IELTS Academic Reading 5 - Passage 1

 

Reading Tip

Analyse the phrases 1-5 before you try to find the answers in the text. Underline or circle words that will help you locate the information. Think of synonyms of words. Answer the easy questions first: are 3 and 5 likely to be easier to find than the others?

In questions 6-10, locate the part of the text that relates to A and B.

• 

  Discuss the statements below, saying how they relate to you or people you know. 
•  1. Just under half of all young people (44 per cent) have a social networking profile. 
•  2. Forty-five per cent of young people said they felt happiest when they were online. 
•  3. Eighty-four per cent of young people said that the internet brought communities of similar people together. 
•  4. Young people are highly digitally literate in how they use media and are well connected in a social context. 
The Age of the Digital Native or M-Ager
A The internet is a 'natural' space for young people. It is fully integrated into their lives and is as commonplace for the vast majority as walking down their local high street. It is the first place that many of them will go to search for information and provides unparalleled opportunities for communicating and engaging with others. The fact that young people can interact, maintain their anonymity and compare information sources empowers them. It can give them a sense of purpose and control, especially at difficult and challenging times in their lives. At such times, feelings of being in control may on occasion be misplaced and can lead to risk of exposure to unwanted danger. However, the vast majority of young people are able to minimise risk through cross-checking information sources against one another. 


B Negotiating the vast amount of information available on the internet presents its own challenges. The ability to locate appropriate information quickly and which is in a language and format that a young person can relate to is not always easy. Equally, as young people's needs have changed so too have their expectations of how they should be able to interact with individuals, organisations and companies. 


C Young people today use a variety of digital means to communicate and interact with others at the same time - a mobile phone, a television, a laptop - to build very complex and deep 'tapestries' of connectivity to one another and internet locations. Their life experience and the context in which they use the media inevitably contain many differing behaviours and emphases. At a general level they are often labelled in a variety of ways, the most established terms being 'Digital Natives' or perhaps 'M-Agers' (short for 'Mobile Agers'). The implication in these terms is that this group has grown up surrounded by digital media with access to computers, the internet, mobile phones and digital video games from pre-school age. The Digital Native generation are young people, aged 16 to 24. The internet is a key part of young people's lives today - it is completely natural to them. It is so much a part of them that they can be said to be living hybrid lives, combining the physical and virtual in a seamless network of communication, information, entertainment and sharing. 


D For the vast majority of young people, the digital world is a far from isolating experience. It extends reach and connectivity, building on physical or close relationships as well as providing opportunities to interact and build friendships with people who are not geographically close to them. Young people associate the internet with a strong sense of community and as a place where similar people can meet and share together. It is likely that young people have far wider and more varied support communities than previous generations had. 


E They are the 'ever on' group. They demand fast and immediate access to both information and friends with the internet ensuring their friends are available whenever and wherever they need them. As access to the internet becomes ever more mobile this trend will continue. Digital Natives are not just different to their parents in using digital media in a natural and hybrid way. 


F They are often characterised as being visually literate and as having highly developed visual-spatial skills. Indeed, it has been argued that through this age group we are moving toward a more visual right brain-orientated society with an emphasis on 'creators ... and meaning makers' and that young people represent the vanguard. They are experiential, shift their attention from one task to another with great rapidity, are highly digitally literate (in how they use the media) and are well connected in a social context. Importantly, whilst older groups may judge online against an ideal of face-to-face communication (although this is changing), young people evaluate against a wide range of options including instant message, chat, phone, SMS and face-to-face according to their communication needs. These might range from immediacy, message complexity, mobility to cost, privacy, or embarrassment. 


G This is a response to both the simple presence and availability of technology and to social and environmental change. In combination it demonstrates how young people use today's tools and communication opportunities to connect to the world and to establish and maintain their identities. Although there is much debate, it should be considered that this virtual communication and connectivity is not necessarily to the detriment of more established physically rooted behaviours. Rather, it represents the degree to which, particularly this group, lives hybrid lives - lives that combine digital access and virtual communication into their physical lives. 

IELTS Writing Task 2: Opinion Essay 5 - Studying History

 

Write about the following topic:

Some people think that the function of studying history at all levels is to teach young people about historical facts and information, while others feel that its main function is to acquaint them with the skills necessary in later life.
Which, in your opinion, should be the main function of education?

Write at least 250 words.

 

1. What are the two main perspectives on the purpose of studying history discussed in the essay?

2. Why do some people believe that memorizing historical facts is important for students?

3. According to the essay, what are the potential drawbacks of focusing too much on rote memorization (механическое запоминание) in history education?

4. How can developing skills like critical analysis and research benefit students in their future lives?

5. In your opinion, should history education prioritize factual knowledge or skill development? Why?

6. What does the essay suggest about the relationship between understanding history and cultural identity?

7. How does teaching students to evaluate sources help them in the age of misinformation?

8. Why does the author believe that a balanced approach to history education is necessary?

9. Can you think of examples where historical knowledge might directly influence decision-making in everyday life?

10. Do you agree with the idea that developing analytical skills is more important than memorizing facts? Why or why not?

IELTS Reading 4 - Passage 3

Reading Tip

Throughout the exam, you need to make sure you rely on the information in the passages, not on your own ideas. This is especially important with this type of question: never be tempted to reflect your own opinion, always consider only

what is in the text.

The Return of Artificial Intelligence

It is becoming acceptable again to talk of computers performing human tasks such as problem-solving and pattern-recognition

A After years in the wilderness, the term ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI) seems poised to make a comeback. AI was big in the 1980s but vanished in the 1990s. It re-entered public consciousness with the release of Al, a movie about a robot boy. This has ignited public debate about AI, but the term is also being used once more within the computer industry. Researchers, executives and marketing people are now using the expression without irony or inverted commas. And it is not always hype. The term is being applied, with some justification, to products that depend on technology that was originally developed by AI researchers. Admittedly, the rehabilitation of the term has a long way to go, and some firms still prefer to avoid using it. But the fact that others are starting to use it again suggests that AI has moved on from being seen as an over-ambitious and under-achieving field of research.

B The field was launched, and the term ‘artificial intelligence’ coined, at a conference in 1956 by a group of researchers that included Marvin Minsky, John McCarthy, Herbert Simon and Alan Newell, all of whom went on to become leading figures in the field. The expression provided an attractive but informative name for a research programme that encompassed such previously disparate fields as operations research, cybernetics, logic and computer science. The goal they shared was an attempt to capture or mimic human abilities using machines. That said, different groups of researchers attacked different problems, from speech recognition to chess playing, in different ways; AI unified the field in name only. But it was a term that captured the public imagination.

C Most researchers agree that AI peaked around 1985. A public reared on science-fiction movies and excited by the growing power of computers had high expectations. For years, AI researchers had implied that a breakthrough was just around the corner. Marvin Minsky said in 1967 that within a generation the problem of creating ‘artificial intelligence’ would be substantially solved. Prototypes of medical-diagnosis programs and speech recognition software appeared to be making progress. It proved to be a false dawn. Thinking computers and household robots failed to materialise, and a backlash ensued. ‘There was undue optimism in the early 1980s,’ says David Leaky, a researcher at Indiana University. ‘Then when people realised these were hard problems, there was retrenchment. By the late 1980s, the term AI was being avoided by many researchers, who opted instead to align themselves with specific sub-disciplines such as neural networks, agent technology, case-based reasoning, and so on.’

D Ironically, in some ways AI was a victim of its own success. Whenever an apparently mundane problem was solved, such as building a system that could land an aircraft unattended, the problem was deemed not to have been AI in the first plate. ‘If it works, it can't be AI,’ as Dr Leaky characterises it. The effect of repeatedly moving the goal-posts in this way was that AI came to refer to ‘blue-sky’ research that was still years away from commercialisation. Researchers joked that AI stood for ‘almost implemented’. Meanwhile, the technologies that made it onto the market, such as speech recognition, language translation and decision-support software, were no longer regarded as AI. Yet all three once fell well within the umbrella of AI research.

E But the tide may now be turning, according to Dr Leake. HNC Software of San Diego, backed by a government agency, reckon that their new approach to artificial intelligence is the most powerful and promising approach ever discovered. HNC claim that their system, based on a cluster of 30 processors, could be used to spot camouflaged vehicles on a battlefield or extract a voice signal from a noisy background - tasks humans can do well, but computers cannot. ‘Whether or not their technology lives up to the claims made for it, the fact that HNC are emphasising the use of AI is itself an interesting development,’ says Dr Leaky.

F Another factor that may boost the prospects for AI in the near future is that investors are now looking for firms using clever technology, rather than just a clever business model, to differentiate themselves. In particular, the problem of information overload, exacerbated by the growth of e-mail and the explosion in the number of web pages, means there are plenty of opportunities for new technologies to help filter and categorise information - classic AI problems. That may mean that more artificial intelligence companies will start to emerge to meet this challenge.

G The 1969 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, featured an intelligent computer called HAL 9000. As well as understanding and speaking English, HAL could play chess and even learned to lipread. HAL thus encapsulated the optimism of the 1960s that intelligent computers would be widespread by 2001. But 2001 has been and gone, and there is still no sign of a HAL-like computer. Individual systems can play chess or transcribe speech, but a general theory of machine intelligence still remains elusive. It may be, however, that the comparison with HAL no longer seems quite so important, and AI can now be judged by what it can do, rather than by how well it matches up to a 30-year-old science-fiction film. ‘People are beginning to realise that there are impressive things that these systems can do,’ says Dr Leake hopefully.

 

 

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IELTS Writing Task 2: Problem / Solution Essay 2

 

Problem / Solution Essay 2

The internet has transformed the way information is shared and consumed, but it has also created problems that did not exist before.

What are the most serious problems associated with the internet and what solutions can you suggest?

• You should spend about 40 minutes on this task to write at least 250 words. 

An IELTS problem solution essay will usually ask for problems and solutions (note plural), so try to include two of each. This leads logically to an essay with two body paragraphs, like the model answer above. Try to describe each solution together with the problem it solves in order to be as coherent as possible. And remember, your solutions don’t have to be original, or even realistic, in order to get a high score. The IELTS examiner is only interested in your use of language, not in the quality of your ideas.

IELTS Writing Task 2: Problem/Solution Essay 1

 

Problem / Solution Essay 1

Some people think that children nowadays are spending an excessive amount of time watching TV or using a computer or mobile phone.

Describe some of the_problems that too much screen time can have for children, and what can be done to tackle them.

• You should spend about 40 minutes on this task to write at least 250 words. 

The topic of this essay is about the amount of time children spend using screens (TV, computer, mobile phones).

By looking at the instruction words, we can see this question also asks for problems and solutions in the plural form (although remember it is ok to focus on a single problem and solution in the exam).

Notes   Producing ideas for your answer

Problems:

• Childhood obesity
• Addiction
• Mental health issues
• Targeted junk food adverts

Solutions:

• Government incentives for active children
• Limited screen time imposed by parents
• Lessons to educate children on the dangers of too much screen time
• Restrictions on adverts at certain times

 Introduction

 There are three key things to include in your  problem/solution introduction:

•  Paraphrase the given IELTS statement and   question
•  State the problem/cause/solution
•  State what your essay will do

To successfully paraphrase the statement, you can use synonyms, change the word order or change the word class (e.g from a noun to an adjective). The tricky part is making sure you keep the meaning of the statement the same. 

IELTS Statement: 

Some people think that children nowadays are spending an excessive amount of time watching TV or using a computer or mobile phone.

Describe some of the problems that too much screen time can have for children, and what can be done to tackle them.

Paraphrased Statement:

Nowadays, governments and health experts around the world  have become increasingly  concerned about the general health of children. They are particularly worried about problems caused by too much time spent in front of a TV, computer or mobile.

You can also briefly state what your essay will do using an outline statement. Here's an example sentence:

This essay will look at these problems in more detail and propose some solutions.

Main Body

For each problem or cause you write about, you should create a topic sentence which introduces each main idea.

Here are some possible ways you could structure your topic sentences.

• One major problem connected to is..
• Another issue is that...
• A final problem is the...
• One cause of _____ is ..
• One reason for _____ is ...
• A further way to explain ________ is ...
•  One contributing factor to _________ is...

You could also use the structure that + a clause. 

Here are some examples:

One major problem connected to childrens' health is lack of exercise.

Another issue is that there are a large amount of junk food advertisements on television aimed at children.

As well as language for problems, you will also need to introduce solutions to these problems. Even though the topic of your essay will be different, you can learn language chunks/sentence starters to do this. 

Take a look at these examples:

• To deal with this problem,_________ could ....
• The way forward might be for ______ to ...
• The solution is for people to .... 
• In order to solve this issue, _____ should ......

When you provide a solution, it is a good idea to keep the actor of the sentence more general, for example:

• The government
• Schools
• Parents

You can also learn lexical chunks related to solutions to common problems. Here are just a few suggestions for the model answer:

• The government could bring in a law to ban junk food advertising.
• The government could allocate more money to healthy eating campaigns.
• Parents could set aside time in the day to do activities as a family away from screens.
• Schools could employ more physical education teachers to improve students' fitness levels.

Body Paragraph 1:

One major problem connected to childrens' health is lack of exercise: in recent years, the amount of time children spend being sedentary in front of a screen has increased drastically, and as a result, childrens' fitness levels have plummeted. This is a significant problem in the USA, for example, where children spend an increasing amount of time watching a TV screen. To try and solve this problem, governments should implement incentives for children that spend more time being active, such as giving vouchers for sport equipment or free tickets to sporting events.

Body Paragraph 2:

Another issue is that there are a large amount of junk food advertisements on television aimed at children. This means that children are being targeted to buy unhealthy junk food and processed meals which can lead to weight and Paragraph other health problems due to the high amounts of fat and sugar in the food. The answer could be for the government to ban these adverts at certain times of the day. If they did this, children would not be subjected to these unhealthy marketing tactics.

Conclusion 

Always make your conclusion easy to identify for the examiner by starting with:

• In conclusion,...
• To conclude,...
• To sum up,...
• In summary,...

Now you will need to paraphrase (again) what you have written for your introduction in your own words. Compare out model answer introduction and conclusion:

Introduction

Nowadays, governments and health experts around the world have become increasingly concerned about the general health of children. They are particularly worried about problems caused by too much time spent in front of a TV, computer or mobile. This essay will look at these problems in more detail and propose some solutions.

Conclusion

To sum up, there is no doubt that the problem of too much screen time is becoming increasingly serious for the youth of today.Unless action is taken urgently, these problems will only intensify. My opinion is that responsibility for reducing the amount of time in front of a screen lies mainly with the government, but also with the parents.

  

You can also include the following points in your conclusion (it is not necessary to

include all the points):

• State the seriousness of the problem (we've used the phrase increasingly serious)
• Suggest who you think should solve the problem (we've gone with a balance between the government and parents)
• Make suggestions about what to do in the future (we've kept this general: 'reducing the amount of screen time')
• State what might happen if nothing is done to solve the problem (again, we've kept this general to reduce the word count: 'these problems will only intensify')

Problem Solution Sample Essay

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IELTS Writing Task 1: Map 4

Describe information in a map

Don't panic if you get a map question for your Writing Task 1! Sometimes the information you are given is in the form of maps or ground plans. Often these are not difficult to understand and they always take place over time.

As you can write on the question paper, so feel free to make notes as you analyse the maps. It is a good idea to circle, underline or highlight the points you want to write about. It can also be helpful to number them according to which you think is most important.

Remember the more you plan what you are going to write about, the easier it is to write about it and also have time to think about your grammar and spelling.

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The maps below show the town of Langley in 1910 and 1950.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Write at least 150 words.

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IELTS Writing Task 1: Pie Chart 4

IELTS Writing - Pie charts

Using this 5 steps process to plan and write IELTS pie chart essays will help you to achieve high marks in Task 1:

1)  Analyse the question

2)  Identify the main features

3)  Write an introduction

4)  Write an overview

5)  Write the details paragraphs

In this lesson, we’re going to work thorough each step as we answer a practice question and I want to start by highlighting the importance of steps 1 and 2. It is essential that you learn how to do this planning stage properly if you hope to write a high-scoring essay.

Before we begin, here’s a model essay structure that you can use as a guideline for all IELTS Academic Task 1 questions.

Ideally, your essay should have 4 paragraphs:

Paragraph 1 – Introduction

Paragraph 2 – Overview

Paragraph 3 – 1^st main feature

Paragraph 4 – 2^nd main feature

We now have everything we need to begin planning and writing our IELTS pie chart essay.

Top Pie Chart Vocabulary Words

The Task:

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The pie charts show a breakdown of sources of income for the upkeep of Castle Keep, an ancient monument, in 1850and 1950. 

Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Write at least 150 words.

IELTS Writing Task 1: Pie Chart 3

IELTS Writing - Pie charts

In Writing Task 1, you may be asked to describe pie charts. 

Pie charts are usually in percentages which add up to 100 per cent. You need to .. know verbs that help you describe proportion, e.g. account for.

 You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

1. What different branches or disciplines can you think of within the study of history?

2. Why might students choose to specialize in one historical discipline over another?

3. How do you think student interests in academic subjects might change over time? What factors could influence these changes?

Top Pie Chart Vocabulary Words

The Task:

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The pie charts show the percentage of students studying different areas of history  at university department in the UK in 2000 and in 2010.
Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.

 

 

Write sentences about the charts using the words below. 

Compare your sentences with the prompts.

1. Which historical discipline was most popular among students in 2000? What percentage did it represent?

2. How did student interest in modern history change from 2000 to 2010?

3. Which discipline saw the most significant increase in student numbers by 2010?

4. What happened to the proportions of medieval and ancient history students over the decade?

5. How did archaeology and social history fare between 2000 and 2010?

6. Why do you think interest in the history of warfare increased so dramatically between 2000 and 2010?

7. What external factors (social, political, cultural) might influence shifts in academic interests within university departments?

8. How might changes in student interests affect university course offerings or faculty hiring?

IELTS Writing Task 2: Discuss Both Views Essay 6 - The key to tackling hunger worldwide

Exam information

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

Some people believe that education is the key to tackling hunger worldwide, while others feel, that the answer lies in food aid. 

Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own experience. 

Write at least 250 words.