IELTS READING; YES, NO, NOT GIVEN (11)

STATEMENT:

It seems predictable that some species will disappear.

PASSAGE:

We should at least be thinking in terms of the next million years. Furthermore, our descendants could continue to enjoy the company of other species – establishing a much better relationship with them than we have now. Other animals need not live in constant fear of us. Many of those fellow species now seem bound to become extinct, but a significant proportion could and should continue to live alongside us. Such a future may seem ideal, and so it is.

• YES

• NO

• NOT GIVEN

STATEMENT:

The nature of the Earth and human biology make it impossible for human beings to survive another million years.

PASSAGE:

By ‘glorious’, I mean that our descendants – all who are born on to this Earth – could live very comfortably and securely, and could continue to do so for as long as the Earth can support life, which should be for a very long time indeed. We should at least be thinking in terms of the next million years. Furthermore, our descendants could continue to enjoy the company of other species – establishing a much better relationship with them than we have now. Other animals need not live in constant fear of us.

• YES

• NO

• NOT GIVEN

STATEMENT:

An eruption by Yellowstone is likely to be more destructive than previous volcanic eruptions.

PASSAGE:

Yet nothing we have so far experienced shows what volcanoes can really do. Yellowstone National Park in the USA occupies the caldera (the crater formed when a volcano collapses) of an exceedingly ancient volcano of extraordinary magnitude. Modem surveys show that its centre is now rising. Sometime in the next 200 million years, Yellowstone could erupt again, and when it does, the whole world will be transformed. Yellowstone could erupt tomorrow. But there’s a very good chance that it will give us another million years, and that surely is enough to be going on with. It seems sensible to assume that this will be the case.

• YES

• NO

• NOT GIVEN

STATEMENT:

There is a greater chance of the Earth being hit by small asteroids than large ones.

PASSAGE:

The universe at large is dangerous, too: in particular, we share the sky with vast numbers of asteroids, and now and again, the come into our planet’s atmosphere. An asteroid the size of a small island, hitting the Earth at 15,000 kilometres an hour (a relatively modest speed by the standards of heavenly bodies), would strike the ocean bed like a rock in a puddle, send a tidal wave around the world as high as a small mountain and as fast as a jumbo jet, and propel us into an ice age that could last for centuries. There are plans to head off such disasters (including rockets to push approaching asteroids into new trajectories), but in truth, it’s down to luck. 

• YES

• NO

• NOT GIVEN

STATEMENT:

If the world becomes uninhabitable, it is most likely to be as a result of a natural disaster.

PASSAGE:

On the other hand, the archaeological and the fossil evidence shows that no truly devastating asteroid has struck since the one that seems to have accounted for the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. So again, there seems no immediate reason for despair. The Earth is indeed an uncertain place, in an uncertain universe, but with average luck, it should do us well enough. If the world does become inhospitable in the next few thousand or million years, then it will probably be our own fault. In short, despite the underlying uncertainty, our own future and that of our fellow creatures are very much in our own hands.

• YES

• NO

• NOT GIVEN

STATEMENT:

Politicians currently in power seem unlikely to change their way of thinking.

PASSAGE:

Given average luck on the geological and the cosmic scale, the difference between glory and disaster will be made and is being made, by politics. Certain kinds of political systems and strategies would predispose us to long-term survival (and indeed to comfort and security and pleasure of being alive), while others would take us more and more frenetically towards collapse. The broad point is, though, that we need to look at ourselves – humanity – and at the world in general in a quite new light. Our material problems are fundamentally those of biology. We need to think, and we need our politicians to think, biologically. Do that, and take the ideas seriously, and we are in with a chance. Ignore biology and we and our fellow creatures haven’t a hope.

• YES

• NO

• NOT GIVEN

STATEMENT:

Children tend to make a clear distinction between print literature and electronic media.

PASSAGE:

It is also important to note that texts in an ever-increasing range of new media compete with print media for the attention of the child reader, and create definitional issues for scholars. Does the term literature’ exclusively imply a verbal text? If not, where are the limits? Could a literary computer game ever be considered a work of literature? If not, what kind of attention should be paid to it, since children themselves undoubtedly perceive their print literature as part of a broader continuum? The internet provides one forum through which children now communicate with each other. (In 2003, the internet search engine Google listed 7,920,000 sites relating to the Harry Potter novels; even allowing for duplication and dead ends, that is a number with revolutionary implications.)

• YES

• NO

• NOT GIVEN

STATEMENT:

The study of children’s literature at higher education institutions is restricted to one subject area.

PASSAGE:

Finally, in the context of the higher education institutions where the formal study of children’s literature of often located, at least three disciplinary frameworks (English, education, and librarianship) fragment the focus of scholarly study of children’s literature.

• YES

• NO

• NOT GIVEN

STATEMENT:

Exploring children’s perceptions of reading will assist parents to choose suitable books for children.

PASSAGE:

How is the value of the imaginative encounter with the work of literature sustained and honored among such a welter of conflicting interests? One route through this maze is to ask the child readers for help. As David Lewis (2001) has perceptively noted, what children think of reading is not usually the same as what adults think, whether teachers or parents. As Lewis points out children ‘sometimes see more and they often see differently’. If those who study reading can explore children’s perceptions as well as those of adults, their understanding of the nature of reading will be enhanced.

• YES

• NO

• NOT GIVEN

STATEMENT:

Adults may appreciate the appeal of illustrated stories better, if they have more information on how children read.

PASSAGE:

Lewis makes a further valid point when he adds that exploring children’s perceptions is usually justified for educational reasons: “It is true that a better understanding of how children read and how they learn to read, is a prerequisite to improved approaches to teaching. However, it can also be argued, as Lewis rightly does, that when children’s responses to literature are accessed and interpreted, they frequently lead to an understanding of how picture books appeal to children.

• YES

• NO

• NOT GIVEN