IELTSFEVER Academic Reading Test 74

IELTSFEVER ACADEMIC READING TEST 74

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-12, which are based on Reading Passage 2 on pages 1 and 2.

The soul of Irish writers

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he wind swept clouds into inky puddles mysterious energy that seeped from the earth
across the sky. A few swollen drops of into my very spirit. Is it this that has made such
rain fell on the windshield of our rental prolific writers of the Irish and blessed them
car as my friend and I sat at a service station. with their gift for the lyrical word?

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A red-haired lad with a spattering of freckles
across his face pumped our gas. He craned his Perhaps so, but I believe it is also about
head upward. 'Ah, the weather is desperate the Irish soul, which is so entwined with
today,' he said. storytelling. Much like the primeval land that

Desperate. The word clung to me. How had

he found the most poetic and perfect word
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was carved over centuries, the Irish seem to
allow for the flow of space and time. They are
present to the rhythm of their lives and allow
to describe the weather that day? Although the creative process to speak to their souls.
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this trip was many years ago, I still recall that One of my favourite authors, the late John
young man, as well as the cadence and lilt of O'Donohue in his book Anam Cara, spoke of
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the words that greeted us in the shops and the power of simple presence which takes us
pubs at which we stopped to ask directions. ultimately where we need to be, as people
As a writer, I was inspired and intrigued by the and as creative writers.
Irish and their wonderful facility for language
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and poetic prose. 'It is far more creative to work with the idea
of mindfulness rather than with the idea of
While Ireland is a small island - you can drive will. Too often people try to change their
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from the east coast to the west coast, or north lives by using the will as a kind of hammer to
to the south in little more than four hours - beat their lives into shape. If you work with
this green and fertile land has produced more a different rhythm, you will come easily and
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writers per square inch than any other country. naturally home to yourself. Your soul knows
And it has done so for centuries, from James the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone
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Joyce to Nobel-Prize winning poet Seamus has the map of your future, therefore, you can
Heaney. But how? What organic ingredients trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If
have created a recipe for such talent? Could it you do, it will take you where you need to go.'
be the mythical landscape itself?
The Irish are also well-known storytellers. In fact
During that trip, I still remember how the green, the Seanachie (pronounced shawn-a-key) or
undulating mountains that opened up to vistas storyteller is still an honoured profession in Ireland
of the ocean, cliffs and ruined castles seemed as it has been for centuries. Sean O Suilleabhain
to be permeated with an ancient wisdom and in Storytelling in Irish Tradition, writes:

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 IELTSFEVER Academic Reading Test 74

'The good storyteller, who had a large writers have not only given us moving stories
repertoire stored in his memory, seated at but told them, often times, in words that
his own fireside, in an honoured place in the resonate to the rhythm of our soul.
house of a neighbour or at a wake, was assured
of an attentive audience on winter nights. Nor At the end of that trip, we found time to visit
was it only adults who wished to hear tales. the site of Yeats' grave in County Sligo. The
My father described to me how himself and weather that day was more than desperate,
other children of eight years of age would as a biting wind whipped leaves around the
spend hours, night after night, listening to an Drumcliffe cemetery. I took a quick snapshot
old woman storyteller in South Kerry, and an of his grave, and stood there, part of his poem
old man in the same area told me that, as a When You are Old and Gray wafting through

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youth, he and his companions used to do all my thoughts.
the household chores for an elderly neighbour
each winter evening in order that he might I thanked him for sharing his gift of words
be free to spend the night telling them long with the world and asked him to help me do
the same. Weeks later after we had returned

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folktales ...'
home, I had the photos developed (there were
The desire to tell stories, to weave narratives, no digital cameras back then) and was amazed

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is still central to the Irish people, as their at what I saw. There, above his grave, floated
works of literature demonstrate. James Joyce, a form, a shape - a hazy gauze of white that
W.B. Yeats, C.S. Lewis, Frank Mccourt, Maeve I could not explain. I like to think his Irish soul
Binchy, Niall Williams, and countless other
v was wishing me well as a writer.
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 IELTSFEVER Academic Reading Test 74

Questions 1-6
Answer the questions. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.
1 Which word did the gas pump attendant use that so impressed the writer?

2 Which TWO words in the second paragraph mean the accent and rhythm of the Irish voices the writer heard on her trip?

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3 Which three physical features of the landscape of Ireland does the writer describe as having an unreal quality?

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4 According to the writer, which basic elements of life do the Irish appreciate and embrace better than people elsewhere?

5 Which idea did the writer John O'Donohue believe to be preferable to determination and a desire to achieve?

6 What is the Irish word for a person who entertains with stories?
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Questions 7-10
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Complete the notes. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
• tales were recalled from the storyteller's 7 ..........................
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• storytellers were 8 .......................... guests at social gatherings

• both 9 .......................... were attentive listeners
• storytellers sometimes exchanged stories for 10 ..........................
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 IELTSFEVER Academic Reading Test 74

Questions 11-12
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 11-12 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 weather on the day of the writer's trip to Yeats' grave was better than on the day she spoke at the gas station.
12 The writer would like to believe that Yeats responded to the request she made at his grave.

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 IELTSFEVER Academic Reading Test 74

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 13-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 on pages 5 and 6.

Marriage works -

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and it's the answer to the

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misery of loneliness

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A This week the Office for National Statistics (ONS) C It's not the relatively young, or the very old, who

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confirmed that more of us than ever are living are the main drivers of this demographic change.
alone. This won't trouble the author Colm T6ibfn, As the ONS makes clear, the largest increase in
who once eulogised the freedom that living alone
gives him, likening his solitary existence to that of
'a cloistered nun'. This is a terrifying image, surely,
vesolitary living is down to the 45-64 age group. Almost
two and a half million Britons in that age category
have no one with whom to share their home, an
and not a metaphor for a life most of us would seek increase of more than 800,000 households since
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to inhabit. Certainly not my friend Helen: successful, the mid-Nineties. Even allowing for the increase
well-off, homeowner; but tired of her single life, of in total population size, that's still a noticeable
the near-constant awareness that she's running out change, and they don't all enjoy the experience.
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of time to have children, as fast as she's running I suspect there are more divorced parents, like
out of the energy to embark on another round of my friend Mark, poking about their fridges for a
futile first dates. Nor my friend Mark, divorced dad, pre-packed meal for one, than there are cloistered
active in his daughter's life - but who still, at the Irish novelists.
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end of the weekend, returns the child to her mother-,

before driving back to his re-emptied house, where D This would all be fine, were this phenomenon
he spends the evenings with PlayStation and Sky merely to affect matters as concrete as housing.
Sports. But evidence suggests a link between solitariness
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and poorer health outcomes (mirroring, bleakly,

B In discussing solitary lives, we should ignore the the evidence about the outcomes for children
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Colm T6ibfns - financially independent people raised in single-parent households). One paper
who realise that, for them, living alone brings more I read showed a significant increase in the
advantages than otherwise. Most people of my prescription of antidepressants to the solitary,
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generation had such a stage in their lives - between compared with cohabiting couples. Correlation
university, and settling down - but we didn't want doesn't prove a sociological theory, of course, but
it to last forever. In any case, with property prices it's hard to ignore the link between living alone,
as they are, such self-selected solitude is not an and other detrimental life choices.
option for much of the succeeding generation.
Set aside, too, those figures pertaining to the very E The issue demands a political response: marriage
elderly; not because there aren't real problems is the most important institution to act as a bulwark
faced by those (usually female) 'survivors', but against loneliness, and the British Government
because their existence is a function of the uneven should promote it. Instead, the government is
impact of medical advances and lifestyle changes unwinding its insidious 'couples penalty': a finan­
on the longevity of each of the genders. cial punishment for initially setting up home with a

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 IELTSFEVER Academic Reading Test 74

partner, and then after divorce, (probably the result the motto 'once bitten, twice shy'. The changes to
of the stress brought on by all the expense), a further child benefit for the well-off hardly help either.
charge for a change to living conditions. The Centre
for Social Justice discovered that the people most C Not very long ago, the then Home Secretary,
penalised for living together are - surprise - among Michael Howard deployed a powerful phrase in
the poorest.This must be fixed. What's more, couples defence of his criminal justice policy: 'prison works'.
who arrange to 'live apart together' shouldn't be It's time we used a similar phrase, in defence of
demonised for rationally navigating the snares of the social justice: marriage 'works' too. It works for
benefits system. most people and definitely for civic society, yet
we find it hard to say this, and shy away from its
F But if we acknowledge that a financial penalty can political implications. What started as a desire not
cause the poorest to avoid marriage, why assume to judge 'lifestyle choices' has bred a generation

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that monetary considerations don't affect the better­ living in lonely, quiet despair. Loneliness is a much
off? First, because politicians are scared to reward harder political issue to tackle than, say, house­
marriage in the tax system, and second, because building, but- if we believe in society at all- hardly
our divorce laws so scar those who endure them one of lesser significance.
that, I suspect, we've produced a generation with

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 IELTSFEVER Academic Reading Test 74

Questions 13-19
Reading passage 2 has seven paragraphs labelled A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number i- x in boxes 13-19 on your answer sheet.

List of headings

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Middle age solitude is growing
ii The institution of marriage needs a motto that resonates
iii The young and the elderly are not relevant to the debate
iv The system is clearly unfair
v The real issue is a lack of affordable housing
vi For many, the benefits of a single life are exaggerated

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vii The wealthy are affected by the same measures
viii Most men would rather be single
ix Loneliness has a range of consequences
x Couples must work harder to make relationships work
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13 Paragraph A
14 Paragraph B
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15 Paragraph C
16 Paragraph D
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17 Paragraph E
18 Paragraph F
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19 Paragraph G
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 IELTSFEVER Academic Reading Test 74

Questions 20-26
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in the reading passage?
In boxes 20-26 on your answer sheet, write.

YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer.

NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer.
NOTGNEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this.
20 The Irish author Calm T6ibfn has a lifestyle that most people would envy.
21 His friends Helen and Mark would like their lives to be different.
22 Most students accept that the benefits of being single are temporary.

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23 Most elderly women have not chosen to live alone.
24 Divorced men do not usually enjoy cooking.
25 Couples who try to deceive the benefits system deserve to be punished.
26 People who go through a divorce are afraid of marrying again.

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 IELTSFEVER Academic Reading Test 74

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 on pages 9 and 10.

How human language could

have evolved from birdsong

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Linguistics and biology researchers propose a new theory on the deep roots of human speech.

'The sounds uttered by birds offer in several respects the of expression into a uniquely sophisticated form of
nearest analogy to language,' Charles Darwin wrote in language.
The Descent of Man (1871), while contemplating how

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humans learned to speak. Language, he speculated, 'There were these two pre-existing systems,' Miyagawa
might have had its origins in singing, which 'might says, 'like apples and oranges that just happened to be
have given rise to words expressive of various complex put together.' These kinds of adaptations of existing
emotions.' structures are common in natural history, notes Robert

Now researchers from MIT, along with a scholar from

the University of Tokyo, say that Darwin was on the
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Berwick, a co-author of the paper, who is a professor
of computational linguistics in MIT's Laboratory for
Information and Decision Systems, in the Department
right path. The balance of evidence, they believe, of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. 'When
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suggests that human language is a grafting of two something new evolves, it is often built out of old parts,'
communication forms found elsewhere in the animal he says. 'We see this over and over again in evolution.
kingdom: first, the elaborate songs of birds, and Old structures can change just a little bit, and acquire
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second, the more utilitarian, information bearing types radically new functions.'
of expression seen in a diversity of other animals. 'It's
this adventitious combination that triggered human The new paper, 'The Emergence of Hierarchical Structure in
language,' says Shigeru Miyagawa, a professor of Human Language,' was co-written by Miyagawa, Berwick
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linguistics in MIT's Department of Linguistics and and Kazuo Okanoya, a bio-psychologist and expert
Philosophy, and co-author of a new paper published in on animal communication. To consider the difference
the journal Frontiers in Psychology. between the expression layer and the lexical layer, take
a simple sentence: 'Todd saw a condor.' We can easily
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The idea builds upon Miyagawa's conclusion, detailed create variations of this, such as, 'When did Todd see a
in his previous work, that there are two 'layers' in condor?' This rearranging of elements takes place in the
all human languages: an 'expression' layer, which expression layer and allows us to add complexity and ask
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involves the changeable organisation of sentences, questions. But the lexical I.ayer remains the same, since it
and a 'lexical' layer, which relates to the core content involves the same core elements: the subject, 'Todd,' the
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of a sentence. His conclusion is based on earlier work verb, 'to see,' and the object, 'condor.'
by linguists including Noam Chomsky, Kenneth Hale
and Samuel Jay Keyser. Based on an analysis of animal Birdsong lacks a lexical structure. Instead, birds sing
communication, and using Miyagawa's framework, learned melodies with what Berwick calls a 'holistic'
the authors say that birdsong closely resembles the structure; the entire song has one meaning, whether
expression layer of human sentences, whereas the about mating, territory or other things. The Bengalese
communicative waggles of bees or the short, audible finch, as the authors note, can loop back to parts of
messages of primates are more like the lexical layer. previous melodies, allowing for greater variation and
At some point, between 50,000 and 80,000 years communication of more things; a nightingale may be
ago, humans may have merged these two types able to recite from 100 to 200 different melodies.

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 IELTSFEVER Academic Reading Test 74

By contrast, other types of animals have bare-bones for the next five years.' He adds that he would like to see
modes of expression without the same melodic further comparison of birdsong and sound production
capacity. Bees communicate visually, using precise in human language, as well as more neuroscientific
waggles to indicate sources of foods to their peers; research, pertaining to both birds and humans, to see
other primates can make a range of sounds, comprising how brains are structured for making sounds.
warnings about predators and other messages.
The researchers acknowledge that further empirical
Humans, according to Miyagawa, Berwick and Okanoya, studies on the subject would be desirable. 'It's just a
fruitfully combined these systems. We can communicate hypothesis,' Berwick says. 'But it's a way to make explicit
essential information, like bees or primates, but like what Darwin was talking about very vaguely, because
birds, we also have a melodic capacity and an ability we know more about language now.' Miyagawa, for
to recombine parts of our uttered language. For this his part, asserts it is a viable idea in part because it could
reason, our finite vocabularies can generate a seemingly be subject to more scrutiny, as the communication

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infinite string of words. Indeed, the researchers suggest patterns of other species are examined in further detail.
that humans first had the ability to sing, as Darwin 'If this is right, then human language has a precursor in
conjectured, and then managed to integrate specific nature, in evolution, that we can actually test today,'
lexical elements into those songs. 'It's not a very long he says, adding that bees, birds and other primates
step to say that what got joined together was the ability could all be sources of further research insight.

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to construct these complex patterns, like a song, but
with words,' Berwick says. MIT-based research in linguistics has largely been
characterised by the search for universal aspects of all
As they note in the paper, some of the 'striking parallels' human languages. With this paper, Miyagawa, Berwick
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between language acquisition in birds and humans and Okanoya hope to spur others to think of the
include the phase of life when each is best at picking up universality of language in evolutionary terms. It is not
languages, and the part of the brain used for language. just a random cultural construct, they say, but based in
Another similarity as Berwick puts it is that 'all human part on capacities humans share with other species. At the
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languages have a finite number of stress patterns, a same time, Miyagawa notes, human language is unique,
certain number of beat patterns. Well, in birdsong, in that two independent systems in nature merged, in
there is also this limited number of beat patterns.' our species, to allow us to generate unbounded linguistic
possibilities, albeit within a constrained system. 'Human
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Norbert Hornstein, a professor of linguistics at the language is not just freeform, it's rule-based,' Miyagawa
University of Maryland, says the paper has been 'very says. 'If we are right, human language has a very heavy
well received' among linguists, and 'perhaps will be the constraint on what it can and cannot do, based on its
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standard go-to paper for language-birdsong comparison antecedents in nature.'

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 IELTSFEVER Academic Reading Test 74

Questions 27-29
Answer the questions. Use NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 27-29 on your answer sheet.
27 Who initially identified similarities between human language and birdsong?
28 What do most animals wish to convey through the sounds they make?
29 Which word in the second paragraph is used to emphasise that the development of human language probably happened

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by chance?

Questions 30-35

Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-J from the box below.

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Write the correct letter A-Jin boxes 27-34 on your answer sheet.
30 Birdsong
31 The waggle of bees
32 Human language
33 The expression layer of human language
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34 The lexical layer of human language
35 Melody
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A is as complex as human language.

B is characterised by form changes that
express different meaning.
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C is principally used to indicate danger.

D conveys simple but clear messages.
E consists of relatively few components.
F is an essential ingredient of birdsong.
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G conveys both emotional and practical

concepts.
H is relatively complex compared to
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language used by other animals.

I existed before birdsong.
J is less well understood than other
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 IELTSFEVER Academic Reading Test 74

Questions 36-38
Complete the summary. Use ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 36-38 on your answer sheet.

Norbert Hornstein admits that 36 ................ are complimentary about the

paper but would like to see more investigation. He would especially like to
know more about the formation of both bird and human 3 7 ................ .
Miyagawa, Berwick and Okanoya agree that further research now needs to
be 38 ................ rather than theoretical.

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Questions 39-40
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.

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Write your answers in boxes 39-40 on your answer sheet.
39 Miyagawa, Berwick and Okanoya want their research to
A give people the confidence to challenge theories of evolution.
B persuade people that early humans imitated birds.
C
D
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encourage people to understand more about how language has evolved in humans and animals.

40 What is the conclusion that can be drawn from reading this passage?
A Birdsong is more complex than most people would imagine.
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B Humans probably sang before they talked.
C Human language is less sophisticated than we tend to believe.
D Insufficient research has been conducted into the origins of human language.
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