10. Lessons can be learned from bananas for other crops.

Questions 11-13

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 31?

In boxes 11-13 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

11. Banana is the oldest known fruit.

12. Gros Michel is still being used as a commercial product.

13. Banana is the main food in some countries.

3. Phân tích đáp án 

Question 1: Keywords:  Banana, first eaten as a fruit by human

Thông tin ở đoạn A: “Agricultural scientists believe that the first edible banana was discovered around ten thousand years ago.”. Nghĩa là Các nhà khoa học nông nghiệp tin rằng quả chuối ăn được đầu tiên được phát hiện vào khoảng 10.000 năm trước.

ĐÁP ÁN: 10, 000

Question 2: Keywords: Banana, first planted

Thông tin ở đoạn A: “It has been at an evolutionary standstill ever since it was first propagated in the jungles of South-East Asia at the end of the last ice age” Nghĩa là Nó đã ở trạng thái ngừng tiến hóa kể từ lần đầu tiên nó được nhân giống trong các khu rừng ở Đông Nam Á vào cuối kỷ băng hà cuối cùng

ĐÁP ÁN: South-East Asia

Question 3: Keywords: Wild banana’s taste, adversely affected

Thông tin ở đoạn thứ A: “Normally the wild banana, a giant jungle herb called Musa acuminata, contains a mass of hard seeds that make the fruit virtually inedible”. Nghĩa là Thông thường, chuối dại, một loại thảo mộc khổng lồ trong rừng có tên là Musa acuminata, chứa một khối hạt cứng khiến quả hầu như không ăn được

ĐÁP ÁN: hard seeds

Question 4: Keywords: Pest invasion, seriously damage banana industry.

Thông tin ở đoạn C: “When some pest or disease comes along, severe epidemics can occur” says Geoff Hawtin”, nghĩa là Geoff Hawtin nói: “Khi một số loài sâu bệnh xuất hiện, dịch bệnh nghiêm trọng có thể xảy ra”.

Question 5: Keywords: fungal, soil, long-lasting

Thông tin ở đoạn D: “Once the fungus gets into the soil, it remains there for many years. There is nothing farmers can do. Even chemical spraying won’t get rid of it,” says Rodomiro Ortiz”, nghĩa là Một khi nấm xâm nhập vào đất, nó sẽ ở đó trong nhiều năm. Không có gì nông dân có thể làm. Rodomiro Ortiz nói: “Ngay cả phun hóa chất cũng không loại bỏ được nó.

Question 6: Keywords: commercial manufacturer, gave up, breeding bananas for disease-resistant

Thông tin ở đoạn G: “ commercial banana companies are now washing their hands of the whole breeding effort, preferring to fund a search for new fungicides instead […] says Ronald Romero ”, nghĩa là Ronald Romero cho biết các công ty chuối thương mại hiện đang phủi tay với toàn bộ nỗ lực nhân giống, ưu tiên tài trợ cho việc tìm kiếm thuốc diệt nấm mới thay vì […]

Question 7: Keywords: Banana disease, develop resistance to chemical sprays.

Thông tin ở đoạn E: “As soon as you bring in a new fungicide, they develop resistance”, nghĩa là Ngay khi bạn sử dụng một loại thuốc diệt nấm mới, chúng sẽ phát triển tính kháng thuốc

Question 8: Keywords: banana disease, destroyed a large number of banana plantations.

Thông tin ở đoạn E: “Most of the banana fields in Amazonia have already been destroyed by the disease ,” says Luadir Gasparotto”, nghĩa làLuadir Gasparotto cho biết: “Hầu hết các cánh đồng chuối ở Amazonia đã bị phá hủy bởi căn bệnh này.

Question 9: Keywords: Consumers, not accept genetically altered crops

Thông tin ở đoạn cuối: “Biotechnology is extremely expensive and there are serious questions about consumer acceptance ,” says David McLaughlin”, nghĩa là Công nghệ sinh học cực kỳ tốn kém và có những câu hỏi nghiêm túc về sự chấp nhận của người tiêu dùng,” David McLaughlin nói

Question 10: Keywords: Lessons, learned from bananas for other crops.

Thông tin ở đoạn B: “In some ways, the banana… other crops , too,” says Emile Frison”, nghĩa là Theo một số cách, chuối ngày nay giống với khoai tây trước khi bệnh bạc lá mang đến nạn đói cho Ireland cách đây một thế kỷ rưỡi. Nhưng “nó cũng là một bài học cho các loại cây trồng khác,” Emile Frison nói

Question 11: Keywords: Banana, the oldest known fruit.

ĐÁP ÁN: NOT GIVEN

Question 12: Keywords: Gros Michel, still being used as a commercial product.

Thông tin ở đoạn D: “So plantation owners … 1950s and had to abandon the Gros Michel.”, nghĩa là Vì vậy, các chủ đồn điền đã chơi trò bỏ chạy, từ bỏ những cánh đồng bị nhiễm khuẩn và chuyển đến vùng đất “sạch” – cho đến khi họ hết đất sạch vào những năm 1950 và phải từ bỏ Gros Michel.

ĐÁP ÁN: FALSE

Question 13: Keywords: Banana, the main food in some countries.

Thông tin ở đoạn A: “Half a billion people in Asia and Africa depend on bananas.”, nghĩa là Nửa tỷ người ở châu Á và châu Phi phụ thuộc vào chuối.

ĐÁP ÁN: TRUE

Passage 2: Coastal Archaeology of Britain 

1. bản đọc & bản dịch tiếng việt .

A . The recognition of the wealth and diversity of England’s coastal archaeology has been one of the most important developments of recent years. Some elements of this enormous resource have long been known. The so-called ‘ submerged forests ’ off the coasts of England, sometimes with clear evidence of human activity, had attracted the interest of antiquarians since at least the eighteenth century, but serious and systematic attention has been given to the archaeological potential of the coast only since the early 1980s.

Việc công nhận sự phong phú và đa dạng của khảo cổ học ven biển nước Anh là một trong những sự phát triển quan trọng nhất trong những năm gần đây. Một số yếu tố của nguồn tài nguyên khổng lồ này đã được biết đến từ lâu. Cái gọi là “ rừng ngập mặn ” ngoài khơi bờ biển nước Anh, đôi khi có bằng chứng rõ ràng về hoạt động của con người, đã thu hút sự quan tâm của giới sưu tầm đồ cổ ít nhất là từ thế kỷ 18, nhưng sự quan tâm nghiêm túc và có hệ thống đối với tiềm năng khảo cổ học của bờ biển chỉ bắt đầu từ đầu  những năm 1980.

B . It is possible to trace a variety of causes for this concentration of effort and interest. In the 1980s and 1990s scientific research into climate change and its environmental impact spilled over into a much broader public debate as awareness of these issues grew; the prospect of rising sea levels over the next century, and their impact on current coastal environments, has been a particular focus for concern. At the same time, archaeologists were beginning to recognize that the destruction caused by natural processes of coastal erosion and by human activity was having an increasing impact on the archaeological resource of the coast.

Có thể lần ra nhiều nguyên nhân dẫn đến sự tập trung nỗ lực và hứng thú này. Trong những năm 1980 và 1990, nghiên cứu khoa học về biến đổi khí hậu và tác động môi trường của nó đã lan rộng thành một cuộc tranh luận công khai rộng lớn hơn nhiều khi nhận thức về những vấn đề này ngày càng tăng; viễn cảnh mực nước biển dâng cao trong thế kỷ tới và tác động của chúng đối với môi trường ven biển hiện tại là một trọng tâm đặc biệt cần quan tâm. Đồng thời, các nhà khảo cổ bắt đầu nhận ra rằng sự tàn phá do quá trình xói mòn bờ biển tự nhiên và hoạt động của con người đang có tác động ngày càng lớn đến nguồn tài nguyên khảo cổ của bờ biển.

C . The dominant process affecting the physical form of England in the post- glacial period has been rising in the altitude of sea level relative to the land, as the glaciers melted and the landmass readjusted. The encroachment of the sea, the loss of huge areas of land now under the North Sea and the English Channel, and especially the loss of the land bridge between England and France, which finally made Britain an island, must have been immensely significant factors in the lives of our prehistoric ancestors. Yet the way in which prehistoric communities adjusted to these environmental changes has seldom been a major theme in discussions of the period. One factor contributing to this has been that, although the rise in relative sea level is comparatively well documented, we know little about the constant reconfiguration of the coastline. This was affected by many processes, mostly quiet, which have not yet been adequately researched. The detailed reconstruction of coastline histories and the changing environments available for human use will be an important theme for future research.

Quá trình chi phối ảnh hưởng đến hình thái vật chất của nước Anh trong thời kỳ hậu băng hà là mực nước biển dâng cao so với đất liền, do các sông băng tan chảy và đất liền được điều chỉnh lại. Sự lấn biển, mất đi những vùng đất rộng lớn hiện nằm dưới Biển Bắc và eo biển Manche, và đặc biệt là việc mất cây cầu trên đất liền giữa Anh và Pháp, cuối cùng đã biến Anh thành một hòn đảo. Đây hẳn là những nhân tố vô cùng quan trọng trong cuộc sống của tổ tiên thời tiền sử của chúng ta. Tuy nhiên, cách mà các cộng đồng thời tiền sử thích nghi với những thay đổi môi trường này hiếm khi là chủ đề chính trong các cuộc thảo luận về thời kỳ này. Một yếu tố góp phần vào điều này là, mặc dù sự gia tăng mực nước biển tương đối được ghi nhận tương đối rõ ràng, nhưng chúng ta biết rất ít về sự tái cấu trúc liên tục của đường bờ biển. Điều này bị ảnh hưởng bởi nhiều quá trình, chủ yếu là yên tĩnh, vẫn chưa được nghiên cứu đầy đủ. Việc tái tạo chi tiết lịch sử đường bờ biển và môi trường thay đổi sẵn có cho con người sử dụng sẽ là một chủ đề quan trọng cho nghiên cứu trong tương lai.

D . So great has been the rise in sea level and the consequent regression of the coast that much of the archaeological evidence now exposed in the coastal zone. Whether being eroded or exposed as a buried land surface, is derived from what was originally terrestrial occupation. Its current location in the coastal zone is the product of later unrelated processes, and it can tell us little about past adaptations to the sea. Estimates of its significance will need to be made in the context of other related evidence from dry land sites. Nevertheless, its physical environment means that preservation is often excellent, for example in  the case  of the  Neolithic structure excavated at the  Stumble in Essex.

Mực nước biển dâng cao và hậu quả là sự thụt lùi của bờ biển lớn đến mức nhiều bằng chứng khảo cổ học hiện nay đã lộ ra ở vùng ven biển. Cho dù bị xói mòn hay lộ ra dưới dạng bề mặt đất bị chôn vùi, đều bắt nguồn từ những gì ban đầu là sự chiếm đóng trên mặt đất. Vị trí hiện tại ở vùng ven biển là sản phẩm của các quá trình không liên quan sau này, và nó có thể cho chúng ta biết rất ít về sự thích nghi với biển trong quá khứ. Các ước tính về tầm quan trọng của bờ biển sẽ cần được thực hiện trong bối cảnh các bằng chứng liên quan khác từ các địa điểm đất khô. Tuy nhiên, môi trường vật chất của nó có nghĩa là việc bảo quản thường rất tuyệt vời, ví dụ như trong trường hợp cấu trúc thời kỳ đồ đá mới được khai quật tại Stumble ở Essex.

E . In some cases these buried land surfaces do contain evidence for human exploitation of what was a coastal environment, and elsewhere along the modern coast, there is similar evidence. Where the evidence does relate to past human exploitation of the resources and the opportunities offered by the sea and the coast, it is both diverse and as yet little understood. We are not yet in a position to make even preliminary estimates of answers to such fundamental questions as the extent to which the sea and the coast affected human life in the past, what percentage of the population at any time lived within reach of the sea, or whether human settlements in coastal environments showed a distinct character from those inland.

Trong một số trường hợp, những bề mặt đất bị chôn vùi này chứa bằng chứng về việc con người khai thác môi trường ven biển, và ở những nơi khác dọc theo bờ biển hiện đại, cũng có bằng chứng tương tự. Trường hợp bằng chứng liên quan đến quá khứ khai thác tài nguyên của con người và các cơ hội do biển và bờ biển mang lại, thì nó vừa đa dạng vừa ít được hiểu rõ. Chúng ta vẫn chưa thể đưa ra ước tính sơ bộ về câu trả lời cho những câu hỏi cơ bản như mức độ mà biển và bờ biển đã ảnh hưởng đến cuộc sống con người trong quá khứ, bao nhiêu phần trăm dân số sống trong tầm với của biển vào bất kỳ thời điểm nào, hoặc liệu các khu định cư của con người trong môi trường ven biển có đặc điểm khác biệt với những khu vực trong đất liền hay không.

F . The most striking evidence for use of the sea is in the form of boats, yet we still have much to learn about their production and use. Most of the known wrecks around our coast are not unexpectedly of post-medieval date, and offer an unparalleled opportunity for research which has yet been little used. The prehistoric sewn-plank boats such as those from the Humber estuary and Dover all seem to belong to the second millennium BC; after this, there is a gap in the record of a millennium, which cannot yet be explained before boats reappear, but it built using a very different technology. Boatbuilding must have been an extremely important activity around much of our coast, yet we know almost nothing about it. Boats were some of the most complex artifacts produced by pre-modern societies, and further research on their production and use make an important contribution to our understanding of past attitudes to technology and technological change.

Bằng chứng nổi bật nhất về việc sử dụng biển là đi thuyền, tuy nhiên chúng ta vẫn còn nhiều điều cần tìm hiểu về quá trình sản xuất và sử dụng chúng. Hầu hết các xác tàu được biết đến xung quanh bờ biển của chúng ta không phải là ngẫu nhiên có niên đại sau thời trung cổ, và mang đến một cơ hội nghiên cứu to lớn cho đến nay vẫn còn ít được sử dụng. Những chiếc thuyền ván khâu thời tiền sử chẳng hạn như những chiếc thuyền từ cửa sông Humber và Dover dường như đều thuộc về thiên niên kỷ thứ hai trước Công nguyên; sau đó, có một khoảng cách trong kỷ lục một thiên niên kỷ, điều này vẫn chưa thể giải thích được trước khi những con thuyền xuất hiện trở lại, nhưng nó được chế tạo bằng một công nghệ rất khác. Đóng thuyền chắc hẳn là một hoạt động cực kỳ quan trọng xung quanh phần lớn bờ biển của chúng ta, nhưng chúng ta hầu như không biết gì về nó. Thuyền là một số đồ tạo tác phức tạp nhất do các xã hội tiền hiện đại sản xuất, và nghiên cứu sâu hơn về quá trình sản xuất và sử dụng chúng đóng góp quan trọng vào hiểu biết của chúng ta về thái độ trong quá khứ đối với công nghệ và thay đổi công nghệ.

G . Boats need landing places, yet here again, our knowledge is very patchy . In many cases the natural shores and beaches would have sufficed, leaving little or no archaeological trace, but especially in later periods, many ports and harbors, as well as smaller facilities such as quays , wharves , and jetties , were built. Despite a growth of interest in the waterfront archaeology of some of our more important Roman and medieval towns, very little attention has been paid to the multitude of smaller landing places. Redevelopment of harbor sites and other development and natural pressures along the coast are subject these important locations to unprecedented threats, yet few surveys of such sites have been undertaken.

Thuyền bè cần bến đỗ, vậy mà ở đây kiến thức của chúng ta chỉ là chắp vá . Trong nhiều trường hợp, các bờ biển và bãi biển tự nhiên là đủ, để lại rất ít hoặc không để lại dấu vết khảo cổ học, nhưng đặc biệt là trong các thời kỳ sau, nhiều hải cảng và bến cảng, cũng như các công trình nhỏ hơn như bến cảng , bến tàu và cầu cảng đã được xây dựng. Bất chấp sự quan tâm ngày càng tăng đối với khảo cổ học ven sông của một số thị trấn thời Trung cổ và La Mã quan trọng hơn của chúng ta, rất ít sự chú ý đến vô số các bến đỗ nhỏ hơn. Việc tái phát triển các địa điểm bến cảng và các áp lực tự nhiên và phát triển khác dọc theo bờ biển đang khiến những địa điểm quan trọng này phải đối mặt với các mối đe dọa chưa từng có, tuy nhiên vẫn có rất ít cuộc khảo sát về các địa điểm đó được thực hiện.

H . One of the most important revelations of recent research has been the extent of industrial activity along the coast. Fishing and salt production are among the better documented activities, but even here our knowledge is patchy. Many forms of fishing will leave a little archaeological trace, and one of the surprises of the recent survey has been the extent of past investment in facilities for procuring fish and shellfish. Elaborate wooden fish weirs, often of considerable extent and responsive to aerial photography in shallow water, have been identified in areas such as Essex and the Severn estuary. The production of salt, especially in the late Iron Age and early Roman periods, has been recognized for some time, especially in the Thames estuary and around the Solent and Poole Harbor, but the reasons for the decline of that industry and the nature of later coastal salt working are much less well understood. Other industries were also located along the coast, either because the raw materials outcropped there or for ease of working and transport: mineral resources such as sand, gravel, stone, coal, ironstone, and alum were all exploited. These industries are poorly documented, but their remains are sometimes extensive and striking.

Một trong những tiết lộ quan trọng nhất của nghiên cứu gần đây là mức độ hoạt động công nghiệp dọc theo bờ biển. Đánh bắt cá và sản xuất muối là một trong những hoạt động được ghi chép tốt hơn, nhưng ngay cả ở đây kiến thức của chúng ta vẫn còn sơ sài. Nhiều hình thức đánh bắt cá sẽ để lại một chút dấu vết khảo cổ học, và một trong những điều ngạc nhiên của cuộc khảo sát gần đây là mức độ đầu tư trước đây vào các cơ sở thu mua cá và động vật có vỏ. Xây dựng đập cá bằng gỗ, thường có quy mô đáng kể và đáp ứng với chụp ảnh từ trên không ở vùng nước nông, đã được xác định ở các khu vực như Essex và cửa sông Severn. Việc sản xuất muối, đặc biệt là vào cuối thời kỳ đồ sắt và đầu thời kỳ La Mã, đã được công nhận trong một thời gian, đặc biệt là ở cửa sông Thames và xung quanh cảng Solent và Poole, nhưng nguyên nhân dẫn đến sự suy giảm của ngành công nghiệp đó và bản chất của sau này nghề làm muối ven biển ít được hiểu rõ hơn. Các ngành công nghiệp khác cũng nằm dọc theo bờ biển, vì nguyên liệu thô được khai thác ở đó hoặc để dễ làm việc và vận chuyển: các tài nguyên khoáng sản như cát, sỏi, đá, than, đá vôi và phèn đều được khai thác. Những ngành này ít được ghi chép lại, nhưng phần còn lại của chúng đôi khi rất rộng và nổi bật.

I . Some appreciation of the variety and importance of the archaeological remains preserved in the coastal zone, albeit only in preliminary form, can thus be gained from recent work, but the complexity of the problem of managing that resource is also being realized. The problem arises not only from the scale and variety of the archaeological remains, but also from two other sources: the very varied natural and human threats to the resource, and the complex web of organizations with authority over, or interests in, the coastal zone. Human threats include the redevelopment of historic towns and old dockland areas, and the increased importance of the coast for the leisure and tourism industries, resulting in pressure for the increased provision of facilities such as marinas. The larger size of ferries has also caused an increase in the damage caused by their wash to fragile deposits in the intertidal zone. The most significant natural threat is the predicted rise in sea level over the next century especially in the south and east of England. Its impact on archaeology is not easy to predict, and though it is likely to be highly localized, it will be at a scale much larger than that of most archaeological sites. Thus protecting one site may simply result in transposing the threat to a point further along the coast. The management of the archaeological remains will have to be considered in a much longer time scale and a much wider geographical scale than is common in the case of dry land sites, and this will pose a serious challenge for archaeologists.

Do đó, một số đánh giá về sự đa dạng và tầm quan trọng của các di tích khảo cổ học được bảo tồn ở vùng ven biển, mặc dù chỉ ở dạng sơ bộ, có thể đạt được từ công việc gần đây, nhưng sự phức tạp của vấn đề quản lý tài nguyên đó cũng đang được nhận ra. Vấn đề nảy sinh không chỉ từ quy mô và sự đa dạng của các di tích khảo cổ, mà còn từ hai nguồn khác: các mối đe dọa tự nhiên và con người rất đa dạng đối với tài nguyên, và mạng lưới phức tạp của các tổ chức có thẩm quyền hoặc lợi ích đối với vùng ven biển. Các mối đe dọa của con người bao gồm việc tái phát triển các thị trấn lịch sử và khu vực bến cảng cũ, và tầm quan trọng ngày càng tăng của bờ biển đối với ngành công nghiệp giải trí và du lịch, dẫn đến áp lực phải tăng cường cung cấp các cơ sở như bến du thuyền. Kích thước lớn hơn của phà cũng gây ra sự gia tăng thiệt hại do chúng cuốn trôi các chất cặn dễ vỡ trong vùng triều. Mối đe dọa tự nhiên đáng kể nhất là sự gia tăng mực nước biển được dự đoán trong thế kỷ tới, đặc biệt là ở phía nam và phía đông nước Anh. Tác động của nó đối với khảo cổ học không dễ dự đoán, và mặc dù nó có khả năng mang tính địa phương cao, nhưng nó sẽ ở quy mô lớn hơn nhiều so với hầu hết các địa điểm khảo cổ. Do đó, việc bảo vệ một địa điểm có thể chỉ dẫn đến việc chuyển mối đe dọa sang một điểm xa hơn dọc theo bờ biển. Việc quản lý các di tích khảo cổ sẽ phải được xem xét trong một quy mô thời gian dài hơn và quy mô địa lý rộng hơn nhiều so với trường hợp phổ biến ở các địa điểm đất khô, và điều này sẽ đặt ra một thách thức nghiêm trọng đối với các nhà khảo cổ học.

Questions 14-16

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

Write your answers in boxes 14-16 on your answer sheet.

14. What has caused public interest in coastal archaeology in recent years?

• A. The rapid development of England’^coastal archaeology
• B. The rising awareness of climate change
• C. The discovery of an underwater forest
• D. The systematic research conducted on coastal archaeological findings

15. What does the passage say about the evidence of boats?

• A. There’s enough knowledge of the boatbuilding technology of the prehistoric people.
• B. Many of the boats discovered were found in harbors.
• C. The use of boats had not been recorded for a thousand years.
• D. Boats were first used for fishing.

16. What can be discovered from the air?

• A. Salt mines
• B. Roman towns
• C. Harbours
• D. Fisheries

Questions 17-23

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 233?

In boxes 17-23 on your answer sheet write

• TRUE              if the statement agrees with the information
• NOT GIVEN    if there is no information on this

17. England lost much of its land after the ice age due to the rising sea level.

18. The coastline of England has changed periodically.

19. Coastal archaeological evidence may be well protected by sea water.

20. The design of boats used by pre-modern people was very simple.

21. Similar boats were also discovered in many other European countries.

22. There are few documents relating to mineral exploitation.

23. Large passenger boats are causing increasing damage to the seashore.

Questions 24-26

Choose THREE letters A-G.

Write your answers in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet.

Which THREE of the following statements are mentioned in the passage?

• A. How coastal archaeology was originally discovered
• B. It is difficult to understand how many people lived close to the sea.
• C. How much the prehistoric communities understand the climate change
• D. Our knowledge of boat evidence is limited.
• E. Some fishing ground was converted to ports.
• F. Human development threatens the archaeological remains.
• G. Coastal archaeology will become more important in the future.

Question 14: Keywords: What, caused public interest in coastal archaeology

Thông tin ở đoạn B: “In the 1980s and 1990s scientific research … awareness of these issues grew”, nghĩa là Trong những năm 1980 và 1990, nghiên cứu khoa học về biến đổi khí hậu và tác động môi trường của nó đã lan rộng thành một cuộc tranh luận công khai rộng lớn hơn nhiều khi nhận thức về những vấn đề này ngày càng tăng.

Question 15: Keywords: What, the evidence of boats

Thông tin ở đoạn F: “after this there is a gap in the record of a millennium, which cannot yet be explained before boats reappear, but it built using a very different technology.”, nghĩa là sau đó, có một khoảng cách trong kỷ lục về thiên niên kỷ, điều này vẫn chưa thể giải thích được trước khi những con thuyền xuất hiện trở lại, nhưng nó được chế tạo bằng một công nghệ rất khác.

Question 16: Keywords: What, discovered from the air

Thông tin ở đoạn H: “Elaborate wooden fish … as Essex and the Severn estuary”, nghĩa là Xây dựng đập cá bằng gỗ, thường có quy mô đáng kể và đáp ứng với chụp ảnh từ trên không ở vùng nước nông, đã được xác định ở các khu vực như Essex và cửa sông Severn

Question 17: Keywords: England, lost, its land after the ice age, the rising sea level.

Thông tin ở đoạn C: “The dominant process …  loss of huge areas of land now under the North Sea and the English Channel”, nghĩa là Quá trình chi phối ảnh hưởng đến hình thái vật chất của nước Anh trong thời kỳ hậu băng hà là mực nước biển dâng cao so với đất liền, do các sông băng tan chảy và khối lượng đất liền được điều chỉnh lại. Sự lấn biển, mất đi những vùng đất rộng lớn hiện nằm dưới biển Bắc và eo biển Manche

Question 18: Keywords: coastline of England, changed periodically.

Thông tin ở đoạn C: “we know little about the constant reconfiguration of the coastline ”, nghĩa là chúng ta biết rất ít về sự thay đổi liên tục của đường bờ biển

Question 19: Keywords: may be well protected by sea water.

Thông tin ở đoạn D: “So great has been … coastal zone.”. Nghĩa là Mực nước biển dâng cao và hậu quả là sự thụt lùi của bờ biển lớn đến mức nhiều bằng chứng khảo cổ học hiện nay đã lộ ra ở vùng ven biển.

Question 20: Keywords: design of boats, pre-modern people, simple.

Thông tin ở đoạn F: “Boats were some of the most complex produced by pre-modern societies”, nghĩa là Thuyền là một trong những sản phẩm phức tạp nhất được sản xuất bởi các xã hội tiền hiện đại

Question 21: Keywords: Similar boats, discovered in many other European countries.

Question 22: Keywords: few documents, mineral exploitation.

Thông tin ở đoạn H: “These industries are poorly documented, but their remains are sometimes extensive and striking”, nghĩa là Những ngành này ít được ghi chép lại, nhưng phần còn lại của chúng đôi khi rất rộng và nổi bật

Question 23: Keywords: Large passenger boats, damage to the seashore.

Thông tin ở đoạn I: “The larger size of … in the zone”, nghĩa là Kích thước lớn hơn của các chuyến phà cũng làm gia tăng thiệt hại do trôi chúng đối với các chất cặn dễ vỡ trong khu vực.

Question 24, 25, 26: Keywords: Parents, concerned about the violence in children’s books.

Thông tin ở đoạn E: “We are not yet in a position to…. affected human life in the past”, nghĩa là Chúng ta vẫn chưa thể đưa ra ước tính sơ bộ về câu trả lời cho những câu hỏi cơ bản như mức độ ảnh hưởng của biển và bờ biển đối với cuộc sống con người trong quá khứ

Thông tin ở đoạn F: “we still have much to learn about their production and use”, nghĩa là chúng tôi vẫn còn nhiều điều để tìm hiểu về sản xuất và sử dụng của họ

Thông  tin  ở đoạn I:  “The problem arises not …. human threats to the resource,”. nghĩa là Vấn đề nảy sinh không chỉ từ quy mô và sự đa dạng của các di tích khảo cổ, mà còn từ hai nguồn khác: các mối đe dọa tự nhiên và con người rất đa dạng đối với tài nguyên,

ĐÁP ÁN: B, D, F

Passage 3: Travel Books 

A . There are many reasons why individuals have traveled beyond their own soci­eties. Some travelers may have simply desired to satisfy curiosity about the larger world. Until recent times, however, travelers did start their journey for reasons other than mere curiosity. While the travelers’ accounts give much valuable information on these foreign lands and provide a window for the understanding of the local cultures and histories, they are also a mirror to the travelers themselves, for these accounts help them to have a better under­standing of themselves.

Ngày nay, có nhiều lý do để bạn đi du lịch hơn. Một số người có thể đơn giản chỉ muốn thỏa mãn sự tò mò về thế giới rộng lớn bên ngoài. Tuy nhiên, thời gian gần đây, các du khách đã bắt đầu những chuyến hành trình vì các lý do khác nhau bên cạnh sự tò mò ban đầu. Bên cạnh việc các bài du ký cung cấp nhiều thông tin có giá trị hơn về những vùng đất xa lạ, mang đến một cái nhìn về sự hiểu biết văn hoá và lịch sử địa phương, các bài du ký này cũng là hình ảnh phản chiếu, và cũng giúp các du khách hiểu rõ hơn về chính con người họ.

B . Records of foreign travel appeared soon after the invention of writing, and fragmentary travel accounts appeared in both Mesopotamia and Egypt in an­cient times. After the formation of large, imperial states in the classical world, travel accounts emerged as a prominent literary genre in many lands, and they held especially strong appeal for rulers desiring useful knowledge about their realms. The Greek historian Herodotus reported on his travels in Egypt and Anatolia in researching the history of the Persian wars. The Chinese envoy Zhang Qian described much of central Asia as far west as Bactria (modern- day Afghanistan) on the basis of travels undertaken in the first century BCE while searching for allies for the Han dynasty. Hellenistic and Roman geog­raphers such as Ptolemy, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder relied on their own travels through much of the Mediterranean world as well as reports of other travelers to compile vast compendia of geographical knowledge.

Có những tài liệu cho thấy du lịch nước ngoài đã có từ ngay sau khi phát minh ra chữ viết, và các bản du ký rời rạc cũng đã xuất hiện ở Mesopotamia và Ai Cập trong thời cổ đại. Sau khi các đế quốc trong thế giới cổ đại được thành lập, du ký nổi lên như một thể loại văn học mới đáng chú ý ở nhiều vùng, và nó kêu gọi mạnh mẽ các nhà cai trị công nhận những kiến thức hữu ích trong lĩnh vực này. Nhà sử học Hy Lạp Herodotus tường thuật lại chuyến hành trình của mình ở Ai Cập và Anatolia trong việc nghiên cứu lịch sử chiến tranh Ba Tư. Nhà ngoại giao Trung Quốc Trương Khiên (Zhang Qian) đã mô tả phần lớn khu vực Trung Á, chủ yếu về phía tây, chẳng hạn vùng Bactria (ngày nay là Afghanistan) dựa trên các chuyến công du vào thế kỷ thứ nhất trước Công nguyên, trong quá trình tìm kiếm đồng minh cho nhà Hán. Các nhà địa lý Hy Lạp và La Mã như Ptolemy, Strabo, và Pliny The Elder đã dựa vào chuyến đi của họ qua thế giới Địa Trung Hải cũng như những bản du ký của những nhà du hành khác để biên soạn bản tóm lược rộng lớn về kiến ​​thức địa lý.

C . During the post-classical era (about 500 to 1500 CE), trade and pilgrimage emerged as major incentives for travel to foreign lands. Muslim merchants sought trading opportunities throughout much of the eastern hemisphere . They described lands, peoples, and commercial products of the Indian Ocean basin from East Africa to Indonesia, and they supplied the first written accounts of societies in sub-Saharan West Africa. While merchants set out in search of trade and profit, devout Muslims traveled as pilgrims to Mecca to make their hajj and visit the holy sites of Islam. Since the prophet Muhammad’s origin­al pilgrimage to Mecca, untold millions of Muslims have followed his exam­ple, and thousands of hajj accounts have related their experiences. East Asian travelers were not quite so prominent as Muslims during the post-classical era, but they too followed many of the highways and sea lanes of the eastern hemisphere. Chinese merchants frequently visited South-East Asia and India, occasionally venturing even to East Africa, and devout East Asian Buddhists undertook distant pilgrimages. Between the 5th and 9th centuries CE, hundreds and possibly even thousands of Chinese Buddhists traveled to India to study with Buddhist teachers, collect sacred texts, and visit holy sites. Written ac­counts recorded the experiences of many pilgrims, such as Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing. Though not so numerous as the Chinese pilgrims, Buddhists from Japan, Korea, and other lands also ventured abroad in the interests of spiritual enlightenment.

Trong thời kỳ hậu cổ điển (từ năm 500 đến năm 1500 Công Nguyên), thương mại và hành hương là động cơ chính để du lịch đến các vùng đất ngoại quốc. Các thương gia Hồi giáo đã tìm kiếm các cơ hội kinh doanh của mình ở phần lớn bán cầu phía đông. Họ mô tả các vùng đất, dân cư, và các sản phẩm thương mại của lưu vực Ấn Độ Dương từ vùng Đông Phi đến Indonesia, và là họ đã cung cấp những ghi chép bằng văn bản đầu tiên về xã hội về Châu Phi hạ Sahara. Trong khi các thương gia tìm kiếm lợi ích thương mại, những người Hồi giáo mộ đạo du lịch như thực hiện lễ Hajj hành hương đến Mecca và ghé thăm các thánh địa Hồi giáo. Từ chuyến hành hương đầu của nhà tiên tri Muhammad đến Mecca, hàng triệu người Hồi giáo đã theo gương của ông ấy, và hàng ngàn bảng tường thuật hajj mô tả lại kinh nghiệm của họ. Những người du hành Đông Á thường không nổi bật như người Hồi giáo trong thời kỳ hậu cổ điển, nhưng họ cũng đi theo nhiều đường cao tốc và đường biển ở bán cầu phía đông. Các thương gia Trung Quốc thường xuyên ghé Đông Nam Á và Ấn Độ, thỉnh thoảng cũng mạo hiểm đến vùng Đông Phi, và những tín đồ Phật giáo Đông Á cũng tham gia các chuyến hành hương xa xôi. Giữa thế kỷ thứ 5 và 9 Công Nguyên, hàng trăm, thậm chí hàng ngàn Phật tử Trung Quốc đã đến Ấn Độ để học hỏi với các giáo sư Phật giáo, thu thập các văn bản thiêng liêng, và viếng thăm các thánh địa. Có nhiều du ký ghi lại kinh nghiệm của khách hành hương, như Pháp Hiển (Faxian), Huyền Trang (Xuanzang), và Nghĩa Tịnh (Yijing). Mặc dù không nhiều như những người hành hương Trung Quốc, các Phật tử đến từ Nhật Bản, Hàn Quốc cũng như các vùng đất khác cũng đã thực hiện các chuyến thám hiểm nước ngoài trong tinh thần khai sáng.

D .  Medieval Europeans did not hit the roads in such large numbers as their Muslim and East Asian counterparts during the early part of the post-classical era, al­though gradually increasing crowds of Christian pilgrims flowed to Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela (in northern Spain), and other sites. After the 12th century, however, merchants, pilgrims, and missionaries from medieval Europe traveled widely and left numerous travel accounts, of which Marco Polo’s description of his travels and sojourn in China is the best known. As they became familiar with the larger world of the eastern hemisphere – and the profitable commercial opportunities that it offered – European peoples worked to find new and more direct routes to Asian and African markets. Their efforts took them not only to all parts of the eastern hemisphere, but eventually to the Americas and Oceania as well.

Những nhà thám hiểm châu Âu thời trung cổ thì lại không đi theo các con đường với số lượng lớn như những người Hồi giáo hay các đồng hương Á Đông của họ trong thời kỳ hậu cổ đại, mặc dù ngày càng nhiều đám đông người hành hương Kitô giáo đổ về Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela (miền bắc Tây Ban Nha) hay các thánh địa khác. Tuy nhiên, sau thế kỷ 12, các thương gia, khách hành hương, và các nhà truyền giáo Châu Âu trung cổ đã đi khắp nơi và lưu lại rất nhiều du ký, trong đó nổi tiếng nhất là chuyến du hành của Marco Polo, mô tả chuyến đi của ông và sự lưu trú của ông tại Trung Quốc. Khi họ trở nên quen thuộc với thế giới rộng lớn của bán cầu phía đông – cũng như những cơ hội thương mại sinh lợi – người châu Âu đã tìm kiếm các tuyến đường mới, trực tiếp hơn đến các thị trường châu Á và châu Phi. Những nỗ lực này đã đưa họ không chỉ đi đến hết bán cầu phía đông, mà còn đến tận cùng cả Châu Mỹ và Châu Đại Dương.

E . If Muslim and Chinese peoples dominated travel and travel writing in post- classical times, European explorers, conquerors , merchants, and missionaries took center stage during the early modern era (about 1500 to 1800 CE). By no means did Muslim and Chinese travel come to a halt in early modern times. But European peoples ventured to the distant corners of the globe, and European printing presses churned out thousands of travel accounts that described foreign lands and peoples for a reading public with an apparently insatiable appetite for news about the larger world. The volume of travel litera­ture was so great that several editors, including Giambattista Ramusio, Rich­ard Hakluyt, Theodore de Biy, and Samuel Purchas, assembled numerous travel accounts and made them available in enormous published collections.

Nếu người Hồi giáo và người Trung Quốc thống trị du lịch và thực hiện các tài liệu du ký sau thời kỳ cổ điển, thì các nhà thám hiểm châu Âu, những người đi chinh phạt , những thương gia và các nhà truyền giáo đóng vai trò tâm điểm trong thời kỳ tiền cận đại (từ năm 1500 đến năm 1800 Công Nguyên). Điều này cũng không có nghĩa là du lịch Hồi giáo và du lịch Trung Quốc đã bị dừng lại trong thời kỳ cận đại. Thế nhưng, người châu Âu đã thám hiểm các góc xa xôi của thế giới, và các nhà in đã cho ra đời hàng ngàn tác phẩm du ký miêu tả những vùng đất ngoại quốc và người ngoại quốc đến với công chúng đọc sách với sự khao khát không chán về tin tức thế giới rộng lớn. Số lượng tác phẩm du ký nhiều đến nổi một số nhà biên tập thời đó trong đó có cả Giambattista Ramusio, Richard Hakluyt, Theodore de Biy và Samuel Purchas, đã tập hợp các tài liệu du ký và xuất bản thành bộ sưu tập lớn.

F . During the 19th century, European travelers made their way to the interior regions of Africa and the Americas, generating a fresh round of travel writing as they did so. Meanwhile, European colonial administrators devoted numer­ous writings to the societies of their colonial subjects, particularly in Asian and African colonies they established. By mid-century, attention was flowing also in the other direction. Painfully aware of the military and technological prowess of European and Euro-American societies, Asian travelers in particu­lar visited Europe and the United States in hopes of discovering principles useful for the organization of their own societies. Among the most prominent of these travelers who made extensive use of their overseas observations and experiences in their own writings were the Japanese reformer Fukuzawa Yu-kichi and the Chinese revolution Sun Yat-sen.

Trong suốt thế kỷ 19, người châu Âu đã thám hiểm đến các vùng nội địa của châu Phi và châu Mỹ, tạo ra một vòng tròn du lịch mới. Khi đó, các quản lý thuộc địa người châu Âu đã viết rất nhiều bài về xã hội của các nước thuộc địa mà họ đang cai trị, đặc biệt là ở các nước thuộc địa châu Á và châu Phi mà họ đã chiếm đóng. Đến thời điểm giữa thế kỷ, sự chú ý được hướng theo khía cạnh khác. Ý thức sâu sắc được sức mạnh quân sự và công nghệ của xã hội châu Âu và Âu Mỹ, những nhà du hành châu Á đặc biệt đã đến Châu Âu và Hoa Kỳ với hy vọng tìm hiểu những nguyên tắc hữu ích cho công tác tổ chức của xã hội đất nước mình. Nổi bật nhất trong hoạt động đi ra nước ngoài này là nhà cải cách Nhật Bản Fukuzawa Yukichi và nhà cách mạng Trung Quốc Tôn Trung Sơn (Sun Yat-sen), với những miêu tả rõ nét các kinh nghiệm được học hỏi ở nước ngoài trong những bài viết của mình.

G . With the development of inexpensive and reliable means of mass transport, the 20th century witnessed explosions both in the frequency of long-distance travel and in the volume of travel writing. While a great deal of travel took place for reasons of business, administration, diplomacy , pilgrimage, and mis­sionary work, as in ages past, increasingly effective modes of mass transport made it possible for new kinds of travel to flourish. The most distinctive of them was mass tourism, which emerged as a major form of consumption for individuals living in the world’s wealthy societies. Tourism enabled consumers to get away from home to see the sights in Rome, take a cruise through the Caribbean, walk the Great Wall of China, visit some wineries in Bordeaux, or go on safari in Kenya. A peculiar variant of the travel account arose to meet the needs of these tourists: the guidebook, which offered advice on food, lodging, shopping, local customs, and all the sights that visitors should not miss seeing. Tourism has had a massive economic impact throughout the world, but other new forms of travel have also had considerable influence in contemporary times.

Với sự phát triển các phương tiện vận tải hàng không giá rẻ và đáng tin cậy, thế kỷ 20 đã chứng kiến sự bùng nổ cả về tần suất du lịch đường dài lẫn số lượng các chuyến du lịch. Mặc dù có rất nhiều chuyến du lịch vì lý do kinh doanh, hành chính, ngoại giao , hành hương và công việc truyền giáo, các phương tiện vận tải hàng hóa trong những năm qua ngày càng làm việc có hiệu quả, giúp phát triển thêm nhiều loại hình du lịch mới. Điểm đặc biệt nhất là du lịch đại chúng, vốn nổi lên như một hình thức tiêu tiền của giới thượng lưu thế giới. Nó cho phép người ta rời khỏi nhà để tham quan các điểm nổi tiếng như chuyến du lịch đến Rome, du thuyền trên biển Caribbean, đi dạo trên Vạn Lý Trường Thành, tham quan nhà máy sản xuất rượu vang ở Bordeaux hay thăm vườn thú ở Kenya. Một biến thể đặc biệt của du ký nhằm đáp ứng nhu cầu của khách du lịch là các sách hướng dẫn, giới thiệu ẩm thực, chỗ cư trú, địa điểm mua sắm, điểm du lịch địa phương và tất cả các địa điểm tham quan giúp du khách không bỏ lỡ bất kỳ nơi nào. Du lịch đã có một tác động to lớn đến kinh tế trên toàn thế giới, nhưng những hình thức mới của du lịch cũng ảnh hưởng đáng kể trong thời hiện đại.

Questions 27-28

Write your answers in boxes 27-28 on your answer sheet.

27. What were most people traveling for in the early days?

• A. Studying their own cultures
• B. Business
• C. Knowing other people and places better
• D. Writing travel books

28. Why did the author say writing travel books is also “a mirror” for travelers themselves?

• A. Because travelers record their own experiences.
• B. Because travelers reflect upon their own society and life.
• C. Because it increases knowledge of foreign cultures.
• D. Because it is related to the development of human society.

Questions 29-36

Complete the table on the next page.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from Reading Passage 2 for each answer.

Questions 37-40

Write your answers in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.

37. Why were the imperial rulers especially interested in these travel stories?

• A. Reading travel stories was a popular pastime.
• B. The accounts are often truthful rather than fictional.
• C. Travel books played an important role in literature.
• D. They desired knowledge of their empire.

38. Who were the largest group to record their spiritual trips during the post-classical era?

• A. Muslim traders
• B. Muslim pilgrims
• C. Chinese Buddhists
• D. Indian Buddhist teachers

39. During the early modern era, a large number of travel books were published to

• A. meet the public’s interest.
• B. explore new business opportunities.
• C. encourage trips to the new world.
• D. record the larger world.

40. What’s the main theme of the passage?

• A. The production of travel books
• B. The literary status of travel books
• C. The historical significance of travel books
• D. The development of travel books

Question 27: Keywords: What, most people traveling, early days

Thông tin ở đoạn A: “While the travelers’ accounts … histories”, nghĩa là Bên cạnh việc các bài du ký cung cấp nhiều thông tin có giá trị hơn về những vùng đất xa lạ, mang đến một cái nhìn về sự hiểu biết văn hoá và lịch sử địa phương

Question 28: Keywords: Why, writing travel books,  “a mirror” for travelers 

Thông tin ở đoạn A: “for these accounts help them to have a better understanding of themselves” nghĩa là các bài du ký này cũng là hình ảnh phản chiếu, và cũng giúp các du khách hiểu rõ hơn về chính con người họ.

Question 29: Keywords: Classical Greece, information

Thông tin ở đoạn B: “ The Greek historian … of the Persian wars.”, nghĩa là Nhà sử học Hy Lạp Herodotus đã kể lại chuyến du hành của ông đến Ai Cập và Anatolia để nghiên cứu lịch sử các cuộc chiến tranh Ba Tư.

ĐÁP ÁN: persian wars

Question 30: Keywords: Han Dynasty, Zhang Qian, seek

Thông tin ở đoạn B: “The Chinese envoy Zhang Qian … century BCE while searching for allies for the Han dynasty”, nghĩa là Nhà ngoại giao Trung Quốc Trương Khiên (Zhang Qian) đã mô tả phần lớn khu vực Trung Á, chủ yếu về phía tây, chẳng hạn vùng Bactria (ngày nay là Afghanistan) dựa trên các chuyến công du vào thế kỷ thứ nhất trước Công nguyên, trong quá trình tìm kiếm đồng minh cho nhà Hán.

ĐÁP ÁN: allies

Question 31: Keywords: Roman Empire, acquire

Thông tin ở đoạn B: “Hellenistic and Roman geographers … vast compendia of geographical knowledge”, nghĩa là Các nhà địa lý Hy Lạp và La Mã như Ptolemy, Strabo, và Pliny The Elder đã dựa vào chuyến đi của họ qua thế giới Địa Trung Hải cũng như những bản du ký của những nhà du hành khác để biên soạn bản tóm lược rộng lớn về kiến ​​thức địa lý.

ĐÁP ÁN: geographical knowledge

Question 32: Keywords: Post-classical, Muslims, trading

Thông tin ở đoạn C: “During the post-classical era … trading opportunities throughout much of the eastern hemisphere.” nghĩa là Trong thời kỳ hậu cổ điển (từ năm 500 đến năm 1500 Công Nguyên), thương mại và hành hương là động cơ chính để du lịch đến các vùng đất ngoại quốc. Các thương gia Hồi giáo đã tìm kiếm các cơ hội kinh doanh của mình ở phần lớn bán cầu phía đông. 

ĐÁP ÁN: pilgrimage

Question 33: Keywords: 5th to 9th centuries

Thông tin vẫn ở đoạn C: “Between the 5th and 9th centuries CE… sacred texts, and visit holy sites”, nghĩa là Giữa thế kỷ thứ 5 và thứ 9 sau Công nguyên, hàng trăm và thậm chí có thể hàng ngàn Phật tử Trung Quốc đã đến Ấn Độ để học với các bậc thầy Phật giáo, thu thập các bản văn thiêng liêng và viếng thăm các thánh địa

ĐÁP ÁN: India

Question 34: Keywords: during 19th century, Asia, Africa,

Thông tin ở đoạn F: “Meanwhile, European colonial administrators …they established.”, nghĩa là Khi đó, các quản lý thuộc địa người châu Âu đã viết rất nhiều bài về xã hội của các nước thuộc địa mà họ đang cai trị, đặc biệt là ở các nước thuộc địa châu Á và châu Phi mà họ đã chiếm đóng.

ĐÁP ÁN:  colonies

Question 35: Keywords: mid-century of the 1800s, Europe, the US, study

Thông tin ở đoạn F: “By mid-century, attention … discovering principles useful for the organization of their own societies”, nghĩa là Đến thời điểm giữa thế kỷ, sự chú ý được hướng theo khía cạnh khác. Ý thức sâu sắc được sức mạnh quân sự và công nghệ của xã hội châu  u và  u Mỹ, những nhà du hành châu Á đặc biệt đã đến Châu  u và Hoa Kỳ với hy vọng tìm hiểu những nguyên tắc hữu ích cho công tác tổ chức của xã hội đất nước mình.

ĐÁP ÁN: organisation

Question 36: Keywords: 20th century

Thông tin ở đoạn G: “The most distinctive of them was mass tourism, which emerged as a major form of consumption for individuals living in the world’s wealthy societies.”, nghĩa là Điểm đặc biệt nhất là du lịch đại chúng, vốn nổi lên như một hình thức tiêu tiền của giới thượng lưu thế giới.

ĐÁP ÁN: wealthy

Question 37: Keywords: Why, imperial rulers, interested in these travel stories

Thông tin ở đoạn B: “After the formation of large, … about their realms”, nghĩa là Sau khi các đế quốc trong thế giới cổ đại được thành lập, du ký nổi lên như một thể loại văn học mới đáng chú ý ở nhiều vùng, và nó kêu gọi mạnh mẽ các nhà cai trị công nhận những kiến thức hữu ích trong lĩnh vực này.

Question 38: Keywords: largest group, record their spiritual trips, the post-classical era

Thông tin ở đoạn C: “Since the prophet Muhammad’s original … their experiences” nghĩa là Từ chuyến hành hương đầu của nhà tiên tri Muhammad đến Mecca, hàng triệu người Hồi giáo đã theo gương của ông ấy, và hàng ngàn bảng tường thuật hajj mô tả lại kinh nghiệm của họ.

Question 39.   Keywords:  the early modern era, a large number of travel books, published to

Thông tin ở đoạn E: “European printing presses churned …appetite for news about the larger world.”, nghĩa là các nhà in đã cho ra đời hàng ngàn tác phẩm du ký miêu tả những vùng đất ngoại quốc và người ngoại quốc đến với công chúng đọc sách với sự khao khát không chán về tin tức thế giới rộng lớn.

Question 40.   Keywords: main theme

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IELTS Recent Actual Test 2022 With Answer Key | Morning Slot | Reading Passage 3 | 8 January 2022

"travel books"  , reading passage 3.

There are many reasons why individuals have travelled beyond their own soci­eties. Some travellers may have simply desired to satisfy curiosity about the larger world. Until recent times, however, travellers did start their journey for reasons other than mere curiosity. While the travellers’ accounts give much valuable information on these foreign lands and provide a window for the understanding of the local cultures and histories, they are also a mirror to the travellers themselves, for these accounts help them to have a better under­standing of themselves. Records of foreign travel appeared soon after the invention of writing, and fragmentary travel accounts appeared in both Mesopotamia and Egypt in an­cient times. After the formation of large, imperial states in the classical world, travel accounts emerged as a prominent literary genre in many lands, and they held especially strong appeal for rulers desiring useful knowledge about their realms. The Greek historian Herodotus reported on his travels in Egypt and Anatolia in researching the history of the Persian wars. The Chinese envoy Zhang Qian described much of central Asia as far west as Bactria (modern- day Afghanistan) on the basis of travels undertaken in the first century BCE while searching for allies for the Han dynasty. Hellenistic and Roman geog­raphers such as Ptolemy, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder relied on their own travels through much of the Mediterranean world as well as reports of other travellers to compile vast compendia of geographical knowledge. During the post-classical era (about 500 to 1500 CE), trade and pilgrimage j? emerged as major incentives for travel to foreign lands. Muslim merchants sought trading opportunities throughout much of the eastern hemisphere. They described lands, peoples, and commercial products of the Indian Ocean basin from East Africa to Indonesia, and they supplied the first written accounts of societies in sub-Saharan West Africa. While merchants set out in search of trade and profit, devout Muslims travelled as pilgrims to Mecca to make their hajj and visit the holy sites of Islam. Since the prophet Muhammad’s origin­al pilgrimage to Mecca, untold millions of Muslims have followed his exam­ple, and thousands of hajj accounts have related their experiences. East Asian travellers were not quite so prominent as Muslims during the post-classical era, but they too followed many of the highways and sea lanes of the eastern hemisphere. Chinese merchants frequently visited South-East Asia and India, occasionally venturing even to East Africa, and devout East Asian Buddhists undertook distant pilgrimages. Between the 5th and 9th centuries CE, hundreds and possibly even thousands of Chinese Buddhists travelled to India to study with Buddhist teachers, collect sacred texts, and visit holy sites. Written ac­counts recorded the experiences of many pilgrims, such as Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing. Though not so numerous as the Chinese pilgrims, Buddhists from Japan, Korea, and other lands also ventured abroad in the interests of spiritual enlightenment. Medieval Europeans did not hit the roads in such large numbers as their Muslim and East Asian counterparts during the early part of the post-classical era, al­though gradually increasing crowds of Christian pilgrims flowed to Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela (in northern Spain), and other sites. After the 12th century, however, merchants, pilgrims, and missionaries from medieval Europe travelled widely and left numerous travel accounts, of which Marco Polo’s description of his travels and sojourn in China is the best known. As they became familiar with the larger world of the eastern hemisphere - and the profitable commercial opportunities that it offered - European peoples worked to find new and more direct routes to Asian and African markets. Their efforts took them not only to all parts of the eastern hemisphere, but eventually to the Americas and Oceania as well.

Travel Books

Reading passage questions.

Questions 27-28 Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D. 27. What were most people travelling for in the early days? A. Studying their own cultures B. Business C. Knowing other people and places better D. Writing travel books 28. Why did the author say writing travel books is also “a mirror” for travellers themselves? A. Because travellers record their own experiences. B. Because travellers reflect upon their own society and life. C. Because it increases knowledge of foreign cultures. D. Because it is related to the development of human society.

Questions 29-36 Complete the table below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.

Reading Passage Answer Key

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Advantages Of Public Transport Reading Answers: IELTS Reading Practice Test

Updated on Jun 10, 2024, 11:48

In the IELTS Reading section, your reading comprehension skills are put to the test. This segment, lasting for 60 minutes, features three passages, each accompanied by a series of questions in formats like multiple choice, matching headings, and True/False/Not Given. Success here relies on your ability to grasp key information, discern main ideas, and infer meaning from context.

To excel in the IELTS Reading section, employ effective reading strategies such as skimming for main ideas and scanning for specific details. Regular practice with sample questions and exposure to different question types will hone your skills for test day.

Prepare for an insightful exploration of public transport's advantages, examining its benefits for individuals and communities alike. Engaging passages and accompanying questions will enrich your comprehension of this vital aspect of modern transportation by exploring its impact on urban mobility, environmental sustainability, and societal well-being.

On this page

1. Advantages Of Public Transport Reading Passage

You should spend approximately 20 minutes answering  Questions 1 - 14  based on the Reading Passage below. This approach can help manage time effectively during a reading comprehension activity or exam. 

2. Advantages Of Public Transport Reading Question & Answers

Discover exciting and informative IELTS reading answers about Advantages Of Public Transport

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Advantages Of Public Transport Reading Passage

• Read Instructions: Understand each question before answering.
• Manage Time: Spend about 20 minutes per passage.
• Skim and Scan: Quickly get the main idea and find specific information.
• Highlight Key Info: Underline essential words or phrases.
• Answer All Questions: Attempt every question; no penalty for wrong answers.
• Stay Focused: Avoid distractions and keep your attention on the task.
• Check Spelling: Ensure correct spelling and grammar.
• Transfer Answers Clearly: Write answers neatly on the answer sheet.
• Don’t Dwell: Move on if stuck and return later.
• Review: If time allows, review your answers.

Advantages of Public Transport

Paragraph 1

Public transport is more efficient than cars. A new study conducted by the Murdoch University's Institute for Science and Technology Policy (ISTP) for the World Bank has demonstrated this. The study compared the percentage of wealth poured into transport by 37 cities around the world. The public and private costs of building, maintaining and using a transport system was included.

Paragraph 2

The study says that the Western Australian city of Perth is a city with minimal public transport. As a result, 17% of its wealth is spent on transport costs. On the other hand, few European and Asian cities spent as little as 5%. ISTP Director and Professor Peter Newman, said that these more efficient cities were able to put the difference into attracting industry and jobs or creating a better place to live. 

Paragraph 3

According to Professor Newman, in comparison, the larger Australian city of Melbourne is a rather unusual city. He explains it as 2 cities: 'A European city surrounded by a car-dependent one'. Melbourne's large tram network has lowered the car use in the inner city. As most other Australian cities the outer suburbs have the same car-based structure. The increase in demand for accommodation in suburban Melbourne proposes a change in many people's choices as to where they live.

Paragraph 4

This is a new, broader way of considering public transport issues, says Newman. The case for public transport has been made in the past on the basis of environmental and social justice considerations rather than economics. However Newman believes that the study shows 'the auto-dependent city model is inefficient and not enough in economic as well as environmental terms'.

Paragraph 5

Even though bicycle use was not included in the study, Newman noted that the two most 'bicycle friendly' cities - Amsterdam and Copenhagen - were very efficient, even though their public transport systems were 'not special but reasonable'. 

Paragraph 6

The supporters of road networks reject the models of cities with good public transport by arguing that such systems would not work in that particular city. One objection is climate. Some people mentioned that they couldn't make proper use of public transport due to its extreme weather. Newman rejected this and said that public transport has been successful in both Toronto and Singapore and, in fact, he has checked the use of cars against climate and found 'zero correlation'.

Paragraph 7

Road lobbies are on stronger ground when it comes to other physical features. For example, for a city as hilly as Auckland it would be hard to develop a really good rail network, says Newman. He does note, however, that despite being hilly cities, both Hong Kong and Zurich have made a success of their heavy and light rail systems.

Paragraph 8

'The more democratic the process, the more public transportation is preferred,' Newman argues. He considers Portland, Oregon, a good example. Federal money was granted to build a new road a few years ago. However, local pressure groups instead wanted a referendum on whether to spend the funds on light rail. The rail idea was successful, and the railroad performed admirably. More rail systems were built in the years that followed, drastically altering the city's landscape. Portland has a similar population density to Perth, according to Newman. 

Paragraph 9

People avoided situations that forced them to spend more than half an hour travelling to work in the United Kingdom for at least 6 centuries. Trains and automobiles allowed people to live farther apart without having to travel longer distances. However, public infrastructure has not kept up with urbanisation, resulting in severe traffic congestion and much longer commute times.

Paragraph 10

There is a widespread belief that people who have more wealth are encouraged to live farther out where cars are the only useful transport. The example of European cities refutes that. They are richer than their American counterparts but do not have the same level of car use. Car use has actually fallen in Stockholm in recent years as the city has become larger and wealthier. This notion is made much more forcefully in a new study. Automobile use is higher in developing Asian cities like Jakarta and Bangkok than in wealthier Asian cities like Tokyo and Singapore. The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank prohibited the construction of public transportation in later-developing cities, forcing residents to rely on vehicles, resulting in huge traffic jams.

Paragraph 11

The Urban Village report, which used Melbourne as an example, Newman believes is one of the greatest studies on how cities constructed for cars may be transformed to rail use. It was discovered that forcing everyone into the city centre was not the most effective strategy. Instead, the proposal recommended the creation of urban villages at hundreds of sites, mostly around railway stations.

Paragraph 12

As people were no longer forced into cities, it was once assumed that improvements in telecommunications would lead to more dispersal in the population. The ISTP team's research, however, reveals that the population and job density of cities increased or stayed constant in the 1980s after decades of decline. The explanation for this is that it is valuable to place people working in related fields together. Our future world will mostly depend on the creativity of humans, and that flourishes where people come together face-to-face.'

Advantages Of Public Transport Reading Question & Answers

Questions and answers 1-5.

• Complete the notes below.
• Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

1. Public transport is more ________ than cars.

2. Murdoch University's (ISTP) conducted the study for the ________.

3. In ________ 17% of its wealth is spent on transport costs. 

4. On the other hand, few ________ and Asian cities spent as little as 5%.

5. Peter Newman is the Director of ________ and a Professor.

Advantages Of Public Transport  Answers with Explanations (1-5)

Type of question: Note Completion

In note completion questions, you are required to fill in the gaps in notes or summaries using information from the reading passage. This task assesses your ability to find specific details within the passage and requires you to understand and identify the main points. 

How to best answer the question

• Understand what specific information you need to fill in the blanks.
• Quickly read through the passage to get a general understanding of its main ideas, key points, and the context surrounding the information you need to complete.
• Pay attention to keywords or phrases in the notes provided. 
• Once you've identified the keywords, scan the passage to locate the section that contains the information needed to complete the notes. 
• Be prepared for the information in the passage to be paraphrased or expressed using synonyms. 
• Ensure that the completed notes fit logically within the context of the passage. 

Public transport is more efficient than cars.  

Explanation

The word "efficient" is taken directly from the line "Public transport is more efficient than cars," highlighting the efficiency of public transport compared to cars.

A new study conducted by the Murdoch University's Institute for Science and Technology Policy (ISTP) for the World Bank has demonstrated this. 

The phrase "for the World Bank" indicates that the study was conducted for the World Bank, as mentioned in the line "A new study conducted by the Murdoch University's Institute for Science and Technology Policy (ISTP) for the World Bank has demonstrated this."

The study says that the Western Australian city of Perth is a city with minimal public transport. 

The city of Perth is specifically mentioned in the line "The study says that the Western Australian city of Perth is a city with minimal public transport," indicating that 17% of its wealth is spent on transport costs.

On the other hand, few European and Asian cities spent as little as 5%.   

The word "European" refers to the cities mentioned in contrast to Perth, indicating that few European cities spent as little as 5%, as stated in the line "On the other hand, few European and Asian cities spent as little as 5%."

ISTP Director and Professor Peter Newman, said that these more efficient cities were able to put the difference into attracting industry and jobs or creating a better place to live.   

The acronym "ISTP" refers to the Murdoch University's Institute for Science and Technology Policy, as mentioned in the line "ISTP Director and Professor Peter Newman."

Questions and Answers 6-9

• YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
• NO f the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
• NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

6. As the demand for accommodation inside suburban Melbourne increases, it changes many people's choice as to where they live.

7. Population and job density of cities decreased or stayed constant in the 1980s after decades of decline.

8. Forcing everyone into the city centre is not an effective strategy.

9. In Auckland it would be hard to develop a really good rail network.

Advantages Of Public Transport  Answers with Explanations (6-9)

Type of question: Agree/Disagree/Not Given

In this task, you are presented with a statement, and your task is to determine if it agrees with the information in the passage (Agree), contradicts the information in the passage (Disagree), or if there is insufficient information in the passage to decide (not given).

How to best answer:

• Understand the missing information outlined in the summary.
• Identify key terms and phrases from the summary in the main passage to locate the missing words.
• Ensure that the words you select from the passage match the context provided in the summary.
• Finalise your answers by confirming that the chosen words accurately complete the missing parts of the summary.

The increase in demand for accommodation in suburban Melbourne proposes a change in many people's choices as to where they live.  

This line from Paragraph 3 indicates that the increasing demand for accommodation in suburban Melbourne is influencing where people choose to live, directly supporting the statement.

Paragraph 12 

The ISTP team's research, however, reveals that the population and job density of cities increased or stayed constant in the 1980s after decades of decline.  

The line from Paragraph 12 clearly states that population and job density increased or stayed constant, contradicting the statement that they decreased.

Paragraph  11

It was discovered that forcing everyone into the city centre was not the most effective strategy.  

The line from Paragraph 11 explicitly states that forcing everyone into the city centre is not an effective strategy, confirming the statement.

Paragraph 7 

For example, for a city as hilly as Auckland it would be hard to develop a really good rail network, says Newman.

This line from Paragraph 7 explains that Auckland's hilly terrain makes it difficult to develop a good rail network, supporting the statement.

Questions and Answers 10-14

• Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBERS from the passage for each answer.

10. Melbourne's large ________ network has lowered the car use in the inner city. 

11. The case for public transport has been made in the past on the basis of environmental and social justice considerations rather than ________.

12. Amsterdam and _______ were very efficient, even though their public transport systems were 'not special but reasonable'. 

13. The supporters of ___________ reject the models of cities with good public transport by arguing that such systems would not work in that particular city. 

14. The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank prohibited the construction of public transportation in later-developing cities, forcing residents to rely on ________, resulting in huge traffic jams.

Advantages Of Public Transport  Answers with Explanations (10-14)

Type of question: Sentence Completion

To answer sentence completion questions accurately, read the given sentence carefully and identify the missing word or phrase. Then, consider the context to determine the most suitable answer option that completes the sentence appropriately. Choosing the option that best fits the context will help you answer sentence completion questions accurately.

• Carefully read the incomplete sentence and try to understand what information is missing.
• Pay attention to the context and any clues provided in the sentence or the surrounding text.
• Choose the option that best completes the sentence based on the information from the reading passage.

Melbourne's large tram network has lowered the car use in the inner city.  

The line from Paragraph 3 states that Melbourne's large tram network has reduced car use in the inner city.

Paragraph 4 

The case for public transport has been made in the past on the basis of environmental and social justice considerations rather than economics.  

The line from Paragraph 4 indicates that public transport has historically been justified by environmental and social justice considerations rather than economic ones.

Paragraph 5 

Even though bicycle use was not included in the study, Newman noted that the two most 'bicycle friendly' cities - Amsterdam and Copenhagen - were very efficient, even though their public transport systems were 'not special but reasonable'.  

The line from Paragraph 5 mentions Amsterdam and Copenhagen as efficient cities despite their reasonable but not special public transport systems.

Paragraph 6 

The supporters of road networks reject the models of cities with good public transport by arguing that such systems would not work in that particular city.  

The line from Paragraph 6 states that supporters of road networks argue against models of cities with good public transport.

Paragraph 10 

The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank prohibited the construction of public transportation in later-developing cities, forcing residents to rely on vehicles, resulting in huge traffic jams.  

The line from Paragraph 10 indicates that these banks prohibited public transportation construction, leading residents to depend on vehicles.

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Q. What are some common misconceptions about the IELTS Reading test?

Ans.  Common misconceptions include the belief that you need to understand every word in the passage, read the entire passage thoroughly, or that the questions are always straightforward. In reality, you can use skimming and scanning strategies, and questions often require critical thinking and inference.

Q. Are there any specific resources recommended for improving reading skills for the IELTS?

Ans. Yes, use resources such as Project Gutenberg for classic literature, Medium for contemporary articles, and apps like Kindle or Goodreads for a variety of reading materials. Practice comprehension exercises on websites like Khan Academy and Newsela to improve your reading proficiency.

Q. How important is vocabulary in the IELTS Reading test?

Ans.  Vocabulary is crucial in the IELTS Reading test as it helps you understand the passage and answer questions accurately. Focus on learning academic and topic-specific vocabulary, and practice using context clues to deduce the meaning of unfamiliar.

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• Published on: 05 Dec 2017
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Answer Keys:

Part 1: Question 1 - 13

• 2 South-East Asia
• 3 hard seeds
• 11 NOT GIVEN

Part 2: Question 14 - 24

• 21 NOT GIVEN
• 24 26 B,D,F

Part 3: Question 27 - 40

• 29 persian wars
• 31 geographical knowledge
• 32 pilgrimage
• 34 colonies
• 35 organisation

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Review & Explanations:

Questions 1-3

Complete the sentences below with NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet.

Banana was first eaten as a fruit by humans almost  1 years ago.

Banana was first planted in 2

Wild banana’s taste is adversely affected by its 3

Questions 4-10

Look at the statements (Questions 4-10 ) and the list of people. Match each statement with the correct person A-F .

Write the correct letter A-F in boxes 4-10 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once .

4 A B C D E F       A pest invasion may seriously damage banana industry.

5 A B C D E F      The effect of fungal infection in soil is often long-lasting.

6 A B C D E F      A commercial manufacturer gave up on breeding bananas for disease-resistant

7 A B C D E F      Banana disease may develop resistance to chemical sprays.

8 A B C D E F      A banana disease has destroyed a large number of banana plantations.

9 A B C D E F      Consumers would not accept genetically altered crops.

10 A B C D E F     Lessons can be learned from bananas for other crops.

Questions 11-13

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet write

11 TRUE FALSE NOT GIVEN      Banana is the oldest known fruit.

12 TRUE FALSE NOT GIVEN      Gros Michel is still being used as a commercial product.

13 TRUE FALSE NOT GIVEN      Banana is the main food in some countries.

Questions 14-16

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

Write your answers in boxes 14-16 on your answer sheet.

What has caused public interest in coastal archaeology in recent years?

• A The rapid development of England’s coastal archaeology
• B The rising awareness of climate change
• C The discovery of an underwater forest
• D The systematic research conducted on coastal archaeological findings

What does the passage say about the evidence of boats?

• A There’s enough knowledge of the boatbuilding technology of the prehistoric people.
• B Many of the boats discovered were found in harbours.
• C The use of boats had not been recorded for a thousand years.
• D Boats were first used for fishing.

What can be discovered from the air?

• A Salt mines
• B Roman towns
• D Fisheries

Questions 17-23

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 17-23 on your answer sheet write

17 TRUE FALSE NOT GIVEN      England lost much of its land after the ice age due to the rising sea level.

18 TRUE FALSE NOT GIVEN      The coastline of England has changed periodically.

19 TRUE FALSE NOT GIVEN      Coastal archaeological evidence may be well protected by sea water.

20 TRUE FALSE NOT GIVEN      The design of boats used by pre-modern people was very simple.

21 TRUE FALSE NOT GIVEN       Similar boats were also discovered in many other European countries.

22 TRUE FALSE NOT GIVEN       There are few documents relating to mineral exploitation.

23 TRUE FALSE NOT GIVEN       Large passenger boats are causing increasing damage to the seashore.

Questions 24-26

Choose THREE letters A-G .

Write your answers in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet.

Which THREE of the following statements are mentioned in the passage?

• A How coastal archaeology was originally discovered
• B It is difficult to understand how many people lived close to the sea.
• C How much the prehistoric communities understand the climate change
• D Our knowledge of boat evidence is limited.
• E Some fishing ground was converted to ports.
• F Human development threatens the archaeological remains.
• G Coastal archaeology will become more important in the future.

Questions 27-28

Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D . Write your answers in boxes 27-28 on your answer sheet.

What were most people travelling for in the early days?

• A Studying their own cultures
• C Knowing other people and places better
• D Writing travel books

Why did the author say writing travel books is also “a mirror” for travellers themselves?

• A Because travellers record their own experiences.
• B Because travellers reflect upon their own society and life.
• C Because it increases knowledge of foreign cultures.
• D Because it is related to the development of human society.

Questions 29-36

Complete the table on the next page. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from Reading Passage 3 for each answer.

Questions 37-40

Write your answers in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.

Why were the imperial rulers especially interested in these travel stories?

• A Reading travel stories was a popular pastime.
• B The accounts are often truthful rather than fictional.
• C Travel books played an important role in literature.
• D They desired knowledge of their empire.

Who were the largest group to record their spiritual trips during the post-classical era?

• A Muslim traders
• B Muslim pilgrims
• C Chinese Buddhists
• D Indian Buddhist teachers

During the early modern era, a large number of travel books were published to

• A meet the public’s interest.
• B explore new business opportunities.
• C encourage trips to the new world.
• D record the larger world.

What’s the main theme of the passage?

• A The production of travel books
• B The literary status of travel books
• C The historical significance of travel books
• D The development of travel books

READING PASSAGE 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 , which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.

Going Bananas

The world's favourite fruit could disappear forever in 10 years’ time

The banana is among the world's oldest crops. Agricultural scientists believe that the first edible banana was discovered around ten thousand years ago. It has been at an evolutionary standstill ever since it was first propagated in the jungles of South-East Asia at the end of the last ice age. Normally the wild banana, a giant jungle herb called Musa acuminata, contains a mass of hard seeds that make the fruit virtually inedible. But now and then, hunter- gatherers must have discovered rare mutant plants that produced seedless, ed­ible fruits. Geneticists now know that the vast majority of these soft-fruited I plants resulted from genetic accidents that gave their cells three copies of each chromosome instead of the usual two. This imbalance prevents seeds and pol­len from developing normally, rendering the mutant plants sterile. And that is why some scientists believe the world’s most popular fruit could be doomed. It lacks the genetic diversity to fight off pests and diseases that are invading the banana plantations of Central America and the smallholdings of Africa and Asia alike.

In some ways, the banana today resembles the potato before blight brought famine to Ireland a century and a half ago. But “ it holds a lesson for other crops , too,” says Emile Frison , top banana at the International Network for the Im­provement of Banana and Plantain in Montpellier, France. “The state of the ba­nana,” Frison warns, “can teach a broader lesson: the increasing standardisation of food crops round the world is threatening their ability to adapt and survive.”

The first Stone Age plant breeders cultivated these sterile freaks by replanting cuttings from their stems. And the descendants of those original cuttings are the bananas we still eat today. Each is a virtual clone, almost devoid of genetic diversity. And that uniformity makes it ripe for disease like no other crop on Earth. Traditional varieties of sexually reproducing crops have always had a much broader genetic base, and the genes will recombine in new arrangements in each generation. This gives them much greater flexibility in evolving re­sponses to disease - and far more genetic resources to draw on in the face of an attack. But that advantage is fading fast, as growers increasingly plant the same few, high-yielding varieties. Plant breeders work feverishly to maintain resistance in these standardised crops. Should these efforts falter, yields of even the most productive crop could swiftly crash. “ When some pest or dis­ease comes along, severe epidemics can occur ,” says Geoff Hawtin , director of the Rome-based International Plant Genetic Resources Institute.

The banana is an excellent case in point. Until the 1950s, one variety, the Gros Michel, dominated the world’s commercial banana business. Found by French botanists in Asia in the 1820s, the Gros Michel was by all accounts a fine banana, richer and sweeter than today’s standard banana and without the latter’s bitter aftertaste when green. But it was vulnerable to a soil fungus that produced a wilt known as Panama disease. “ Once the fungus gets into the soil, it remains there for many years . There is nothing farmers can do. Even chemical spraying won’t get rid of it,” says Rodomiro Ortiz , director of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan, Nigeria. So planta­tion owners played a running game, abandoning infested fields and moving to “clean” land - until they ran out of clean land in the 1950s and had to abandon the Gros Michel . Its successor, and still the reigning commercial king, is the Cavendish banana, a 19th-century British discovery from southern China. The Cavendish is resistant to Panama disease and, as a result, it literally saved the international banana industry. During the 1960s, it replaced the Gros Michel on supermarket shelves. If you buy a banana today, it is almost certainly a Cavendish. But even so, it is a minority in the world’s banana crop..

Half a billion people in Asia and Africa depend on bananas. Bananas provide the largest source of calories and are eaten daily. Its name is synonymous with food. But the day of reckoning may be coming for the Cavendish and its in­digenous kin. Another fungal disease, black Sigatoka, has become a global epi­demic since its first appearance in Fiji in 1963. Left to itself, black Sigatoka - which causes brown wounds on leaves and premature fruit ripening - cuts fruit yields by 50 to 70 per cent and reduces the productive lifetime of banana plants from 30 years to as little as 2 or 3. Commercial growers keep black Sigatoka at bay by a massive chemical assault. Forty sprayings of fungicide a year is typical. But despite the fungicides, diseases such as black Sigatoka are getting more and more difficult to control. “As soon as you bring in a new fun­gicide, they develop resistance ,” says Frison . “One thing we can be sure of is that black Sigatoka won't lose in this battle.” Poor farmers, who cannot afford chemicals, have it even worse. They cap do little more than watch their plants die. “ Most of the banana fields in Amazonia have already been destroyed by the disease ,” says Luadir Gasparotto , Brazil’s leading banana pathologist with the government research agency EMBRAPA. Production is likely to fall by 70 per cent as the disease spreads, he predicts. The only option will be to find a new variety. But how? Almost all edible varieties are susceptible to the diseases, so growers cannot simply change to a different banana. With most crops, such a threat would unleash an army of breeders, scouring the world for resistant relatives whose traits they can breed into commercial varieties. Not so with the ba­nana. Because all edible varieties are sterile, bringing in new genetic traits to help cope with pests and diseases is nearly impossible. Nearly, but not totally. Very rarely, a sterile banana will experience a genetic accident that allows an almost normal seed to develop, giving breeders a tiny window for improve­ment. Breeders at the Honduran Foundation of Agricultural Research have tried to exploit this to create disease-resistant varieties. Further back-crossing with wild bananas yielded a new seedless banana resistant to both black Sigatoka and Panama disease.

Neither Western supermarket consumers nor peasant growers like the new hybrid. Some accuse it of tasting more like an apple than a banana. Not sur­prisingly, the majority of plant breeders have till now turned their backs on the banana and got to work on easier plants. And commercial banana companies are now washing their hands of the whole breeding effort, preferring to fund a search for new fungicides instead. “ We supported a breeding programme for 40 years, but it wasn't able to develop an alternative to the Cavendish. It was very expensive and we got nothing back ,” says Ronald Romero , head of research at Chiquita, one of the Big Three companies that dominate the international banana trade.

Last year, a global consortium of scientists led by Frison announced plans to sequence the banana genome within five years. It would be the first edible fruit to be sequenced. Well, almost edible. The group will actually be sequen­cing inedible wild bananas from East Asia because many of these are resistant to black Sigatoka. If they can pinpoint the genes that help these wild varieties to resist black Sigatoka, the protective genes could be introduced into labora­tory tissue cultures of cells from edible varieties. These could then be propa­gated into new disease-resistant plants and passed on to farmers. It sounds promising, but the big banana companies have, until now, refused to get involved in GM research for fear of alienating their customers. “ Biotech­nology is extremely expensive and there are serious questions about consumer acceptance ,” says David McLaughlin , Chiquita’s senior director for environ- mental affairs. With scant funding from the companies, the banana genome researchers are focusing on the other end of the spectrum. Even if they can identify the crucial genes, they will be a long way from developing new varieties that smallholders will find suitable and affordable. But whatever biotechnology’s academic interest, it is the only hope for the banana. Without it, banana pro­duction worldwide will head into a tailspin. We may even see the extinction of the banana as both a lifesaver for hungry and impoverished Africans and the most popular product on the world’s supermarket shelves.

----------------------------------------------------

Great thanks to volunteer Lan Nguyen who has contributed these explanations and markings.

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READING PASSAGE 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 , which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.

Coastal Archaeology of Britain

A The recognition of the wealth and diversity of England’s coastal archaeology has been one of the most important developments of recent years. Some elements of this enormous resource have long been known. The so-called ‘submerged forests’ off the coasts of England, sometimes with clear evidence of the human activity, had attracted the interest of antiquarians since at least the eighteenth century, but serious and systematic attention has been given to the archaeological potential of the coast only since the early 1980s.

B It is possible to trace a variety of causes for this concentration of effort and interest. In the 1980s and 1990s scientific research into climate change and its environmental impact spilled over into a much broader public debate as awareness of these issues grew; the prospect of rising sea levels over the next century, and their impact on current coastal environments, has been a particular focus for concern. At the same time archaeologists were beginning to recognize that the destruction caused by natural processes of coastal erosion and by human activity was having an increasing impact on the archaeological resource of the coast.

C The dominant process affecting the physical form of England in the post- glacial period has been rising in the altitude of sea level relative to the land, as theglaciers melted and the landmass readjusted. The encroachment of the sea, the loss of huge areas of land now under the North Sea and the English Channel, and especially the loss of the land bridge between England and France, which finally made Britain an island, must have been immensely significant factors in the lives of our prehistoric ancestors . Yet the way in which prehistoric communities adjusted to these environmental changes has seldom been a major theme in discussions of the period. One factor contributing to this has been that, although the rise in relative sea level is comparatively well documented, we know little about the constant reconfiguration of the coastline . This was affected by many processes, mostly quite, which have not yet been adequately researched. The detailed reconstruction of coastline histories and the changing environments available for human use will be an important theme for future research.

D So great has been the rise in sea level and the consequent regression of the coast that much of the archaeological evidence now exposed in the coastal zone. Whether being eroded or exposed as a buried land surface, is derived from what was originally terres-trial occupation. Its current location in the coastal zone is the product of later unrelated processes, and it can tell us little about past adaptations to the sea. Estimates of its significance will need to be made in the context of other related evidence from dry land sites. Nevertheless, its physical environment means that preservation is often excellent, for example in the case of the Neolithic structure excavated at the Stumble in Essex.

E In some cases these buried land surfaces do contain evidence for human exploitation of what was a coastal environment, and elsewhere along the modem coast there is similar evidence. Where the evidence does relate to past human exploitation of the resources and the opportunities offered by the sea and the coast, it is both diverse and as yet little understood. We are not yet in a position to make even preliminary estimates of answers to such fundamental questions as the extent to which the sea and the coast affected human life in the past, what percentage of the population at any time lived within reach of the sea, or whether human settlements in coastal environments showed a distinct character from those inland.

F The most striking evidence for use of the sea is in the form of boats, yet we still have much to learn about their production and use . Most of the known wrecks around our coast are not unexpectedly of post-medieval date, and offer an unparalleled opportunity for research which has yet been little used. The prehistoric sewn-plank boats such as those from the Humber estuary and Dover all seem to belong to the second millennium BC; after this there is a gap in the record of a millennium, which cannot yet be explained before boats reappear, but it built using a very different technology. Boatbuilding must have been an extremely important activity around much of our coast, yet we know almost nothing about it. Boats were some of the most complex produced by pre-modem societies , and further research on their production and use make an important contribution to our understanding of past attitudes to technology and technological change.

G Boats need landing places, yet here again our knowledge is very patchy. In many cases the natural shores and beaches would have sufficed, leaving little or no archaeological trace, but especially in later periods, many ports and harbors, as well as smaller facilities such as quays, wharves, and jetties, were built. Despite a growth of interest in the waterfront archaeology of some of our more important Roman and medieval towns, very little attention has been paid to the multitude of smaller landing places. Redevelopment of harbor sites and other development and natural pressures along the coast are subject these important locations to unprecedented threats, yet few surveys of such sites have been undertaken.

H One of the most important revelations of recent research has been the extent of industrial activity along the coast. Fishing and salt production are among the better documented activities, but even here our knowledge is patchy. Many forms of fishing will leave little archaeological trace, and one of the surprises of recent survey has been the extent of past investment in facilities for procuring fish and shellfish. Elaborate wooden fish weirs, often of considerable extent and responsive to aerial photography in shallow water, have been identified in areas such as Essex and the Severn estuary . The production of salt, especially in the late Iron Age and early Roman periods, has been recognized for some time, especially in the Thames estuary and around the Solent and Poole Harbor, but the reasons for the decline of that industry and the nature of later coastal salt working are much less well understood. Other industries were also located along the coast, either because the raw materials outcropped there or for ease of working and transport: mineral resources such as sand, gravel, stone, coal, ironstone, and alum were all exploited. These industries are poorly documented, but their remains are sometimes extensive and striking .

I Some appreciation of the variety and importance of the archaeological remains preserved in the coastal zone, albeit only in preliminary form, can thus be gained from recent work, but the complexity of the problem of managing that resource is also being realized. The problem arises not only from the scale and variety of the archaeological remains, but also from two other sources: the very varied natural and human threats to the resource , and the complex web of organizations with authority over, or interests in, the coastal zone. Human threats include the redevelopment of historic towns and old dockland areas, and the increased importance of the coast for the leisure and tourism industries, resulting in pressure for the increased provision of facilities such as marinas. The larger size of ferries has also caused an increase in the damage caused by their wash to fragile deposits in the zone . The most significant natural threat is the predicted rise in sea level over the next century especially in the south and east of England. Its impact on archaeology is not easy to predict, and though it is likely to be highly localized, it will be at a scale much larger than that of most archaeological sites. Thus protecting one site may simply result in transposing the threat to a point further along the coast. The management of the archaeological remains will have to be considered in a much longer time scale and a much wider geographical scale than is common in the case of dry land sites, and this will pose a serious challenge for archaeologists.

READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 , which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

Travel Books

There are many reasons why individuals have travelled beyond their own soci­eties. Some travellers may have simply desired to satisfy curiosity about the larger world. Until recent times, however, travellers did start their journey for reasons other than mere curiosity. While the travellers’ accounts give much valuable information on these foreign lands and provide a window for the understanding of the local cultures and histories, they are also a mirror to the travellers themselves, for these accounts help them to have a better under­standing of themselves . Records of foreign travel appeared soon after the invention of writing, and fragmentary travel accounts appeared in both Mesopotamia and Egypt in an­cient times. After the formation of large, imperial states in the classical world, travel accounts emerged as a prominent literary genre in many lands, and they held especially strong appeal for rulers desiring useful knowledge about their realms . The Greek historian Herodotus reported on his travels in Egypt and Anatolia in researching the history of the Persian wars . The Chinese envoy Zhang Qian described much of central Asia as far west as Bactria (modern- day Afghanistan) on the basis of travels undertaken in the first century BCE while searching for allies for the Han dynasty. Hellenistic and Roman geog­raphers such as Ptolemy, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder relied on their own travels through much of the Mediterranean world as well as reports of other travellers to compile vast compendia of geographical knowledge .

During the post-classical era (about 500 to 1500 CE), trade and pilgrimage emerged as major incentives for travel to foreign lands. Muslim merchants sought trading opportunities throughout much of the eastern hemisphere. They described lands, peoples, and commercial products of the Indian Ocean basin from East Africa to Indonesia, and they supplied the first written accounts of societies in sub-Saharan West Africa. While merchants set out in search of trade and profit, devout Muslims travelled as pilgrims to Mecca to make their hajj and visit the holy sites of Islam. Since the prophet Muhammad’s origin­al pilgrimage to Mecca, untold millions of Muslims have followed his exam­ple , and thousands of hajj accounts have related their experiences. East Asian travellers were not quite so prominent as Muslims during the post-classical era, but they too followed many of the highways and sea lanes of the eastern hemisphere. Chinese merchants frequently visited South-East Asia and India , occasionally venturing even to East Africa, and devout East Asian Buddhists undertook distant pilgrimages. Between the 5th and 9th centuries CE, hundreds and possibly even thousands of Chinese Buddhists travelled to India to study with Buddhist teachers, collect sacred texts, and visit holy sites. Written ac­counts recorded the experiences of many pilgrims, such as Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing. Though not so numerous as the Chinese pilgrims, Buddhists from Japan, Korea, and other lands also ventured abroad in the interests of spiritual enlightenment.

Medieval Europeans did not hit the roads in such large numbers as their Muslim and East Asian counterparts during the early part of the post-classical era, al­though gradually increasing crowds of Christian pilgrims flowed to Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela (in northern Spain), and other sites. After the 12th century, however, merchants, pilgrims, and missionaries from medieval Europe travelled widely and left numerous travel accounts, of which Marco Polo’s description of his travels and sojourn in China is the best known. As they became familiar with the larger world of the eastern hemisphere - and the profitable commercial opportunities that it offered - European peoples worked to find new and more direct routes to Asian and African markets. Their efforts took them not only to all parts of the eastern hemisphere, but eventually to the Americas and Oceania as well.

If Muslim and Chinese peoples dominated travel and travel writing in post- classical times, European explorers, conquerors, merchants, and missionaries took centre stage during the early modern era (about 1500 to 1800 CE). By no means did Muslim and Chinese travel come to a halt in early modern times. But European peoples ventured to the distant corners of the globe, and European printing presses churned out thousands of travel accounts that described foreign lands and peoples for a reading public with an apparently insatiable appetite for news about the larger world. The volume of travel litera­ture was so great that several editors, including Giambattista Ramusio, Rich­ard Hakluyt, Theodore de Biy, and Samuel Purchas, assembled numerous travel accounts and made them available in enormous published collections.

During the 19th century, European travellers made their way to the interior regions of Africa and the Americas, generating a fresh round of travel writing as they did so. Meanwhile, European colonial administrators devoted numer­ous writings to the societies of their colonial subjects, particularly in Asian and African colonies they established. By mid-century, attention was flowing also in the other direction. Painfully aware of the military and technological prowess of European and Euro-American societies, Asian travellers in particu­lar visited Europe and the United States in hopes of discovering principles useful for the organisation of their own societies. Among the most prominent of these travellers who made extensive use of their overseas observations and experiences in their own writings were the Japanese reformer Fukuzawa Yu- kichi and the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen.

With the development of inexpensive and reliable means of mass transport, the 20th century witnessed explosions both in the frequency of long-distance travel and in the volume of travel writing. While a great deal of travel took place for reasons of business, administration, diplomacy, pilgrimage, and mis­sionary work, as in ages past, increasingly effective modes of mass transport made it possible for new kinds of travel to flourish. The most distinctive of them was mass tourism, which emerged as a major form of consumption .for individuals living in the world’s wealthy societies. Tourism enabled consumers to get away from home to see the sights in Rome, take a cruise through the Caribbean, walk the Great Wall of China, visit some wineries in Bordeaux, or go on safari in Kenya. A peculiar variant of the travel account arose to meet the needs of these tourists: the guidebook, which offered advice on food, lodging, shopping, local customs, and all the sights that visitors should not miss seeing. Tourism has had a massive economic impact throughout the world, but other new forms of travel have also had considerable influence in contemporary times.

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Write a Letter to Your Manager about a Party that You Want to Organize at the Office – IELTS General Writing Task 1

Updated On Jun 06, 2024

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The IELTS General Writing Task 1 evaluates your ability to communicate effectively in written form through letters addressing various practical scenarios. These scenarios can range from formal inquiries to expressing concern or gratitude, often encountered in day-to-day life, such as formal topics like ‘ Write a Letter to Your Manager about a Party that You Want to Organize at the Office’.

So, let’s explore the three sample answers, ranging from Band 7 to 9 on the IELTS General Writing Task 1 topic – Write a Letter to Your Manager about a Party that You Want to Organize at the Office – to enhance your letter-writing skills and achieve your desired band level for IELTS.

Check Out – How to Write a Formal Letter?

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

Write a letter to your manager about a party that you want to organize at the office. in your letter,.

• say what the party is about.
• mention why it is necessary.
• explain what you expect from him/her to do.

Write at least 150 words.

Join our IELTS webinars for proven tricks to learn the difference between the different IELTS letters!

Band 7 Sample Answer for Writing Task 1 Question – Write a Letter to Your Manager about a Party that You Want to Organize at the Office.

Dear Mr. Malhotra,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing this letter to request permission for a party we are planning for Friday evening. The party is scheduled to take place in the common area on the ground floor from 6 pm to 9 pm.

Our HR team has recently received an award for completing all tasks on time and achieving all targets. To celebrate this achievement and foster team morale, we believe hosting a party would be beneficial. We would also like to extend an invitation for you to join us in this celebration. Your guidance and support have been valuable to us, and your presence would make the event even more special.

Furthermore, we kindly request your written permission to utilize the common area for the party. Your approval in writing is necessary as we need to vacate the area for a few hours.

Thank you for considering our request. We look forward to your favorable response.

Yours faithfully,

(Word Count – 165)

Check Out – IELTS Letter Writing Topics 

Band 8 Sample Answer for Writing Task 1 Question – Write a Letter to Your Manager about a Party that You Want to Organize at the Office.

Dear Mr. Anthony,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to seek permission for my upcoming birthday party this Thursday. I’m considering hosting an office celebration to mark the occasion.

Having been with this organization for two years now, I deeply value the support of my team members and your guidance throughout this time. Hosting this party is my gesture of gratitude to everyone and an opportunity to reconnect after recent deadlines.

I kindly request your permission to allow a two-hour pause in work so that we can all enjoy lunch together. We can finalize the timing based on everyone’s availability. I am considering holding the party in the newly opened cafe on the ground floor. Therefore, I seek your approval for this celebration and hope that you can find time to join us. Your presence would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Yours sincerely,

(Word Count- 153)

Learn exclusive tips for writing a formal letter like ‘Write a Letter to Your Manager about a Party that You Want to Organize at the Office.’ Join Us to Learn !

Band 9 Sample Answer for Writing Task 1 Question – Write a Letter to Your Manager about a Party that You Want to Organize at the Office.

Dear Maria,

I, Anshul Pathak, the team lead of the tech team writing this letter to request your permission to organize a party in our office on July 24, 2024. This party is in honor of a farewell for one of our team members, Ruchi.

Ruchi has been a valuable member of our team for the past three years, and her last day in the office falls on July 24th. We believe she deserves a farewell party from our side. The timings for the party are scheduled from 7 pm to 9 pm, and the venue will be the cafeteria on the 3rd floor. We kindly request your permission to book the cafeteria for a few hours to ensure that all team members can celebrate the occasion without any disruptions.

We would greatly appreciate it if you could grant our team permission to temporarily leave the work floor for two hours and also to reserve the cafeteria for the specified duration. Furthermore, we would be delighted if you could find the time to join us during the celebration.

Thank you for your time and consideration. We eagerly await your response.

Anshul Pathak

(Word Count – 194)

Now that you have gone through the sample answers on the topic – Write a Letter to Your Manager about a Party that You Want to Organize at the Office – it is time for you to try writing some letters on your own. For that, leave your answers as a comment below or you can use our FREE evaluation service !

Additional Resources 

• Opening and Closing lines for IELTS General Writing Task 1
• You have Been Offered a Job, Asking you to Start Next Week- Formal Letter
• 6 Useful Tips to Improve IELTS Writing Skills
• IELTS Letter Writing – Types and Tips
• Formal Letter to Principal Topics: The Essential Guide with Sample Answers
• Formal Letter to Change Hostel Room- IELTS Writing Task 1 
• An Article in an International Travel Magazine – IELTS Writing Task 1
• Last Week You Were on a Flight to London- Formal Letter

Practice IELTS Writing Task 1 based on report types

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Akanksha Tripathi

As a content writer, Akanksha loves creating engaging stories. With a degree in business administration and experience in human resources, she brings a fresh perspective to her work. Akanksha's passion for travel and words led her here, and she's always learning and growing in this field. She's dedicated to crafting words and refining her skills with each project she undertakes.

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