IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test 5

READING PASSAGE 1

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

Going up

Machines for lifting heavy loads are far older than most people imagine. The ancient Greeks and Romans used platforms raised by ropes and pulleys, which were turned by people or animals. Beneath the floor of the Colosseum in Rome, wild animals were lifted into the arena in wooden cages, so that they appeared suddenly in front of the crowd. For the next two thousand years, however, such machines were used almost entirely for goods, not people. The reason was simple: if the rope broke, the platform would fall, and anyone standing on it was likely to be killed.

The man who solved this problem was not a famous engineer but a mechanic named Elisha Otis. In 1852, he was working at a bed factory in Yonkers, New York, and was asked to clear the old building and move the equipment to the upper floors of a new one. Nobody had asked him to improve the factory's hoist, but, worried about the danger to the workers, he designed a hoist with a safety device. A strong steel spring was attached to the top of the platform and held in tension by the lifting rope. If the rope broke, the spring was released and its ends were pushed outwards into metal teeth fixed along the guide rails on each side of the lift shaft, stopping the platform almost immediately.

At first, Otis attracted little interest. In 1854, however, he decided to demonstrate his invention in front of a large audience at an exhibition in New York. Standing on an open platform high above the crowd, he ordered an assistant to cut the only rope that held it. The platform dropped a few centimetres and then stopped. "All safe, gentlemen, all safe," Otis is said to have announced. Orders began to arrive, and in 1857 the first passenger lift with his safety device was installed in a five-storey department store on Broadway. Powered by a steam engine, it climbed at a speed of about twelve metres a minute, which is far slower than a person walking up the stairs.

It is often said that the safety lift made the skyscraper possible, and there is a good deal of truth in this. Before the lift, buildings had rarely been more than five or six storeys high, not because they could not be built any taller, but because few people were willing to climb more stairs than that every day. Steel frames, which allowed taller buildings to be constructed, appeared in the 1880s, but they would have been of limited value if nobody had wanted to work on the upper floors. The lift also turned the traditional order of a building upside down. In the nineteenth century, the top floors of a house or hotel were the least desirable, and were often given to servants. Once lifts were installed, the highest floors became the most expensive, because they offered fresh air, light and views, away from the noise and dirt of the street. The luxury penthouse apartment is a direct result.

Steam-powered lifts were gradually replaced by hydraulic ones, which were pushed up by water pressure, and then by electric lifts. The German engineer Werner von Siemens showed an electric lift at an exhibition in 1880, and the first electric passenger lifts in a commercial building in the United States were installed in 1889. Electric lifts were faster, quieter and took up less space, and by the early twentieth century they had become the standard.

For several decades, however, nearly every passenger lift had a human operator, who opened and closed the doors and controlled the speed of the lift, stopping it level with each floor. Automatic lifts, which passengers operated themselves by pressing buttons, were available from around 1900, but many people did not trust them, and building owners were slow to adopt them. The situation changed after 1945, when lift operators in New York went on strike. Thousands of office workers were forced to climb the stairs, and the strike caused enormous disruption to the city. In the years that followed, building owners replaced operators with automatic lifts in large numbers. To reassure nervous passengers, the new lifts were fitted with emergency telephones and recorded messages.

Today, lifts are by far the safest form of mechanical transport, but their design continues to set limits on how tall buildings can be. In a very tall building, a large proportion of each floor is taken up by lift shafts, which reduces the space that can be rented out. Engineers have tried to solve this problem in various ways. Some buildings have double-deck lifts, in which two cars are joined together, one above the other, so that two floors can be served at once. Others use "sky lobbies", where passengers travel to an upper floor in a fast lift and then change to a local lift. A further difficulty is the weight of the steel ropes. Above a height of about 500 metres, the ropes become so heavy that they can hardly support their own weight, and passengers must change lifts. New, lightweight ropes made from carbon fibre are now being used to make longer journeys possible.

Lift designers must also consider the behaviour of passengers. There is a well-known story about the manager of an office building whose tenants complained that the lifts were too slow. Rather than install faster lifts, which would have been very expensive, he put mirrors on the walls next to the lift doors. People spent their waiting time looking at themselves, and the complaints stopped. Whether or not the story is true, many lift lobbies today have mirrors.

Questions 1–6

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

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

Questions 7–13

Complete the table below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Developments in lift design

Development	Details
Otis's safety device	a 71 word pushed into metal teeth if the rope broke
Electric lifts	quicker and quieter than earlier lifts, and needed less 81 word
Automatic lifts	widely adopted after a 91 word in New York; given telephones to reassure passengers
Double-deck lifts	two cars, so that two 101 word can be served at the same time
Sky lobbies	passengers change from a fast lift to a 111 word lift
New ropes	made from carbon fibre, because steel ropes are too 121 word above about 500 metres
Mirrors	said to have ended 131 word about slow lifts

READING PASSAGE 2

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

The vanishing night

A For almost the whole of human history, the night sky was a familiar sight. On any clear night, people could see thousands of stars and the pale band of the Milky Way stretching across the sky. Today, that experience has become rare. According to a world atlas of night-sky brightness published in 2016, around a third of humanity, including most people in Europe and North America, can no longer see the Milky Way from where they live. The cause is artificial light, which is scattered by dust and water in the atmosphere and creates a glow over towns and cities that can be seen from many kilometres away.

B Light pollution, as it is known, is not only a problem of skyglow. It also includes glare, which is light that shines directly into people's eyes and makes it harder rather than easier to see, and light trespass, which occurs when light falls where it is not wanted, such as through a bedroom window. Astronomers were among the first to complain, as observatories that had been built far from towns found the sky above them growing steadily brighter. Much of this light is simply wasted. Street lights that shine upwards or sideways, buildings that are lit all night when nobody is inside, and advertising screens that remain on until morning all add to the problem while serving little practical purpose.

C The effects on wildlife can be severe. Many animals rely on natural patterns of light and darkness to guide their behaviour. Newly hatched sea turtles, for example, find the sea by moving towards the brightest horizon, which on an undeveloped beach is the reflection of the moon and stars on the water. Where there are hotels and roads behind the beach, the young turtles crawl inland instead, and many die. Birds that migrate at night can become confused by brightly lit buildings, circling them until they are exhausted or flying into the glass. Insects are drawn to lights in enormous numbers, and scientists have suggested that this may be one of the factors behind the dramatic decline in insect populations reported in many parts of the world.

D There is also increasing concern about the effects on human health. The human body has an internal clock which regulates sleep and many other processes over a cycle of roughly twenty-four hours. This clock is set mainly by light, and in particular by blue light, which reduces the body's production of melatonin, a hormone that helps us to sleep. Exposure to bright light late in the evening can therefore delay sleep and disturb the body's rhythms. Most of this exposure comes from indoor lighting and screens rather than from street lights, but research has found that people living in brightly lit urban areas report sleeping less and are less satisfied with their sleep. Some studies have also suggested links between light at night and other health problems, although the evidence for these links is still limited.

E Ironically, the technology that was expected to reduce the problem has in some ways made it worse. Over the past fifteen years, many cities have replaced their old orange street lights with white LED lamps, which use far less electricity and last much longer. However, early LEDs gave out a large amount of blue light, which is scattered more widely in the atmosphere and has a stronger effect on both animals and people. And because LED lighting is so cheap to run, many places have installed more of it, so that the total amount of light has often increased. A study using satellite data found that the area of the Earth's surface that is artificially lit at night grew by around two per cent a year between 2012 and 2016.

F The good news is that, unlike most forms of pollution, light pollution can be reversed immediately, simply by switching lights off. Effective solutions are well understood. Street lights can be fitted with shields so that light is directed only downwards, where it is needed. Lamps with a warmer colour, containing less blue light, can be chosen. Lights can be dimmed late at night, when there are few people about, or fitted with sensors so that they come on only when somebody passes. Some towns have found that such measures save large amounts of money on electricity without any increase in crime or road accidents.

G A growing number of places are now actively protecting their night skies. DarkSky International, which was founded in the United States in 1988 as the International Dark-Sky Association, recognises parks, reserves and communities that meet strict standards for lighting, and there are now more than two hundred such places around the world. In some of them, the dark sky has become an attraction in its own right, bringing visitors to remote areas outside the main tourist season. Visitors come to watch the stars, but local businesses benefit too, from hotels and restaurants to companies offering guided night walks. For communities that once regarded their lack of bright lights as a disadvantage, darkness has become something to be proud of.

Questions 14–20

Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A–G.

Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.

Write the correct number, i–ix, next to Questions 14–20.

List of Headings

• i A problem that can be solved quickly
• ii Darkness as an economic opportunity
• iii Different forms of unwanted light
• iv The cost of lighting a city
• v A loss of something people once took for granted
• vi Why crime increases in the dark
• vii How artificial light affects the way we rest
• viii An improvement with unexpected consequences
• ix Creatures that are led in the wrong direction

Questions 21–24

Complete the summary below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Light and the human body

The body's internal clock follows a cycle of about twenty-four hours, and is controlled mainly by light. Blue light lowers the amount of 212 words that the body produces, so bright light in the evening can make people go to sleep later. Most of the light that people are exposed to at night comes from 222 words and screens. When cities replaced orange street lights with 232 words , they saved energy, but the new lamps produced a lot of blue light, which spreads further through the 242 words .

Questions 25 and 26

Choose TWO letters, A–E.

Which TWO of the following are mentioned in paragraph F as results of reducing street lighting in some towns?

READING PASSAGE 3

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

Too much choice?

In 2000, two psychologists published the results of an experiment that has since become one of the most widely quoted studies in the social sciences. On two Saturdays, in an upmarket supermarket in California, the researchers set up a tasting stand offering shoppers samples of jam. Every few hours, they changed the display. At some times it contained six different flavours, and at others twenty-four. The larger display attracted more attention: around 60 per cent of passing shoppers stopped at it, compared with 40 per cent for the smaller one. But when it came to buying, the pattern was reversed. Of the people who stopped at the small display, around 30 per cent went on to buy a jar of jam. Of those who stopped at the large one, only 3 per cent did so.

The researchers concluded that too much choice could be demotivating. When faced with a large number of options, people found it harder to decide, and many simply decided not to choose at all. In further studies, they found that students who were given a choice of six topics for an essay were more likely to complete it, and wrote better essays, than students who were given thirty topics. The idea, which became known as "choice overload", seemed to contradict a basic assumption of economics: that more choice is always better, because it increases the chance that each person will find exactly what they want.

The findings were enthusiastically taken up by writers, business consultants and policymakers. Supermarkets were advised to reduce the number of products on their shelves, and companies to simplify the range of services they offered. In a popular book, the psychologist Barry Schwartz argued that the enormous range of choice in modern consumer societies was not only failing to make people happier but was actually making many of them more anxious and less satisfied. When there are dozens of options, he suggested, people worry that they have not chosen the best one, and they are more likely to regret their decisions. Schwartz distinguished between two types of decision-maker: "maximisers", who try to find the best possible option, and "satisficers", who are content with one that is good enough. In his view, maximisers tend to make objectively better choices but feel worse about them.

However, as other researchers attempted to repeat the original experiments, a more complicated picture emerged. A review published in 2010 combined the results of fifty studies of choice overload and found that, on average, the effect was close to zero. In some studies, a larger number of options did reduce people's willingness to choose. In others, it made no difference, and in some, people actually chose more when they had more options. The authors did not conclude that choice overload was a myth, but they argued that it occurred only under certain conditions, which the early studies had not identified.

Later research has helped to identify these conditions. Choice overload appears to be most likely when people do not have clear preferences before they start, when the options are difficult to compare, and when the decision is complex. Someone who already knows that they like strawberry jam, or who can easily compare products on a single feature such as price, is unlikely to be troubled by a large display. The way options are presented also matters. When a large number of options are arranged into clear categories, people find it much easier to choose, and they are often more satisfied with the result than if they had chosen from a small selection. Time pressure, by contrast, tends to make the problem worse.

The debate has practical importance, because choice overload has been used to justify decisions in areas far more serious than jam. One example is retirement savings. Studies of company pension schemes in the United States found that, for every ten additional investment funds that employees could choose from, the proportion who joined the scheme fell slightly. Partly as a result of such findings, many governments and employers now enrol workers in a pension scheme automatically, with a sensible default option, while allowing them to choose differently if they wish. This approach, which does not remove choice but makes it unnecessary for most people, has led to large increases in the number of people saving for retirement.

What, then, should we conclude? It seems clear that the original claims about choice overload were exaggerated, and that the confident advice given to businesses went well beyond the evidence. Yet the basic insight that choosing has costs as well as benefits remains valuable. Making a decision takes time and mental effort, and when the stakes are high and the options confusing, many people will avoid choosing altogether, or will rely on simple rules of thumb. The answer is not necessarily to reduce the number of options, which may disadvantage people who know exactly what they want, but to design choices more carefully, so that options are easy to understand and compare. In that sense, the lesson of the jam study is not that choice is bad, but that the way in which choices are offered deserves far more attention than it once received.

Questions 27–31

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

• A were more likely to stop at the stand.
• B tasted a greater number of jams.
• C bought more jars of jam in total.
• D took longer to decide which jam to buy.

• A people always make rational decisions.
• B more options lead to better outcomes.
• C students write better with fewer instructions.
• D shoppers know what they want before they arrive.

• A avoid making decisions whenever possible.
• B are satisfied with options that are good enough.
• C often make better choices than satisficers but enjoy them less.
• D are more common in societies with fewer products.

• A It had never been properly demonstrated.
• B It happens only in certain circumstances.
• C It is stronger than the early studies suggested.
• D It affects shoppers more than students.

• A the idea of choice overload has influenced important decisions.
• B people are less careful with money than with food.
• C most employees prefer to choose their own investments.
• D governments have reduced the number of funds available.

Questions 32–36

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A–G, below.

Write the correct letter, A–G, next to Questions 32–36.

• A may make choice overload more likely.
• B can make a large selection easier to choose from.
• C has encouraged far more people to save.
• D may be unfair to people with clear preferences.
• E are rarely affected by a large selection.
• F has been shown to increase sales in supermarkets.
• G usually makes people regret their decisions.

Questions 37–40

Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3?

Write

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