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techniques
Orientating yourself to a text
A The vast oceans of the world are dark, deep and mysterious places where eyesight counts for little
as soon as you venture very far beneath the surface.
B For humans, who live in a world dominated by visual stimuli, to exist in such conditions would be
impossible. But for whales and dolphins that live in the ocean or, in the case of a few species, muddy
rivers and estuaries, the darkness is unimportant. What is crucial to them is sound.
C Sound is an efficient way to transmit and sense information, especially as it travels five times faster
through water than through air. If humans shout to someone, it is unlikely that they will be heard a
kilometre away. But if a whale 'shouts' in an ocean channel, another whale may hear it tens, if not
hundreds, of kilometres away.
D Whales and dolphins use sound in two ways: for communication and for echolocation. Dolphins,
porpoises and toothed whales communicate through a wide variety of high‐frequency sounds ‐ pure
tone whistles, pulsed squeals, screams or barks ‐ generally at frequencies of 500Hz to 20kHz (where a
hertz is a cycle per second and a kilohertz a thousand).
E But as well as using sounds to communicate, toothed whales and dolphins also rely on echolocation
to learn about their immediate environment, including prey that might be lurking nearby. They
produce intense short broad‐band pulses of sound in the ultrasonic range of between 0.25 and 220
kHz. These clicks are brief‐ typically less than one millisecond long ‐ but they are repeated many times
each second.
The Undersea World of Sound passage has five paragraphs, A‐E.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
1 a contrast between the speed of sound in and out of the ocean
2 a reference to how whale and dolphin noises can help them find food
3 a description of what it is like under the sea
4 the names of a range of noises whales and dolphins make underwater
5 the various places whales and dolphins can be found
Read the task and underline the words which you could scan the text for.
Texts are divided into paragraphs to make them easier to read.
Usually a text is organised in the following way:
Introduction (para 1): statement of theme
Paragraph 2 : supporting point details
Paragraph 3: supporting point details Etc.
Conclusion: summary and re‐statement of main
idea.
Read the following paragraph. Choose the main idea A, B or C. If there
is a topic sentence, underline it.
Main idea: A
Topic sentence: When philosophers debate what
it is that makes humans unique among animals,
they often point to language.
Analyze the way a word is used in a sentence. What part of speech is it
(noun, verb, adjective,
adverb, etc.)?
• Look at the words that are used with it. These often help determine meaning.
For example, if it is an adjective, what is the noun? If it is a verb, what is the
subject?
• Think about the topic and the meaning of the sentence. How does the word fit
in?
The president's spokesman said that it was too early to comment on the outcome
of the meeting.
One unfortunate outcome of the elections was that both parties were weaker than
before.
The outcome of hospitalbased treatment was clearly better than homebased
treatment.
Inferring from context
As the harmful effects of mropping on health have become
widely known, many cities and some countries have passed laws
that limit where it is allowed. In many places, mropping is no
longer permitted in restaurants and bars. Owners of restaurants
and bars were against the laws because they believed that their
businesses would suffer, but that happened only in the first few
months. After that, business returned to normal.
The laws have also had another positive effect, apart from
making the air cleaner for everyone: More people have given up
mropping altogether. Mropping= smoking
2
At the beginning of World War II, when the Germans moved into northern
France, they searched the towns and countryside for escaping French soldiers,
who were sent to prisoner-of-war camps in Germany. Next, they tried to zep all
the guns or other arms they could find, though many people hid theirs on farms or
underground. The Germans also took all the horses from farms and towns,
because they were needed in the army. This loss really hurt the French, since the
lack of gasoline made horses necessary to work the farms and for transport. Not
long after this, the Germans zepped radios as well, so that people could not listen
to foreign news reports.
What part of speech is it?
b. What words are found around it?
c. What word or phrase could replace it?
3
In many countries, there are electronic signs along roads that zop drivers about dangers
or problems ahead. These may be short-term dangers, such as an accident or bad
weather, or longer-term problems, such as roadwork. Studies have shown, however, that
drivers do not always notice these signs. To be sure that drivers are zopped about the
condition of the road, the highway management service in Scotland has developed a new
electronic system that sends messages directly to special electronic systems built into the
cars. Do these systems work better to zop drivers than the roadside signs? It is too soon
to tell. The results of the first studies will be electronic systems built into the cars. Do
these systems work better to zop drivers than the roadside signs? It is too soon to tell.
The results of the first studies will be published next year.
The realization that the wolves' summer diet consisted chiefly of mice did not conclude my
work in the field of dietetics.' I knew that the mouse‐wolf relationship was a revolutionary
one to science and would be treated with suspicion, and possibly with ridicule, unless it
could be so thoroughly substantiated that there would be no room to doubt its validity. I
had already established two major points:
1. That wolves caught and ate mice.
2. That the small rodents [mice] were
sufficiently 2 numerous to support the wolf
population. There remained, however, a third point vital to the proof of my contention. This
concerned the nutritional value of mice. It was imperative for me to prove that a diet of
small rodents would suffice to maintain a large carnivore in good condition.
1. What part of speech is it?
2. What phrase is used with it?
3. What words in the paragraph give clues to the meaning? (synonyms, antonyms, or other)
How is your understanding of main ideas tested in
IELTS?
In which order will you follow these steps so that you can match
the correct
'heading to each paragraph?
In which order will you follow these steps so
that you can match the correct 'heading to each
paragraph?
a) look for the topic sentences 3
b) select the right heading 4
c) read through the list of headings 1
d) skim the whole text 2
list of Headings
i. Increasing customer confidence
ii A benefit to retailers
iii The bigger picture of how Internet use changes
consumer behaviour
iv Introducing a novel approach to purchasing
v The dangers for retailers
vi Retraining staff
Vii Changing the face of the shop and the Internet site
Viii A look at the sales figures
ix Encouraging online feedback from consumers
What are details?
A detail is an 'important' or 'specific' piece of information that can be found in a
text. Details are often facts and in academic texts these are used to support main
arguments.
Read the following sentences. Which one is the main idea? Which
ones are details
that support the main idea?
a) Prices are stable. (detail)
b) The economy is booming. (main idea)
c) Consumer confidence is up. (detail)
d) Interest rates are low. (main idea)
How is your understanding of detail tested in IELTS?
A number of different types of questions may test how well you can
locate and understand detailed information. For example:
• sentence completion • short answer questions
• multiple choice • summary completion
In the summary completion task, you have to locate the ideas in the text and
then select the correct words to complete the detailed information in the gaps.
The following instructions come before a summary completion task.
In what order will you follow these steps in order to do the paragraph
matching task?
a) select the questions that have key words that are easy to scan for 5
b) read the whole passage quickly 1
c) attempt the more difficult questions 6
d) skim the passage for an idea that is similar to the idea presented in the
question 3
e) note any key words or main ideas within the paragraphs 4
f) read through the questions and underline the key words 2
Understanding opinions
How do opinions differ from facts?
An opinion is someone's 'belief or 'view'. Opinions differ from facts in that they are open to debate and
cannot be proved to be true. They may also change over
time.
Which of the following statements are opinions?
a) Computers have had a negative impact on children's reading habits.
b) Equatorial regions of the Earth have warm climates.
c) Medical treatment has improved over the past century.
How is your understanding of opinion tested in the IELTS Reading Module?
As IELTS passages are academic texts, they usually contain arguments and opinions. Sometimes a
passage presents the writer's opinions on a subject; sometimes a passage presents the views of the
writer and other experts.
A number of different questions may test how well you can identify opinions
including, for example:
• matching questions
• multiple choice questions
• YES, NO, NOT GIVEN questions.
Write YES, NO or NOT GIVEN next to the views of the writer, which are based
on the paragraphs below.
Music is clearly different from language. People can, nevertheless, use it to
communicate things ‐ especially their emotions ‐ and when allied with
speech in a song, it is one of the most powerful means of communication
that humans have. But what, biologically speaking, is it? If music is truly
distinct from speech, then it ought to have a distinct processing mechanism
in the brain ‐ one that keeps it separate from the interpretation of other
sounds, including language. The evidence suggests that such a separate
mechanism does, indeed, exist.
Scientific curiosity about the auditory system dates back to the mid‐19th
century. In 1861 Paul Broca, a French surgeon, observed that speech was
impaired by damage to a particular part of the brain, now known as Broca's
area. In 1874 Carl Wernicke, a German neurologist, made a similar
observation about another brain area and was similarly immortalised. The
location of different language‐processing tasks in Broca's areas (found in the
brain's left temporal lobe, above the ear) was one of the first pieces of
evidence that different bits of the brain are specialised to do different jobs.
a) Music needs words in order to become a truly effective means
of communication.
b) Scientists are still looking for a way to show that the brain
processes music and language separately.
c) Paul Broca attempted to distinguish the processing
mechanisms of music and language.
d) The work of Broca and Wernicke marked the beginning of
research into the brain and its role in the production of
language.
a) NO b) NO c) NOT GIVEN d) YES