Đề thi IELTS Reading dated 22/8/2020

Blue-footed Boobies 2

A

Boobies are a small group of seabirds native to tropical and subtropical oceans worldwide. They primarily feed on fish such as sardines, anchovies, mackerel, and flying fish. Boobies are specialized fish hunters, folding their long wings around their streamlined bodies and diving into the water from heights up to 80 feet, making little splash. They travel in groups of about 12 to areas with abundant schools of small fish. When the lead bird spots a fish school, it signals the others to dive together. Interestingly, individuals do not eat with the hunting group but prefer to feed alone, typically in the early morning or late afternoon.

B

Three types of boobies exist in the Galapagos: the blue-footed, red-footed, and masked boobies. While they belong to the same family, each varies not only in appearance but also in behavior. Blue-footed and red-footed boobies mate year-round, whereas masked boobies follow an annual mating cycle that varies by island. Despite similar fishing methods, they operate in different zones: blue-footed boobies fish near shore, masked boobies venture slightly farther out, and red-footed boobies fish farthest from land.

C

The origin of the name “booby” remains uncertain, though some speculate it may derive from the Spanish word for clown, “bobo”, meaning “foolish”. The name likely reflects the birds’ awkwardness on land and seemingly unwarranted bravery. Blue-footed boobies, in particular, exhibit little fear of human visitors, making them vulnerable to capture, exploitation, and consumption by humans.

D

The distinctive feet of the blue-footed booby play a significant role in their well-known courtship display, the ‘booby dance’. The male circles the female, lifting his bright blue feet high in the air while lowering his ‘shoulders’ toward the ground and crossing the tips of his wings above the ground. He also raises his bill toward the sky in an attempt to impress his mate. The female may also participate by lifting her feet, pointing skyward, and squawking at her mate. After mating, another ritual occurs—nest building, although ironically these nests are never used because they nest directly on bare ground. When the female is ready to lay her eggs, they scrape away any existing nest material so she can lay directly on exposed ground. The sun-baked islands serve as the breeding grounds for boobies. Once ready, the female Blue Footed Booby lays one to three eggs.

E

After mating, two or three eggs are laid in a shallow depression on flat or gently sloping ground. Both male and female take turns incubating the eggs. Unlike most birds, boobies do not develop brood patches (bare skin areas on the breast) to warm the eggs during incubation. Instead, they use their broad webbed feet, which have numerous large blood vessels, to transfer the necessary heat for incubation. The eggs have thick shells that can withstand the weight of an incubating bird.

F

Following hatching, the male plays a crucial role in bringing food to the nest. He consistently brings back small fish for the chicks, which require continuous feeding. This is facilitated by the male’s longer tail relative to body size, enabling shallower dives and fishing closer to shore. As time progresses, the female assumes a greater role. Eventually, the need to feed the young surpasses the need for protection, necessitating both adults to fish and ensure an adequate food supply.

G

In times of plenty, parents may successfully fledge all three chicks. In leaner times, they may lay multiple eggs but only procure enough food to raise one. This dilemma is often resolved through a somewhat brutal process known as ‘opportunistic sibling murder.’ The first-hatched chick is typically larger and stronger due to hatching earlier and receiving preferential feeding from the parents. In times of scarcity, this larger chick outcompetes its siblings for food, resulting in their starvation. This system optimizes the blue-footed booby’s reproductive success in unpredictable environments, ensuring at least one chick survives periods of scarcity rather than all three perishing under a more ‘compassionate’ system.

Questions 1-6

The reading passage has seven paragraphs, A-GChoose the correct heading for paragraphs A-G from the list below.Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i. Unusual way of hatching the chicks

ii. Feeding habit of the red-footed booby

iii. Folding wings for purpose

iv. Rearing the young

v. Classification of boobies

vi. Diving for seafood

vii. Surviving mechanism during the food shortage period

viii. Mating and breeding

ix. Origin of the booby’s name

1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B

Example Answer

Paragraph C ix

3. Paragraph D4. Paragraph E5. Paragraph F6. Paragraph G

Questions 7-9

Do the following statements agree with the information given in ReadingPassage 1?In boxes 7-9 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement is trueFALSE if the statement is falseNOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage

7. Boobies are wary of approaching humans.
8. Female boobies consume more than males.
9. When food is scarce, larger chicks are prioritized for feeding at the expense of smaller siblings.

Questions 10 – 13

Complete the summary below.Using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the Reading Passage for eachanswer.Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.

The courtship of the Blue-footed Booby consists of the male flaunting his blue feet and dancing to impress the female. During the dance, the male will spread his wings and stamp his feet on the ground with his bills 10……………………. After mating, the booby’s unusual demeanor continues with ritual 11………………………….. that really serves no purpose. When the female Booby lays eggs, the parental boobies incubate the eggs beneath their 12……………………… which contain 13 …………………………. to transmit the heat, because of the lack of brood patches.

Mechanisms of Linguistic Change

A The changes that have caused the most disagreement are those inpronunciation. We have various sources of evidence for the pronunciations of earlier times, such as the spellings, the treatment of words borrowed from other languages or borrowed by them, the descriptions of contemporary grammarians and spelling-reformers, and the modern pronunciations in all the languages and dialects concerned From the middle of the sixteenth century, there are in England writers who attempt to describe the position of the speech-organs for the production of English phonemes, and who invent what are in effect systems of phonetic symbols. These various kinds of evidence, combined with a knowledge of the mechanisms of speech-production, can often give us a very good idea ofthe pronunciation of an earlier age, though absolute certainty is never possible.

B When we study the pronunciation of a language over any period of a fewgenerations or more, we find there are always large-scale regularities in thechanges: for example, over a certain period of time, just about all the long [a:] vowels in a language may change into long [e:] vowels, or all the [b] consonants in a certain position (for example at the end of a word) may change into [p] consonants. Such regular changes are often called sound laws. There are no universal sound laws (even though sound laws often reflect universal tendencies), but simply particular sound laws for one given language (or dialect) at one given period.

C It is also possible that fashion plays a part in the process of change. It certainly plays a part in the spread of change: one person imitates another, and people with the most prestige are most likely to be imitated, so that a change that takes place in one social group may be imitated (more or less accurately) by speakers in another group. When a social group goes up or down in the world, its pronunciation of Russian, which had formerly been considered desirable, became on the contrary an undesirable kind of accent to have, so that people tried to disguise it. Some of the changes in accepted English pronunciation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have been shown to consist in the replacement of one style of pronunciation by another style already existing, and it is likely that such substitutions were a result of the great social changes of the period: the increased power and wealth of the middle classes, and their steady infiltration upwards into the ranks of the landed gentry, probably carried elements of middle-class pronunciation into upper-class speech.

D A less specific variant of the argument is that the imitation of childrenis imperfect: they copy their parents’ speech, but never reproduce it exactly. This is true, but it is also true that such deviations from adult speech are usually corrected in later childhood. Perhaps it is more significant that even adults show a certain amount of random variation in their pronunciation of a given phoneme, even if the phonetic context is kept unchanged. This, however, cannot explain changes in pronunciation unless it can be shown that there is some systematic trend in the failures of imitation: if they are merely random deviations they will cancel one another out and there will be no net change in the language.

E One such force which is often invoked is the principle of ease, or minimization of effort. The change from fussy to fuzzy would be an example of assimilation, which is a very common kind of change. Assimilation is the changing of a sound under the influence of a neighbouring one. For example, the word scant was once skamt, but /m/ has been changed to /n/ under the influence of the following /t/. Greater efficiency has hereby been achieved, because /n/ and /t/ are articulated in the same place (with the tip of the tongue against the teeth-ridge), whereas /m/ is articulated elsewhere (with the two lips). So the place of articulation of the nasal consonant has been changed to conform with that of the following plosive. A more recent example of the same kind of thing is the common pronunciation of football as football.

F Assimilation is not the only way in which we change our pronunciation in order to increase efficiency. It is very common for consonants to be lost at the end of a word: in Middle English, word-final [-n] was often lost in unstressed syllables, so that baken ‘to bake’ changed from [‘ba:kan] to [‘ba:k3],and later to [ba:k]. Consonant-clusters are often simplified. At one time there was a [t] in words like castle and Christmas, and an initial [k] in words like knight and know. Sometimes a whole syllable is dropped out when two successive syllables begin with the same consonant (haplology):

Questions 27-30

Complete the summary below.Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for eachanswer.Write your answers in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet.

The pronunciation of living language undergo changes throughout thousands of years. Large scale regular Changes are usually called 27………………. There are three reasons for these changes. Firstly, the influence of one language on another; when one person imitates another pronunciation(the most prestige’s), the imitation always partly involving factor of 28…………….. . Secondly, the imitation of children from adults’ language sometimes are 29 ………………, and may also contribute to this change if there are there are insignificant deviations tough later they may be corrected. Finally, for those random variations in pronunciation, the deeper evidence lies in the 30 ……………… or minimization of effort.

Questions 31-37

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?In boxes 31-37 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the informationFALSE if the statement contradicts the informationNOT GIVEN If there is no information on this

31 ……………….. It is impossible for modern people to find pronunciation of words in an earlier age32 ………………..The great change of language in Russian history is related to the rising status and fortune of middle classes.33 ……………….. All the children learn speeches from adults while they assume that certain language is difficult to imitate exactly.34 ……………….. Pronunciation with causal inaccuracy will not exert big influence on language changes.35 ……………….. The word scant can be pronounced more easily than skamt36……………….. The [g] in gnat not being pronounced will not be spelt out in the future.37……………….. The sound of ‘temporary’ cannot wholly present its spelling.

Questions 38-40

Look at the following sentences and the list of statements below. Match each statement with the correct sentence, A-D.

Fill in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet with the correct letter, A-D

A Since the speaker can pronounce it with less effort

B Assimilation of a sound under the influence of a neighbouring one

C It is a trend for changes in pronunciation in a large scale in a given period

D Because the speaker can pronounce [n] and [t] both in the same time

38 ……………….. As a consequence, ‘b’ will be pronounced as ‘p’39 ……………….. The pronunciation of [mt] changed to [nt]40 ……………….. The omit of ‘t’ in the sound of Christmas