Category: IELTS Reading

READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 29–40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

The battle over the gender price gap

Boots has reduced the price of “feminine” razors to bring them in line with men’s. The chemist chain says it’s just an isolated incident, but campaigners say its part of a “pink tax” that discriminates against women. Who’s right and what’s the bigger story, ask Jessica McCallin and Claire Bates.

Campaigners against what’s been dubbed the “pink tax” – where retailers charge women more than men for similar products – are celebrating after Boots said it would change the price of some of its goods. A Change.org petition has already gathered more than 43,000 signatures. The issue has been raised in Parliament. Paula Sherriff, Labour MP for Dewsbury, called a debate on the issue on Tuesday. She wants the government to commission independent research to quantify the extent of the problem, arguing that it amounts to women paying thousands of pounds more over the course of their lives.

Stevie Wise, who launched the petition, was driven by a Times investigation which claimed that women and girls are charged, on average, 37% more for clothes, beauty products and toys. The investigation was inspired by research in the US which found that women’s products are routinely more expensive than men’s. The New York Department of Consumer Affairs had compared the prices of 800 products with male and female versions and concluded that, after controlling for quality, women’s versions were, on average, 7% more expensive than men’s.

Boots says the two examples highlighted in the Change.org petition are exceptional cases, but campaigners are not so sure. “This is a very exciting response,” says Wise. “We are delighted with Boots’ decision, but we now need to get them to look at all of their products, not just the ones highlighted in the petition. We hope this decision is just the first of many and we may broaden our campaign to focus on other retailers as well.” Wise says that women have been getting in touch with examples of other price discrepancies from lots of companies and says there seems to be a particular problem with toys and clothes. Argos has been criticised for identical scooters that cost £5 more if they were pink rather than blue. Argos said it was an error that had already been rectified and that it would never indulge in differential pricing.

Among the examples sent to Wise was Boots selling identical child car seats that cost more in pink. Another retailer was selling children’s balance bikes which cost more for a flowery print aimed at girls than a pirate print aimed at boys. But the latter example already appears to have been tweaked on the retailer’s website, albeit by applying a £10 discount to the flowery version. With many retailers indulging in complicated algorithms to calculate price, or frequently changing prices around promotions, it’s easy for them to argue that what appears to be a gender price gap is in fact an innocent mistake.

One of the main things that retailers consider when deciding what to charge is what the customer is willing to pay, argues Mark Billige, UK managing partner at Simon-Kucher, a management consultancy that advises companies on things like pricing. “They have to consider what it costs to make the product and what their competitors are charging, but in a world where consumers have lots of choices, willingness to pay becomes very important as people will vote with their wallets if they don’t like the price of a product. There is something in the fact that women are willing to pay more. Why, I don’t know, but it will probably have something to do with psychology.”

When challenged over sexist pricing, both Levi’s and Tesco argued that different versions of things could have different production costs even if appearing fairly similar. Prof Nancy Puccinelli, a consumer psychologist at Oxford University says that her research suggests that women are actually much more careful shoppers than men, better able to scrutinise adverts and pricing gimmicks. She wonders if women are perceiving more value in the more expensive products. “For men, razors are functional, whereas women may perceive hair removal as more hedonistic, more about self-care, and be more willing to pay more. But there could also be environmental factors hindering their choices, like product placement in the store. If products are separated into male and female sections far away from each other it’s harder to scrutinise prices.” Such a situation could either be deliberate or accidental but the campaigners are not convinced.

“It’s just the tip of the iceberg,” says the Fawcett Society’s head of policy, Jemima Olchawski. “It’s been happening in plain sight and, to me, it shows that bias against women is ingrained across our society. The worst thing about it is that women are getting ripped off twice. They are paid less than men and are also charged more for similar products.” The campaign may lead to further changes, but the perennial advice to shop around remains the same. “There are quite a few comparison websites you can use to see if there’s a price difference,” says Sally Francis, senior writer at moneysavingexpert.com. If, as Tesco claim, there are “additional design and performance features” testing the male and female versions at home should settle whether they are worth it.

There is an opportunity for some companies, argues Olchawski. “The finding shows the power of marketing in our lives, how it shapes our perception of what it means to be a man or a women. Some companies could choose not to play into this, not to play into the stereotypes and rip women off, but launch products more in tune with moves toward gender equality.”

Questions 29–35

Who’s responsible for what? Choose A, B, C or D and write your answers in boxes 29–35 on your answer sheet.

A Stevie Wise

B Mark Billige

C Jemima Olchawski

D Nobody from the above

29. Called a debate on the issue 

30. Launched the petition 

31. States that women are willing to pay more 

32. Says that women are more careful shoppers than men 

33. Says that companies should keep in mind gender equality while making products 

34. Was told that there are many problems with prices, especially with toys and clothes 

35. States that women are getting ripped off twice 

Questions 36-40

Do the following statements agree with the information in the IELTS reading text?

In boxes 36-40 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

36. “Pink tax” means that women are being charged more than men for the same products.              Choose             TRUE             FALSE             NOT GIVEN         

37. Due to the fact that the petition gathered more than 43,000 signatures the issue has been raised in Parliament.              Choose             TRUE             FALSE             NOT GIVEN           

38. After comparing the prices of 800 products., it was concluded that women’s versions were 7% more expensive than men’s.              Choose             TRUE             FALSE             NOT GIVEN         

39. It is hard for the retailers to pretend that the gender price gap is an innocent mistake.              Choose             TRUE             FALSE             NOT GIVEN         

40. If male and female products are situated in different sections, it makes it harder to examine the prices.              Choose             TRUE             FALSE             NOT GIVEN           

READING PASSAGE 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 17–28, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.

Do e-cigarettes make it harder to stop smoking?

  (A) People trying to give up smoking often use e-cigarettes to help wean themselves off tobacco. Most experts think they are safer than cigarettes but a surprising paper was published recently – it suggests that people who use e-cigarettes are less successful at giving up smoking than those who don’t. “E-cigarettes WON’T help you quit,” reported the Daily Mail. “Smokers using vapers are ‘28% less likely to ditch traditional cigarettes,’” read the paper’s headline. The story was reported on many other websites around the world, including CBS: “Study: E-cigarettes don’t help smokers quit,” it said.

  (B) The study causing the fuss was written by researchers at the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, and published in one of the Lancet’s sister journals, Lancet Respiratory Medicine. It is a meta-analysis, which means the authors reviewed the academic literature already available on the topic. They sifted out the weaker papers – ones that didn’t have control groups, for example – and were left with 20.

  (C) The conclusion? Smokers who use e-cigarettes have a 28% lower chance of quitting than smokers who don’t use them, according to Prof Stanton Glantz, one of the authors. But while the conclusion is surprising, so is the number of academics who have criticised the paper. One was Ann McNeill, professor of tobacco addiction at Kings College London, whose own research is included in Glantz’s analysis. “This review is not scientific,” she wrote on the Science Media Centre website. “The information… about two studies that I co-authored is either inaccurate or misleading… I believe the findings should therefore be dismissed.

  (D) “I am concerned at the huge damage this publication may have – many more smokers may continue smoking and die if they take from this piece of work that all evidence suggests e-cigarettes do not help you quit smoking; that is not the case.” Prof Peter Hajek, director of the Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at the Wolfson Institute also called the findings “grossly misleading”.

  (E) The critics are making three main points. First, the definition of e-cigarettes is a bit loose. There are many different types – some look like cigarettes, others have tanks for the vaping liquid, some are disposable and other are multi-use. They all deliver different doses of nicotine. Many of the papers included in the analysis don’t specify which type people are using, according to Linda Bauld, professor of health policy at the University of Stirling. Another point is that the studies vary in the way they measure how often people use e-cigarettes. “Some only assessed whether a person had ever tried an e-cigarette or if they had tried one recently, not whether they were using it regularly or frequently,” Bauld says.

  (F) Even the paper’s author admits it’s possible that in some of the studies e-cigarettes may only have been used once, which he says would not be a good predictor of whether they had affected people’s ability to stop smoking. And there is another problem. You might expect, if you were going to draw conclusions about how useful e-cigarettes are in helping people quit, to focus on studies looking at people who are trying to give up. Prof Robert West, who heads a team at University College London researching ways to help people stop smoking, says this analysis mashed together some very different studies – only some of which include people using e-cigarettes to help them quit.

  (G) “To mix them in with studies where you’ve got people using an e-cigarette and are not particularly trying to stop smoking is mixing apples and oranges,” he says. Some of the studies track smokers who use e-cigarettes for other reasons – perhaps because smoking a cigarette in a bar or an office is illegal and they want a nicotine hit. “With the studies where people are using electronic cigarettes specifically in a quit attempt the evidence is consistent,” says West, referring to two randomised control trials.

  (H) Both are quite small and one was funded by the e-cigarette industry. They took two groups of smokers, and gave one real e-cigarettes, and the other a placebo. The studies reach a broadly similar conclusion to a large, real-world study called the Smoking Toolkit run by West. West’s investigation follows people in their daily lives and assesses how successful various methods of giving up smoking are – this includes nicotine patches, medicines and going cold turkey. These studies suggest that people using e-cigarettes to help them quit are 50% to 100% more successful than those who use no aids at all.

  (I) In his paper, Glantz acknowledges there are limitations to the research that he analysed. He agrees there are problems with the way the use of e-cigarettes is measured and accepts it’s not clear which devices people are using. But he is sticking by his analysis because he believes he has taken these factors into account. The editor of Lancet Respiratory Medicine, Emma Grainger, defends the article too. She says she does not see a problem with the paper and that it has been through the normal peer-review process.

Reading Passage 2 has nine paragraphs, A–I.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A–I, in boxes 17–25 on your answer sheet.

17. Possible damage 

18. Shocking news 

19. Mix of different studies 

20. Misleading information 

21. Types of e-cigarettes 

22. A place where the controversial research was written 

23. The defence of the article 

24. A research by an e-cigarette industry 

25. The consistent evidence 

Questions 26–28

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

Write the correct letter in boxes 26–27 on your answer sheet.

26. New controversial research suggests that e-cigarettes:

1.  make it easier to quit smoking
2.  make it harder to quit smoking
3.  don’t play a major role in quitting smoking
4.  the research doen’t answer this question

27. Ann McNeill critisized the research because:

1.  the majority of other researches disagree with this review
2.  the definition of e-cigarettes is a bit loose
3.  some information is either inaccurate or misleading
4.  the analysis mashed together some very different studies

28. This article aims at:

1.  finding the truth about e-cigarettes, providing facts
2.  showing that the e-cigarettes are worthless
3.  promoting the use of e-cigarettes
4.  analyzing different scientific researches

READING PASSAGE 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–16, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.

Why are Americans so angry?

Americans are generally known for having a positive outlook on life, but with the countdown for November’s presidential election now well under way, polls show voters are angry. This may explain the success of non-mainstream candidates such as Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders. But what is fuelling the frustration?

A CNN/ORC poll carried out in December 2015 suggests 69% of Americans are either “very angry” or “somewhat angry” about “the way things are going” in the US. And the same proportion – 69% – are angry because the political system “seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power, like those on Wall Street or in Washington,” according to a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll from November. Many people are not only angry, they are angrier than they were a year ago, according to an NBC/Esquire survey last month – particularly Republicans (61%), somewhat white people (54%), but also 42% of Democrats, 43% of Latinos and 33% of African Americans.

Candidates have sensed the mood and are adopting the rhetoric. Donald Trump, who has arguably tapped into voters’ frustration better than any other candidate, says he is “very, very angry” and will “gladly accept the mantle of anger” while rival Republican Ben Carson says he has encountered “many Americans who are discouraged and angry as they watch the American dream slipping away”. Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders says: “I am angry and millions of Americans are angry,” while Hillary Clinton says she “understands why people get angry”. Here are five reasons why some voters feel the American dream is in tatters.

1. Economy

“The failure of the economy to deliver real progress to middle-class and working-class Americans over the past 15 years is the most fundamental source of public anger and disaffection in the US,” says William Galston, an expert in governance studies at the Brookings Institution think tank. Although the country may have recovered from the recession – economic output has rebounded and unemployment rates have fallen from 10% in 2009 to 5% in 2015 – Americans are still feeling the pinch in their wallets. Household incomes have, generally speaking, been stagnant for 15 years. In 2014, the median household income was $53,657, according to the US Census Bureau – compared with $57,357 in 2007 and $57,843 in 1999 (adjusted for inflation). There is also a sense that many jobs are of lower quality and opportunity is dwindling, says Galston. “The search for explanations can very quickly degenerate into the identification of villains in American politics. On the left it is the billionaires, the banks, and Wall Street. On the right it is immigrants, other countries taking advantage of us and the international economy – they are two sides of the same political coin.”

2. Immigration

America’s demographics are changing – nearly 59 million immigrants have arrived in the US since 1965, not all of whom entered the country legally. Forty years ago, 84% of the American population was made up of non-Hispanic white people – by last year the figure was 62%, according to Pew Research. It projects this trend will continue, and by 2055 non-Hispanic white people will make up less than half the population. Pew expects them to account for only 46% of the population by 2065. By 2055, more Asians than any other ethnic group are expected to move to US.

“It’s been an era of huge demographic, racial, cultural, religious and generational change,” says Paul Taylor, author of The Next America. “While some celebrate these changes, others deplore them. Some older, whiter voters do not recognise the country they grew up in. There is a sense of alien tribes,” he says.

The US currently has 11.3 million illegal immigrants. Migrants often become a target of anger, says Roberto Suro, an immigration expert at the University of Southern California. “There is a displacement of anxiety and they become the face of larger sources of tensions, such as terrorism, jobs and dissatisfaction. We saw that very clearly when Donald Trump switched from [complaining about] Mexicans to Muslims without skipping a beat after San Bernardino,” he says, referring to the shooting in California in December that left 14 people dead.

3. Washington

“When asked if they trust the government, 89% of Republicans and 72% of Democrats say “only sometimes” or “never”, according to Pew Research. Six out of 10 Americans think the government has too much power, a survey by Gallup suggests, while the government has been named as the top problem in the US for two years in a row – above issues such as the economy, jobs and immigration, according to the organisation.

The gridlock on Capitol Hill and the perceived impotence of elected officials has led to resentment among 20 to 30% of voters, says polling expert Karlyn Bowman, from the American Enterprise Institute. “People see politicians fighting and things not getting done – plus the responsibilities of Congress have grown significantly since the 1970s and there is simply more to criticise. People feel more distant from their government and sour on it,” she says.

William Galston thinks part of the appeal of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders is down to frustration with what some see as a failing system. “So on the right you have someone who is running as a ‘strong man’, a Berlusconi and Putin, who will get things done, and on the left you have someone who is rejecting incrementalism and calling for a political revolution,” he says.

Ted Cruz, who won the Republican caucuses in Iowa, is also running as an anti-establishment candidate. “Tonight is a victory for every American who’s watched in dismay as career politicians in Washington in both parties refuse to listen and too often fail to keep their commitments to the people,” he said on Monday night.

4. America’s place in the world

America is used to being seen as a superpower but the number of Americans that think the US “stands above all other countries in the world” went from 38% in 2012 to 28% in 2014, Pew Research suggests. Seventy percent of Americans also think the US is losing respect internationally, according to a 2013 poll by the centre.

“For a country that is used to being on top of the world, the last 15 years haven’t been great in terms of foreign policy. There’s a feeling of having been at war since 9/11 that’s never really gone away, a sense America doesn’t know what it wants and that things aren’t going our way,” says Roberto Suro. The rise of China, the failure to defeat the Taliban and the slow progress in the fight against the so-called Islamic State group has contributed to the anxiety.

Americans are also more afraid of the prospect of terrorist attacks than at any time since 9/11, according to a New York Times/CBS poll. The American reaction to the San Bernardino shooting was different to the French reaction to the Paris attacks, says Galston. “Whereas the French rallied around the government, Americans rallied against it. There is an impression that the US government is failing in its most basic obligation to keep country and people safe.”

5. Divided nation

Democrats and Republicans have become more ideologically polarised than ever. The typical (median), Republican is now more conservative in his or her core social, economic and political views than 94% of Democrats, compared with 70% in 1994, according to Pew Research. The median Democrat, meanwhile, is more liberal than 92% of Republicans, up from 64%.

The study also found that the share of Americans with a highly negative view of the opposing party has doubled, and that the animosity is so deep, many would be unhappy if a close relative married someone of a different political persuasion.

This polarisation makes reaching common ground on big issues such as immigration, healthcare and gun control more complicated. The deadlock is, in turn, angering another part of the electorate. “Despite this rise in polarisation in America, a large mass in the middle are pragmatic. They aren’t totally disengaged, they don’t want to see Washington gridlocked, but they roll their eyes at the nature of this discourse,” says Paul Taylor. This group includes a lot of young people and tends to eschew party labels. “If they voted,” he says, “they could play an important part of the election.”

Questions 1-8

Complete the sentences below using ONLY ONE WORD for each answer.

1. Conducted poll in December says that most Americans are  with the way that hing are going.

2. Many people are angrier than a year ago, particulary .

3.The economical rates are decreasing, even though the country has recovered from the .

4. Billionaires and immigrants are the two sides of one political .

5. It is expected that the  will be the biggest ethnic group to move in the USA by the year 2055.

6. It has been an era of demographic, racial, cultural, religious and  change.

7. Roberto Suro says that migrants might become a  of anger.

8. Six to ten Americans believe that government has too much .

Questions 9-16

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

In boxes 9-16 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

9. The Congress has more responsibilities now than in 1970s.            TRUE           FALSE           NOT GIVEN         

10. William Galston believes that the appeal of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders is growing bigger each day.            TRUE           FALSE           NOT GIVEN         

11. Ted Cruz is running as an anti-establishment candidate.            TRUE           FALSE           NOT GIVEN         

12. The number of Americans who think that the US “stands above all other countries in the world” increased by 10% in 2014 compared to 2012.            TRUE           FALSE           NOT GIVEN         

13. Since 9/11 there’s been a feeling of war in America and it’s still here.            TRUE           FALSE           NOT GIVEN         

14. The Americans had the same reaction to the San Bernardino shooting as French to the Paris attacks.            TRUE           FALSE           NOT GIVEN         

15. The ideological diversity between the Democrats and the Republicans is stronger than ever now.            TRUE           FALSE           NOT GIVEN         

16. The pragmatic mass consists of a lot of young people.            TRUE           FALSE           NOT GIVEN         

READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 29-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

Penguins’ anti-ice trick revealed

Scientists studying penguins’ feathers have revealed how the birds stay ice free when hopping in and out of below zero waters in the Antarctic. A combination of nano-sized pores and an extra water repelling preening oil the birds secrete is thought to give Antarctic penguins’ feathers superhydrophobic properties. Researchers in the US made the discovery using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) to study penguin feathers in extreme detail. Antarctic penguins live in one of Earth’s most extreme environments, facing temperatures that drop to -40C, winds with speeds of 40 metres per second and water that stays around -2.2C. But even in these sub-zero conditions, the birds manage to prevent ice from coating their feathers.

“They are an amazing species, living in extreme conditions, and great swimmers. Basically they are living engineering marvels,” says research team member Dr Pirouz Kavehpour, professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Birds’ feathers are known to have hydrophobic, or non-wetting, properties. But scientists from UCLA, University of Massachusetts Amherst and SeaWorld, wanted to know what makes Antarctic penguins’ feathers extra ice repelling.

“What we learn here is how penguins combine oil and nano-structures on the feathers to produce this effect to perfection,” explains Kavehpour. By analysing feathers from different penguin species, the researchers discovered Antarctic species the gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua) was more superhydrophobic compared with a species found in warmer climes – the Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) – whose breeding sites include Argentinian desert.

Gentoo penguins’ feathers contained tiny pores which trapped air, making the surface hydrophobic. And they were smothered with a special preening oil, produced by a gland near the base of the tail, with which the birds cover themselves. Together, these properties mean that in the wild, droplets of water on Antarctic penguins’ superhydrophobic feathers bead up on the surface like spheres – formations that, according to the team, could provide geometry that delays ice formation, since heat cannot easily flow out of the water if the droplet only has minimal contact with the surface of the feather.

“The shape of the droplet on the surface dictates the delay in freezing,” explains Kavehpour. The water droplets roll off the penguin’s feathers before they have time to freeze, the researchers propose. Penguins living in the Antarctic are highly evolved to cope with harsh conditions: their short outer feathers overlap to make a thick protective layer over fluffier feathers which keep them warm. Under their skin, a thick layer of fat keeps them insulated. The flightless birds spend a lot of time in the sea and are extremely agile and graceful swimmers, appearing much more awkward on land.

Kavehpour was inspired to study Antarctic penguins’ feathers after watching the birds in a nature documentary: “I saw these birds moving in and out of water, splashing everywhere. Yet there is no single drop of frozen ice sticking to them,” he tells BBC Earth. His team now hopes its work could aid design of better man-made surfaces which minimise frost formation.

“I would love to see biomimicking of these surfaces for important applications, for example, de-icing of aircrafts,” says Kavehpour. Currently, airlines spend a lot of time and money using chemical de-icers on aeroplanes, as ice can alter the vehicles’ aerodynamic properties and can even cause them to crash.

Questions 29-33

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

Write the correct letter in boxes 29-33 on your answer sheet.

29. Penguins stay ice free due to:

1.  A combination of nano-sized pores
2.  An extra water repelling preening oil
3.  A combination of nano-sized pores and an extra water repelling preening oil
4.  A combination of various factors

30. Antarctic penguins experience extreme weather conditions, including:

1.  Low temperature, that can drop to -40
2.  Severe wind, up to 40 metres per second
3.  Below zero water temperature
4.  All of the above

31. In line 5 words engineering marvels mean:

1.  That penguins are very intelligent
2.  That penguins are good swimmers
3.  That penguis are well prepared to living in severe conditions
4.  Both B and C

32. Penguis feather has everything, EXCEPT:

1.  Hydrophobic properties
2.  Extra ice repelling
3.  Soft structures
4.  Oil structures

33. The gentoo penguin:

1.  Is less superhydrophobic compared to the Magellanic penguin
2.  Has feathers that contain tiny pores
3.  Can’t swim
4.  Lives in Argentinian desert

Questions 34-40

Complete the sentences below.

Write ONLY ONE WORD from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 34–40 on your answer sheet.

34. Formations like  could provide geometry that delays ice formation.

35. The delay in freezing is dictated by the  of the droplet.

36. Penguins in Antarctic are highly evolved to be able to cope with  conditions.

37. Penguins are insulated by a  layer of fat.

38. On the land, penguins appear much more  than in the sea.

39. The inspiration came to Kavehpour after watching a  about penguins.

40. Kavehpour would like to see  surfaces which minimise frost formation.

READING PASSAGE 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 13-28, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.

We know the city where HIV first emerged

 It is easy to see why AIDS seemed so mysterious and frightening when US medics first encountered it 35 years ago. The condition robbed young, healthy people of their strong immune system, leaving them weak and vulnerable. And it seemed to come out of nowhere.

Today we know much more how and why HIV – the virus that leads to AIDS – has become a global pandemic. Unsurprisingly, sex workers unwittingly played a part. But no less important were the roles of trade, the collapse of colonialism, and 20th Century sociopolitical reform.

HIV did not really appear out of nowhere, of course. It probably began as a virus affecting monkeys and apes in west central Africa.

From there it jumped species into humans on several occasions, perhaps because people ate infected bushmeat. Some people carry a version of HIV closely related to that seen in sooty mangabey monkeys, for instance. But HIV that came from monkeys has not become a global problem.

We are more closely related to apes, like gorillas and chimpanzees, than we are to monkeys. But even when HIV has passed into human populations from these apes, it has not necessarily turned into a widespread health issue.

HIV originating from apes typically belongs to a type of virus called HIV-1. One is called HIV-1 group O, and human cases are largely confined to west Africa.

In fact, only one form of HIV has spread far and wide after jumping to humans. This version, which probably originated from chimpanzees, is called HIV-1 group M (for “major”). More than 90% of HIV infections belong in group M. Which raises an obvious question: what’s so special about HIV-1 group M?

A study published in 2014 suggests a surprising answer: there might be nothing particularly special about group M.

It is not especially infectious, as you might expect. Instead, it seems that this form of HIV simply took advantage of events. “Ecological rather than evolutionary factors drove its rapid spread,” says Nuno Faria at the University of Oxford in the UK.

Faria and his colleagues built a family tree of HIV, by looking at a diverse array of HIV genomes collected from about 800 infected people from central Africa.

Genomes pick up new mutations at a fairly steady rate, so by comparing two genome sequences and counting the differences they could work out when the two last shared a common ancestor. This technique is widely used, for example to establish that our common ancestor with chimpanzees lived at least 7 million years ago.

“RNA viruses such as HIV evolve approximately 1 million times faster than human DNA,” says Faria. This means the HIV “molecular clock” ticks very fast indeed.

It ticks so fast, Faria and his colleagues found that the HIV genomes all shared a common ancestor that existed no more than 100 years ago. The HIV-1 group M pandemic probably first began in the 1920s.

Then the team went further. Because they knew where each of the HIV samples had been collected, they could place the origin of the pandemic in a specific city: Kinshasa, now the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

At this point, the researchers changed tack. They turned to historical records to work out why HIV infections in an African city in the 1920s could ultimately spark a pandemic.

A likely sequence of events quickly became obvious. In the 1920s, DR Congo was a Belgian colony and Kinshasa – then known as Leopoldville – had just been made the capital. The city became a very attractive destination for young working men seeking their fortunes, and for sex workers only too willing to help them spend their earnings. The virus spread quickly through the population.

It did not remain confined to the city. The researchers discovered that the capital of the Belgian Congo was, in the 1920s, one of the best connected cities in Africa. Taking full advantage of an extensive rail network used by hundreds of thousands of people each year, the virus spread to cities 900 miles (1500km) away in just 20 years.

Everything was in place for an explosion in infection rates in the 1960s.The beginning of that decade brought another change.

Belgian Congo gained its independence, and became an attractive source of employment to French speakers elsewhere in the world, including Haiti. When these young Haitians returned home a few years later they took a particular form of HIV-1 group M, called “subtype B”, to the western side of the Atlantic.

It arrived in the US in the 1970s, just as sexual liberation and homophobic attitudes were leading to concentrations of gay men in cosmopolitan cities like New York and San Francisco. Once more, HIV took advantage of the sociopolitical situation to spread quickly through the US and Europe.

“There is no reason to believe that other subtypes would not have spread as quickly as subtype B, given similar ecological circumstances,” says Faria.

The story of the spread of HIV is not over yet.

For instance, in 2015 there was an outbreak in the US state of Indiana, associated with drug injecting.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been analyzing the HIV genome sequences and data about location and time of infection, says Yonatan Grad at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. “These data help to understand the extent of the outbreak, and will further help to understand when public health interventions have worked.”

This approach can work for other pathogens. In 2014, Grad and his colleague Marc Lipsitch published an investigation into the spread of drug-resistant gonorrhoea across the US.

“Because we had representative sequences from individuals in different cities at different times and with different sexual orientations, we could show the spread was from the west of the country to the east,” says Lipsitch.

What’s more, they could confirm that the drug-resistant form of gonorrhoea appeared to have circulated predominantly in men who have sex with men. That could prompt increased screening in these at-risk populations, in an effort to reduce further spread.

In other words, there is real power to studying pathogens like HIV and gonorrhoea through the prism of human society.

Questions 13-20

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

In boxes 13-20 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

13. AIDS were first encountered 35 years ago.                TRUE               FALSE               NOT GIVEN          

14. The most important role in developing AIDS as a pandemia was played by sex workers.                TRUE               FALSE               NOT GIVEN          

15. It is believed that HIV appeared out of nowhere.                TRUE               FALSE               NOT GIVEN          

16. Humans are not closely related to monkey.                TRUE               FALSE               NOT GIVEN          

17. HIV-1 group O originated in 1920s.                TRUE               FALSE               NOT GIVEN          

18. HIV-1 group M has something special.                TRUE               FALSE               NOT GIVEN          

19. Human DNA evolves approximately 1 million times slower than HIV.                TRUE               FALSE               NOT GIVEN          

20. Scientists believe that HIV already existed in 1920s.                TRUE               FALSE               NOT GIVEN          

Questions 21-28

Complete the sentences below.

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

Write your answers in boxes 21-28 on your answer sheet.

21. Scientists can place the origin of  in a specific city.

22. Kinshasa was a very  for young working men and many others willing to spend their money.

23. In just 20 years virus managed to  to cities 900 miles away.

24. Belgian Congo became an attractive source of employment to French speakers when it gained  .

25. HIV has spread quickly through the US and Europe because of the  .

26. It is said that outbreak in Indiana was associated with  .

27. The same approach as for HIV can work for  .

28. The form of gonorrhoea that is drug-resistant appeared to have  in men who have sex with men.

READING PASSAGE 1

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

Scientists Are Mapping the World’s Largest Volcano

(A) After 36 days of battling sharks that kept biting their equipment, scientists have returned from the remote Pacific Ocean with a new way of looking at the world’s largest – and possibly most mysterious – volcano, Tamu Massif.

(B) The team has begun making 3-D maps that offer the clearest look yet at the underwater mountain, which covers an area the size of New Mexico. In the coming months, the maps will be refined and the data analyzed, with the ultimate goal of figuring out how the mountain was formed.

(C) It’s possible that the western edge of Tamu Massif is actually a separate mountain that formed at a different time, says William Sager, a geologist at the University of Houston who led the expedition. That would explain some differences between the western part of the mountain and the main body.

(D) The team also found that the massif (as such a massive mountain is known) is highly pockmarked with craters and cliffs. Magnetic analysis provides some insight into the mountain’s genesis, suggesting that part of it formed through steady releases of lava along the intersection of three mid-ocean ridges, while part of it is harder to explain. A working theory is that a large plume of hot mantle rock may have contributed additional heat and material, a fairly novel idea.

(E) Tamu Massif lies about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) east of Japan. It is a rounded dome, or shield volcano, measuring 280 by 400 miles (450 by 650 kilometers). Its top lies more than a mile (about 2,000 meters) below the ocean surface and is 50 times larger than the biggest active volcano on Earth, Hawaii’s Mauna Loa. Sager published a paper in 2013 that said the main rise of Tamu Massif is most likely a single volcano, instead of a complex of multiple volcanoes that smashed together. But he couldn’t explain how something so big formed.

(F) The team used sonar and magnetometers (which measure magnetic fields) to map more than a million square kilometers of the ocean floor in great detail. Sager and students teamed up with Masao Nakanishi of Japan’s Chiba University, with Sager receiving funding support from the National Geographic Society and the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

(G) Since sharks are attracted to magnetic fields, the toothy fish “were all over our magnetometer, and it got pretty chomped up,” says Sager. When the team replaced the device with a spare, that unit was nearly ripped off by more sharks. The magnetic field research suggests the mountain formed relatively quickly, sometime around 145 million years ago. Part of the volcano sports magnetic “stripes,” or bands with different magnetic properties, suggesting that lava flowed out evenly from the mid-ocean ridges over time and changed in polarity each time Earth’s magnetic field reversed direction. The central part of the peak is more jumbled, so it may have formed more quickly or through a different process.

(H) Sager isn’t sure what caused the magnetic anomalies yet, but suspects more complex forces were at work than simply eruptions from the ridges. It’s possible a deep plume of hot rock from the mantle also contributed to the volcano’s formation, he says. Sager hopes the analysis will also help explain about a dozen other similar features on the ocean floor, as well as add to the overall understanding of plate tectonics.

Questions 1-8

Reading Passage 1 has eight paragraphs, A-H.

What paragraph has the following information? Write the correct letter, A-H, in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.

1. Possible explanation of the differences between parts of the mountain 

2. Size data 

3. A new way of looking 

4. Problem with sharks 

5. Uncertainty of the anomalies 

6. Equipment which measures magnetic fields 

7. The start of making maps 

8. A working theory 

Questions 9-12

Complete the sentences using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage.

Write your answers in boxes 9–12 on your answer sheet.

9. A large plume of  rock may have contributed additional heat and material.

10.Tamu Massif is a  , or shield volcano.

11. Replacing the device with a  didn’t help, as that unit was nearly ripped off by more sharks.

12. Sager believes that the magnetic anomalies were caused by something more than  from the ridges.

READING PASSAGE 3

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

Mysterious Dark Matter May Not Always Have Been Dark

  Dark matter particles may have interacted extensively with normal matter long ago, when the universe was very hot, a new study suggests. The nature of dark matter is currently one of the greatest mysteries in science. The invisible substance — which is detectable via its gravitational influence on “normal” matter – is thought to make up five-sixths of all matter in the universe.

Astronomers began suspecting the existence of dark matter when they noticed the cosmos seemed to possess more mass than stars could account for. For example, stars circle the center of the Milky Way so fast that they should overcome the gravitational pull of the galaxy’s core and zoom into the intergalactic void. Most scientists think dark matter provides the gravity that helps hold these stars back. Astronomers know more about what dark matter is not than what it actually is.

Scientists have mostly ruled out all known ordinary materials as candidates for dark matter. The consensus so far is that this missing mass is made up of new species of particles that interact only very weakly with ordinary matter. One potential clue about the nature of dark matter has to do with the fact that it’s five times more abundant than normal matter, researchers said.

“This may seem a lot, and it is, but if dark and ordinary matter were generated in a completely independent way, then this number is puzzling,” said study co-author Pavlos Vranas, a particle physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. “Instead of five, it could have been a million or a billion. Why five?” The researchers suggest a possible solution to this puzzle: Dark matter particles once interacted often with normal matter, even though they barely do so now. “This may have happened in the early universe, when the temperature was very high — so high that both ordinary and dark matter were ‘melted’ in a plasma state made up of their ingredients”.

The protons and neutrons making up atomic nuclei are themselves each made up of a trio of particles known as quarks. The researchers suggest dark matter is also made of a composite “stealth” particle, which is composed of a quartet of component particles and is difficult to detect (like a stealth airplane). The scientists’ supercomputer simulations suggest these composite particles may have masses ranging up to more than 200 billion electron-volts, which is about 213 times a proton’s mass. Quarks each possess fractional electrical charges of positive or negative one-third or two-thirds. In protons, these add up to a positive charge, while in neutrons, the result is a neutral charge. Quarks are confined within protons and neutrons by the so-called “strong interaction.”

The researchers suggest that the component particles making up stealth dark matter particles each have a fractional charge of positive or negative one-half, held together by a “dark form” of the strong interaction. Stealth dark matter particles themselves would only have a neutral charge, leading them to interact very weakly at best with ordinary matter, light, electric fields and magnetic fields. The researchers suggest that at the extremely high temperatures seen in the newborn universe, the electrically charged components of stealth dark matter particles could have interacted with ordinary matter. However, once the universe cooled, a new, powerful and as yet unknown force might have bound these component particles together tightly to form electrically neutral composites. Stealth dark matter particles should be stable — not decaying over eons, if at all, much like protons. However, the researchers suggest the components making up stealth dark matter particles can form different unstable composites that decay shortly after their creation. “For example, one could have composite particles made out of just two component particles,” Vranas said.

These unstable particles might have masses of about 100 billion electron-volts or more, and could be created by particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) beneath the France-Switzerland border. They could also have an electric charge and be visible to particle detectors, Vranas said. Experiments at the LHC, or sensors designed to spot rare instances of dark matter colliding with ordinary matter, “may soon find evidence of, or rule out, this new stealth dark matter theory,” Vranas said in a statement. If stealth dark matter exists, future research can investigate whether there are any effects it might have on the cosmos.

“Are there any signals in the sky that telescopes may find?” Vranas said. “In order to answer these questions, our calculations will require larger supercomputing resources. Fortunately, supercomputing development is progressing fast towards higher computational speeds.” The scientists, the Lattice Strong Dynamics Collaboration, will detail their findings in an upcoming issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

Questions 27-34

Complete the sentences below.

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

Write your answers in boxes 27-34 on your answer sheet.

27. One of the greatest mysteries in science is the nature of the  .

28. All known material have been mostly  as candidates for dark matter.

29. Dark matter is a lot more  than normal matter.

30. Due to high temperature, both ordinary and dark matter were ‘melted’ in a  .

31. It is confirmed that quarks are within protons and neutrons by  .

32. It is suggested that stealth dark matter particle would only have a  .

33. Experiments at the LHC may soon find  of the new stealth dark matter theory.

34. To answer questions we require  resources .

Questions 35-39

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?

In boxes 35–39 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

35. The nature of dark matter is a mystery.              Choose             TRUE               FALSE               NOT GIVEN         

36. It is likely that dark matter consists of ordinary materials.              Choose             TRUE               FALSE               NOT GIVEN         

37. Quarks have neither positive nor negative charge.              Choose             TRUE             FALSE               NOT GIVEN         

38. Protons are not stable.              Choose             TRUE             FALSE               NOT GIVEN         

39. Dark matter has a serious impact on the cosmos.              Choose             TRUE               FALSE             NOT GIVEN         

Question 40

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

40. Passage 3 is:

1.  a scientific article
2.  a sci-fi article
3.  a short sketch
4.  an article from a magazine

READING PASSAGE 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 13-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.

Trash Talk

Sorting through a mountain of pottery to track the Roman oil trade

(A) In the middle of Rome’s trendiest neighborhood, surrounded by sushi restaurants and nightclubs with names like Rodeo Steakhouse and Love Story, sits the ancient world’s biggest garbage dump—a 150-foot-tall mountain of discarded Roman amphoras, the shipping drums of the ancient world. It takes about 20 minutes to walk around Monte Testaccio, from the Latin testa and Italian cocci, both meaning “potsherd.” But despite its size—almost a mile in circumference—it’s easy to walk by and not really notice unless you are headed for some excellent pizza at Velavevodetto, a restaurant literally stuck into the mountain’s side. Most local residents don’t know what’s underneath the grass, dust, and scattering of trees. Monte Testaccio looks like a big hill, and in Rome people are accustomed to hills.

(B) Although a garbage dump may lack the attraction of the Forum or Colosseum, I have come to Rome to meet the team excavating Monte Testaccio and to learn how scholars are using its evidence to understand the ancient Roman economy. As the modern global economy depends on light sweet crude, so too the ancient Romans depended on oil—olive oil. And for more than 250 years, from at least the first century A.D., an enormous number of amphoras filled with olive oil came by ship from the Roman provinces into the city itself, where they were unloaded, emptied, and then taken to Monte Testaccio and thrown away. In the absence of written records or literature on the subject, studying these amphoras is the best way to answer some of the most vexing questions concerning the Roman economy—How did it operate? How much control did the emperor exert over it? Which sectors were supported by the state and which operated in a free market environment or in the private sector?

(C) Monte Testaccio stands near the Tiber River in what was ancient Rome’s commercial district. Many types of imported foodstuffs, including oil, were brought into the city and then stored for later distribution in the large warehouses that lined the river. So, professor, just how many amphoras are there?” I ask José Remesal of the University of Barcelona, co-director of the Monte Testaccio excavations. It’s the same question that must occur to everyone who visits the site when they realize that the crunching sounds their footfalls make are not from walking on fallen leaves, but on pieces of amphoras. (Don’t worry, even the small pieces are very sturdy.) Remesal replies in his deep baritone, “Something like 25 million complete ones. Of course, it’s difficult to be exact,” he adds with a typical Mediterranean shrug. I, for one, find it hard to believe that the whole mountain is made of amphoras without any soil or rubble. Seeing the incredulous look on my face as I peer down into a 10-foot-deep trench, Remesal says, “Yes, it’s really only amphoras.” I can’t imagine another site in the world where archaeologists find so much—about a ton of pottery every day. On most Mediterranean excavations, pottery washing is an activity reserved for blisteringly hot afternoons when digging is impossible. Here, it is the only activity for most of Remesal’s team, an international group of specialists and students from Spain and the United States. During each year’s two-week field season, they wash and sort thousands of amphoras handles, bodies, shoulders, necks, and tops, counting and cataloguing, and always looking for stamped names, painted names, and numbers that tell each amphora’s story.

(D) Although scholars worked at Monte Testaccio beginning in the late 19th century, it’s only within the past 30 years that they have embraced the role amphoras can play in understanding the nature of the Roman imperial economy. According to Remesal, the main challenge archaeologists and economic historians face is the lack of “serial documentation,” that is, documents for consecutive years that reflect a true chronology. This is what makes Monte Testaccio a unique record of Roman commerce and provides a vast amount of datable evidence in a clear and unambiguous sequence. “There’s no other place where you can study economic history, food production and distribution, and how the state controlled the transport of a product,” Remesal says. “It’s really remarkable.”

Questions 13-16

Reading Passage 2 has four paragraphs A-D. Which paragraph contains what information? Write the correct letter, A-D, in boxes 13-16 on your answer sheet.

13. Questions about the Roman economy 14. A unique feature 

15. Description of the dump 

16. Dialogue with a professor

Questions 17–21

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?

In boxes 17–21 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

17. World’s biggest garbage dump is surrounded by restaurants and nightclubs.                  TRUE                 FALSE                 NOT GIVEN               

18. The garbage dump is as popular as the Colosseum in Rome.                  TRUE                 FALSE                 NOT GIVEN               

19. Ancient Roman economy depended on oil.                  TRUE                 FALSE                 NOT GIVEN               

20. There is no information on how many amphoras are there.                  TRUE                 FALSE                 NOT GIVEN               

21. Remesal says that Monte Testaccio is a great place to study economics.                TRUE                 FALSE               NOT GIVEN             

Questions 22–26

Complete the sentences below.

Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 22–26 on your answer sheet.

22. It is unknown for  what’s underneath the grass, dust, and scattering of trees.

23. Monte Testaccio stands near the ancient Rome’s  .

24. Remesal doesn’t believe that the whole mountain is made of  without any soil or rubble.

25. Remesal’s team washes and sorts thousands of amphoras each year’s two-week  .

26.  started working at Monte Testaccio in the late 19th century.

READING PASSAGE 1

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

The potential to sniff out disease

The fact diseases have a smell comes as no surprise – but finding someone or something that can detect them at an early stage could hold huge potential for medicine.

Breath, bodily odours and urine are all amazingly revealing about general health. Even the humble cold can give off an odour, thanks to the thick bacteria-ridden mucus that ends up in the back of the throat. The signs are not apparent to everyone – but some super-smellers are very sensitive to the odours. Joy Milne, for example, noticed her husband’s smell had changed shortly before he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

Humans can detect nearly 10,000 different smells. Formed by chemicals in the air, they are absorbed by little hairs, made of extremely sensitive nerve fibres, hanging from the nose’s olfactory receptors. And the human sense of smell is 10,000 times more sensitive than the sense of taste. But dogs, as the old joke might have had it, smell even better.

Their ability to detect four times as many odours as humans makes them a potential early warning system for a range of diseases. Research suggesting dogs’ could sniff out cancers, for example, was first published about 10 years ago. And there have been many tales of dogs repeatedly sniffing an area of their owner’s body, only for it to turn out to be hiding a tumour.

What they are smelling are the “volatile molecules” given off by cells when they become cancerous. Some studies suggest dogs can be 93% accurate. Others suggest they can detect very small tumours before clinical tests can. And yet more studies have produced mixed results.

Does cancer smell?

At Milton Keynes University Hospital, a small team has recently begun to collect human urine samples to test dogs’ ability to detect the smell of prostate cancer. The patients had symptoms such as difficulty urinating or a change in flow, which could turn out to be prostate, bladder or liver cancer.

Rowena Fletcher, head of research and development at the hospital, says the role of the dogs – which have been trained by Medical Detection Dogs – is to pick out samples that smell of cancer. Further down the line, a clinical test will show if the dogs’ diagnosis is correct. She says the potential for using dogs in this way is far-reaching – even if it is not practical to have a dog in every surgery.

“We hope one day that there could be an electronic machine on every GP’s desk which could test a urine sample for diseases by smelling it,” she says. “But first we need to pick up the pattern of what the dogs are smelling.”

And that’s the key. Dogs can’t tell us what their noses are detecting, but scientists believe that different cancers could produce different smells, although some might also be very similar.

Electronic noses

Lab tests to understand what these highly-trained dogs are smelling could then inform the development of ‘electronic noses’ to detect the same molecules. These might then give rise to better diagnostic tests in the future. The potential for using smell to test for a wide range of diseases is huge, Ms Fletcher says.

Bacteria, cancers and chronic diseases could all have their own odour – which may be imperceptible to only the most sensitive humans, but obvious to dogs. It may be possible in the future to use disease odours as the basis for a national screening programme or to test everybody at risk of a certain cancer in a particular age group.

However, there are fewer than 20 dogs in the UK trained to detect cancer at present. Training more will take more funding and time. On the positive side, all dogs are eligible to be trained provided they are keen on searching and hunting. Whatever their breed or size, it’s our four-legged friend’s astounding sense of smell which could unlock a whole new way of detecting human diseases.

Questions 1-5

Do the following statements agree with the information in the IELTS reading text?

In boxes 1-5 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

1. You can have a specific smell even due to simple cold.            TRUE           FALSE           NOT GIVEN         

2. Human sense of taste is 10,000 less sensetive than human sense of smell.            TRUE           FALSE           NOT GIVEN         

3. Dogs and cats can sniff out different diseases.            TRUE           FALSE           NOT GIVEN         

4. Doctors believe that different cancers might have the same specific smell.            TRUE           FALSE           NOT GIVEN         

5. There are more than 20 dogs in the UK trained to detect cancer.            TRUE           FALSE           NOT GIVEN         

Questions 6-9

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

Write the correct letter in boxes 6–9 on your answer sheet.

6. All the studies suggest that dogs:

1.  Can be 93% accurate
2.  Can detect very small tumours
3.  Can’t detect tumours at all
4.  Different studies have shown different results

7. What scientists give dogs to detect cancer?

1. Urine samples
2. Bacterias
3. Different odours
4. Nothing

8. What’s an electronic nose?

1. A specific tool for dogs
2. A gadget to diagnose diseases
3. A recovery tool for ill patients
4. An artificial nose

9. The main objective of this passage is to:

1. Bring awareness to the cancer problem
2.  Show us how good dogs are at detecting cancer
3. Show us how important it can be to be able to diagnose a disease by an odour
4. Tell us about new technologies

Questions 10-12

Complete the sentences below.

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

Write your answers in boxes 10-12 on your answer sheet.

10. Scientists hope that one day an  will be on every desk.

11. Electronic nose would help to detect the .

12. Dogs can  a new way of diagnosing diseases.

READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 31–40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

A new study finds that half of human cultures don’t practice romantic lip-on-lip kissing. Animals don’t tend to bother either. So how did it evolve?

  When you think about it, kissing is strange and a bit icky. You share saliva with someone, sometimes for a prolonged period of time. One kiss could pass on 80 million bacteria, not all of them good.

  Yet everyone surely remembers their first kiss, in all its embarrassing or delightful detail, and kissing continues to play a big role in new romances.  

  At least, it does in some societies. People in western societies may assume that romantic kissing is a universal human behaviour, but a new analysis suggests that less than half of all cultures actually do it. Kissing is also extremely rare in the animal kingdom.

  So what’s really behind this odd behaviour? If it is useful, why don’t all animals do it – and all humans too? It turns out that the very fact that most animals don’t kiss helps explain why some do.

  According to a new study of kissing preferences, which looked at 168 cultures from around the world, only 46% of cultures kiss in the romantic sense.

  Previous estimates had put the figure at 90%. The new study excluded parents kissing their children, and focused solely on romantic lip-on-lip action between couples.

  Many hunter-gatherer groups showed no evidence of kissing or desire to do so. Some even considered it revolting. The Mehinaku tribe in Brazil reportedly said it was “gross”. Given that hunter-gatherer groups are the closest modern humans get to living our ancestral lifestyle, our ancestors may not have been kissing either.

  The study overturns the belief that romantic kissing is a near-universal human behaviour, says lead author William Jankowiak of the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. Instead it seems to be a product of western societies, passed on from one generation to the next, he says. There is some historical evidence to back that up.

  Kissing as we do it today seems to be a fairly recent invention, says Rafael Wlodarski of the University of Oxford in the UK. He has trawled through records to find evidence of how kissing has changed. The oldest evidence of a kissing-type behaviour comes from Hindu Vedic Sanskrit texts from over 3,500 years ago. Kissing was described as inhaling each other’s soul.

  In contrast, Egyptian hieroglyphics picture people close to each other rather than pressing their lips together.

  So what is going on? Is kissing something we do naturally, but that some cultures have suppressed? Or is it something modern humans have invented?

  We can find some insight by looking at animals.

  Our closest relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, do kiss. Primatologist Frans de Waal of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, has seen many instances of chimps kissing and hugging after conflict.

  For chimpanzees, kissing is a form of reconciliation. It is more common among males than females. In other words, it is not a romantic behaviour.

  Their cousins the bonobos kiss more often, and they often use tongues while doing so. That’s perhaps not surprising, because bonobos are highly sexual beings.

  When two humans meet, we might shake hands. Bonobos have sex: the so-called bonobo handshake. They also use sex for many other kinds of bonding. So their kisses are not particularly romantic, either.

  These two apes are exceptions. As far as we know, other animals do not kiss at all. They may nuzzle or touch their faces together, but even those that have lips don’t share saliva or purse and smack their lips together. They don’t need to.

  Take wild boars. Males produce a pungent smell that females find extremely attractive. The key chemical is a pheromone called androstenone that triggers the females’ desire to mate.

  From a female’s point of view this is a good thing, because males with the most androstonene are also the most fertile. Her sense of smell is so acute, she doesn’t need to get close enough to kiss the male. 

  The same is true of many other mammals. For example, female hamsters emit a pheromone that gets males very excited. Mice follow similar chemical traces to help them find partners that are genetically different, minimising the risk of accidental incest.

  Animals often release these pheromones in their urine. “Their urine is much more pungent,” says Wlodarski. “If there’s urine present in the environment they can assess compatibility through that.”

  It’s not just mammals that have a great sense of smell. A male black widow spider can smell pheromones produced by a female that tell him if she has recently eaten. To minimise the risk of being eaten, he will only mate with her if she is not hungry.

  The point is, animals do not need to get close to each other to smell out a good potential mate.

  On the other hand, humans have an atrocious sense of smell, so we benefit from getting close. Smell isn’t the only cue we use to assess each other’s fitness, but studies have shown that it plays an important role in mate choice.

A study published in 1995 showed that women, just like mice, prefer the smell of men who are genetically different from them. This makes sense, as mating with someone with different genes is likely to produce healthy offspring. Kissing is a great way to get close enough to sniff out your partner’s genes.

  In 2013, Wlodarski examined kissing preferences in detail. He asked several hundred people what was most important when kissing someone. How they smelled featured highly, and the importance of smell increased when women were most fertile.It turns out that men also make a version of the pheromone that female boars find attractive. It is present in male sweat, and when women are exposed to it their arousal levels increase slightly.

  Pheromones are a big part of how mammals chose a mate, says Wlodarski, and we share some of them. “We’ve inherited all of our biology from mammals, we’ve just added extra things through evolutionary time.”

  On that view, kissing is just a culturally acceptable way to get close enough to another person to detect their pheromones.

  In some cultures, this sniffing behaviour turned into physical lip contact. It’s hard to pinpoint when this happened, but both serve the same purpose, says Wlodarski.

  So if you want to find a perfect match, you could forego kissing and start smelling people instead. You’ll find just as good a partner, and you won’t get half as many germs. Be prepared for some funny looks, though.

Questions 31–35

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?

In boxes 31–35 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

31. Both Easter and Wester societies presume that kissing is essential for any part of the world.                TRUE               FALSE               NOT GIVEN          

32. Our ancestors were not likely to kiss.                TRUE               FALSE               NOT GIVEN          

33. Chimpanzees and bonbons kiss not for the romance.                TRUE               FALSE               NOT GIVEN          

34. There are other animal, rather than apes, that kiss.                TRUE               FALSE               NOT GIVEN          

35. Scent might be important in choosing your partner.                TRUE               FALSE               NOT GIVEN          

Questions 36–39

Complete the sentences below.

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

Write your answers in boxes 35–39 on your answer sheet.

36. According to the Mehinaku tribe, kissing is  .

37. Human tradition is to  when they meet.

38. A male black widow will mate with the female if only she is  .

39. Humans benefit from getting close due to the fact that we have an  of smell.

Question 40

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

40. Passage 3 can be described as:

1.  Strictly scientific text
2.  Historical article
3.  Article from a magazine
4.  Dystopian sketch