Reading 2026-05 Test 29 — IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test with Answers

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Reading Passage 1: Mechanisms of Linguistic Change

A The changes that have caused the most disagreement are those in pronunciation. 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 of the 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 few generations or more, we find there are always large-scale regularities in the changes: 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 children is 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 the /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): a recent example is temporary, which in Britain is often pronounced as if it were tempory.

1
Large scale regular Changes are usually called ___________.
2
The imitation always partly involving factor of ___________.
3
The imitation of children from adults' language sometimes are ___________.
4
The deeper evidence lies in the ___________ or minimization of effort.
5
It is impossible for modern people to find pronunciation of words in an earlier age.
- TRUE. TRUE
- FALSE. FALSE
- NOT GIVEN. NOT GIVEN
6
The great change of language in Russian history is related to the rising status and fortune of middle classes.
7
All the children learn speeches from adults while they assume that certain language is difficult to imitate exactly.
8
Pronunciation with causal inaccuracy will not exert big influence on language changes.
9
The word 'scant' can be pronounced more easily than 'skamt'.
10
The [g] in gnat not being pronounced will not be spelt out in the future.
11
The sound of ‘temporary’ cannot wholly present its spelling.
12
As a consequence, ‘b’ will be pronounced as ___________.
- A. Since the speakers 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
13
The pronunciation of [mt] changed to [nt]
14
The omit of ‘t’ in the sound of Christmas

Reading Passage 2: Solving the problem of waste disposal

With the amount of rubbish being produced around the world increasing, Mark Rowe asks whether a new generation of incineration plants can help to solve the problem.

A For many years, burning rubbish has been portrayed as the lazy option when it comes to dealing with the problem of waste disposal, since it sends toxic fumes into the air and appears to support a consumerist, throwaway society. Norway, however, appears to be burning its way through a sizeable chunk of Europe’s municipal waste, using the heat created by this process to warm and power homes in many of its cities. Norway isn’t alone: Germany, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands all burn significant quantities of rubbish, and across Europe there are 420 plants burning municipal waste. With Europe dumping 150 million tonnes of rubbish into landfill every year, there would seem to be a limitless supply.

B Those who support burning waste say that a new generation of incinerators has made it a more attractive option. Filters and scrubbing mechanisms now capture harmful substances such as mercury, hydrochloric acid and heavy metals. According to Ted Michaels, president of the US-based Energy Recovery Centre, ‘There has been constant evolution in combustion engineering and emissions-control technology, and the output from these facilities is now minuscule.’ Above all, however, supporters say that incineration is the only way of preventing the long-term impacts of landfill. In ten years’ time, says the World Bank, humans will be generating 2.2 billion tonnes of solid waste per year. Advocates see incineration as a practical way to deal swiftly with an immediate problem.

C Levels of waste generation vary hugely around the world. ‘It’s a problem for the developed nations,’ says Joergen Fenhann, a senior scientist working with the UN Environment Programme in Denmark. ‘The more you develop, the more you produce, buy and throw away.’ But the growth of incineration hasn’t been universally welcomed. Lars Haltbrekken, chairman of Friends of the Earth in Norway, is concerned that incineration plants appear to generate demand for their services. ‘The problem in Norway,’ he explains, ‘is that we have built too many waste-burning factories. So we’ve ended up importing waste from other countries. If you look at this in a very small perspective, it is, of course, better for the climate to burn rubbish from the UK rather than leave it in landfill there,’ he continues. ‘But in a broader perspective, it’s a lazy way of getting rid of waste; you don’t stimulate the goals of reducing, reusing and recycling.’

D Incineration is also at odds with EU policy, which promotes a ‘recycling hierarchy’: ideally, we simply produce less waste in the first place; failing that, we reuse objects more; the next step is recycling; only then should we consider incineration, while dumping in landfill is the last resort. Dealing with the problem of waste disposal involves tracing the whole process that took the material from its inception to landfill. We used to call this the ‘cradle to grave’ life cycle; now, the talk is of ‘cradle to cradle’ and an even more comprehensive concept known as ‘zero waste’. ‘The philosophy of cradle to cradle is about designing products that are actually good for the environment at the end of their life,’ says Joan Marc Simon, European spokesman for the environmental movement GAIA. ‘You design a bottle that contains no toxins, is fully recyclable and requires the minimum amount of energy to be produced.’ As Simon points out, however, without the right mechanisms in place ‘nothing guarantees that this bottle will end up being properly collected and treated in the appropriate recycling facility’.

E Tim Burns, policy manager at Keep Britain Tidy, says, ‘In the UK alone, people waste £10 billion of food every year. You can argue about composting that, or not buying it in the first place — if you do that, then that’s money the retailers don’t get, so it’s not always clear-cut.’ The implications of zero waste are that we’re going to have to take a good long look at those well-stocked supermarket shelves, too. ‘Supermarkets keep their shelves stocked even when demand isn’t there, which means they have to pay to dispose of a lot of food,’ says Burns. ‘But that cost is less to them than the cost in brand damage of having empty shelves.’

F Recent history and changes in trends in recycling suggest that we should be prepared for unexpected developments. ‘If someone back in the 1980s had suggested what waste would be like now, they would be completely wrong,’ says Richard Fisher, a PhD researcher at Cranfield University. ‘Consumerism has developed at a pace we never expected. Nobody would have said there would be so much electronic waste. But recycling has grown, too — ten years ago nobody would have predicted today’s levels of recycling.’ But he points out that the need to reduce waste is still a difficult message to sell to consumers. He suggests that what people are really concerned about is their loved ones and the future they face. ‘Perhaps we can align the environmental message to these deep-seated values,’ he says. ‘We need to look at whether it’s business that drives consumers or the other way around. You need government to play a leadership role, whereas countries such as the UK seem to be stepping away from the environment in pursuit of short-term economic goals.’

15
Paragraph A
- i. New terminology reflecting changing attitudes to waste disposal
- ii. Fundamental changes in behaviour in the past and future
- iii. Ways of rewarding the public for recycling
- iv. A surprising approach to waste disposal by several countries
- v. Difficult choices for individuals and businesses
- vi. Arguments against incineration from a country that uses it
- vii. A number of justifications for the use of incineration
16
Paragraph B
17
Paragraph C
18
Paragraph D
19
Paragraph E
20
Paragraph F
21
Ted Michaels
- A. Incineration does not encourage responsible attitudes to waste disposal.
- B. Recycling can sometimes create serious problems for the future.
- C. Greater consumerism leads to higher levels of waste.
- D. Proper systems are needed for the recycling of environmentally-friendly products.
- E. Landfill is better for the environment than incineration.
- F. Incineration of waste is now relatively harmless to the environment.
- G. Efforts to reduce waste may affect profits for some types of companies.
22
Joergen Fenhann
23
Joan Marc Simon
24
Tim Burns
25
Complete the summary: There has, for example, been unexpected growth in waste from ______ products. He suggests that the need to protect the environment should be linked to basic values, and adds that it might be better if consumers had more influence over ______ and more direction was provided by ______.

Reading Passage 3: When people are ‘deaf’ to music

Music has long been considered a uniquely human concept. In fact, most psychologists agree that music is a universal human instinct. Like any ability, however, there is great variation in people’s musical competence. For every brilliant pianist in the world, there are several people we refer to as ‘tone deaf’. It is not simply that people with tone deafness (or ‘amusia’) are unable to sing in tune, they are also unable to discriminate between tones or recognize familiar melodies. Such a ‘disorder’ can occur after some sort of brain damage, but recently research has been undertaken in an attempt to discover the cause of congenital amusia (when people are born with the condition), which is not associated with any brain damage, hearing problems, or lack of exposure to music.

According to the research of Dr. Isabelle Peretz of the University of Montreal, amusia is more complicated than the inability to distinguish pitches. An amusic (a person who has the condition of amusia) can distinguish between two pitches that are far apart, but cannot tell the difference between intervals smaller than a half step on the Western diatonic scale, while most people can easily distinguish differences smaller than that. When listening to melodies which have had a single note altered so that it is out of key with the rest of the melody, they do not notice a problem. As would be expected, amusics perform significantly worse at singing and tapping a rhythm along with a melody than do non-amusics.

The most fascinating aspect of amusia is how specific to music it is. Because of music’s close ties to language, it might be expected that a musical impairment may be caused by a language impairment. Studies suggest, however, that language and music ability are independent of one another. People with brain damage in areas critical to language are often still able to sing, despite being unable to communicate through speech. Moreover, while amusics show deficiencies in their recognition of pitch differences in melodies, they show no such deficiencies in tonal languages. Amusics who speak tonal languages, such as Chinese, do not report having any difficulty discriminating between words that differ only in their intonation. The linguistic cues inherent in speech make discrimination of meaning much easier for amusics. Amusics are also successful most of the time at detecting the mood of a melody, can identify a speaker based on his or her voice and can discriminate and identify environmental sounds.

Recent work has been focused on locating the part of the brain that is responsible for amusia. The temporal lobes of the brain, the location of the primary auditory cortex, have been considered. It has long been believed that the temporal lobes, especially the right temporal lobe, are most active when engaged in musical activity, so any musical disability should logically stem from here as well. Because it has been shown that there is no hearing deficit in amusia, researchers moved on to the temporal neocortex, which is where more sophisticated processing of musical cues was thought to take place. New studies, however, have suggested that the deficits in amusics are located outside the auditory cortex. Brain scans of amusics do not show any reaction at all to differences smaller than a half step. When changes in tones are large, their brains overreact, showing twice as much activity on the right side of the brain as a normal brain hearing the same thing. These differences do not occur in the auditory cortex, indicating again that the deficits of amusia lie not in hearing impairment, but in higher processing of melodies.

So what does this all mean? Looking only at the research of Peretz in the field of neuropsychology of music, it would appear that amusia is some sort of disorder. As a student of neurobiology, however, I am skeptical. Certainly the studies by Peretz that have found significant differences between the brains of so-called amusics and normal brains are legitimate. The more important question now becomes one of normality. Every trait from skin color to intelligence to mood exists on a continuum—there is a great deal of variation from one extreme to the other. Just because we recognize that basic musical ability is something that the vast majority of people have, this doesn’t mean that the lack of it is abnormal.

What makes an amusic worse off than a musical prodigy? Musical ability is culturally valued, and may have been a factor in survival at one point in human history, but it does not seem likely that it is being selected for on an evolutionary scale any longer. Darwin believed that music was adaptive as a way of finding a mate, but who needs to be able to sing to find a partner in an age when it is possible to express your emotions through a song on your iPod?

While the idea of amusia is interesting, it seems to be just one end of the continuum of innate musical ability. Comparing this ‘disorder’ to learning disorders like a specific language impairment seems to be going too far. Before amusia can be declared a disability, further research must be done to determine whether lack of musical ability is actually detrimental in any way. If no disadvantages can be found of having amusia, then it is no more a disability than having poor fashion sense or bad handwriting.

26
27 What does the writer tell us about people with tone deafness (amusia) in the first paragraph?
- A. They usually have hearing problems
- B. Some can play a musical instrument very well
- C. Some may be able to sing well-known melodies
- D. They have several inabilities in regard to music
27
28 What is the writer doing in the second paragraph?
- A. outlining some of the factors that cause amusia
- B. summarising some findings about people with amusia
- C. suggesting that people with amusia are disadvantaged
- D. comparing the singing ability of amusics with their sense
28
29 What does the writer say about the relationship between language ability and musical ability?
- A. People who are unable to speak can sometimes sing
- B. People with amusia usually have language problems too
- C. Speakers of tonal languages like Chinese rarely have amusia
- D. People with amusia have difficulty recognizing people by their voices
29
30 In the third paragraph, the writer notes that most amusics are able to
- A. learn how to sing in tune
- B. identify a song by its tune
- C. distinguish a sad tone from a happy tune
- D. recognise when a singer is not singing in tune
30
31 What is the writer doing in the fourth paragraph?
- A. claiming that amusics have problems in the auditory cortex
- B. outlining progress in understanding the brains of amusics
- C. proving that amusia is located in the temporal lobes
- D. explaining why studies of hearing are difficult
31
32 Peretz’s research suggesting that amusia is a disorder is convincing.
32
33 People with musical ability are happier than those without this ability.
33
34 It is inappropriate to consider amusia as a real disorder.
34
35 People with amusia often have bad handwriting.
35
36 The reason why some people are born with amusia is
- A. an inability to hear when spoken language rises and falls.
- B. considered to be desirable.
- C. an inability to follow the beat of music.
- D. not a problem.
- E. not yet well understood.
- F. a result of injury to the mother.
- G. more marked than with other people.
- H. associated with intelligence.
36
37 One of the difficulties amusics experience is
37
38 For amusics, discrimination of meaning in speech is
38
39 Certain reactions in the brain of an amusic are
39
40 In most cultures, musical ability is

Phiếu trả lời

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Hiện đáp án

1. sound laws
The answer is 'sound laws' because the passage says large, regular changes in language are called this.
2. fashion
'Fashion' is correct as the passage explains that imitation always partly involves following trends or fashion.
3. imperfect
'Imperfect' is correct because the passage notes that children’s imitation of adults’ language is sometimes not exact or perfect.
4. principle of ease
The answer is 'principle of ease' since the passage states that deeper evidence for language change lies in making speech easier or minimizing effort.
5. FALSE
The answer is FALSE because the passage says it is possible for modern people to find out how words were pronounced in earlier times.
6. FALSE
The answer is FALSE because the passage does not link the great change in Russian language to the middle class's status and fortune.
7. NOT GIVEN
The answer is NOT GIVEN as the passage does not state that all children learn speech from adults while assuming some language is hard to imitate.
8. TRUE
The answer is TRUE because the passage says that small mistakes in pronunciation do not have a big effect on language change.
9. TRUE
The answer is TRUE as the passage explains that 'scant' is easier to pronounce than 'skamt'.
10. NOT GIVEN
The answer is NOT GIVEN because the passage does not say if the silent [g] in 'gnat' will be left out in future spelling.
11. TRUE
The answer is TRUE since the passage says the sound of ‘temporary’ does not fully match its spelling.
12. C
C is correct because the passage says this is a trend for large-scale pronunciation changes; A is tempting but does not fit the context of large-scale trends.
13. B
B is correct as the passage explains this change is due to assimilation, where a sound changes because of a neighboring sound.
14. A
A is correct because the passage says omitting 't' in 'Christmas' happens because it is easier for speakers.
15. iv
iv is correct as Paragraph A describes surprising ways several countries deal with waste.
16. vii
vii is correct because Paragraph B lists reasons for using incineration.
17. vi
vi is correct as Paragraph C gives arguments against incineration from a country that uses it.
18. i
i is correct because Paragraph D discusses new words that show changing attitudes to waste.
19. v
v is correct as Paragraph E talks about difficult choices for people and businesses.
20. ii
ii is correct because Paragraph F discusses big changes in behavior in the past and future.
21. F
F is correct because Ted Michaels says incineration is now relatively harmless to the environment.
22. C
C is correct as Joergen Fenhann links greater consumerism to more waste.
23. D
D is correct because Joan Marc Simon says proper systems are needed to recycle eco-friendly products.
24. G
G is correct as Tim Burns mentions that reducing waste can affect some companies' profits.
25. electronic / business / government
The answers are 'electronic', 'business', and 'government' because the passage says waste from electronic products has grown, and suggests linking environmental protection to business and government action.
26. D
D is correct because the passage says people with amusia have several problems with music, not just one.
27. B
B is correct as the writer summarizes findings about people with amusia in the second paragraph.
28. A
A is correct because the passage says some people who cannot speak can still sing, showing a difference between language and musical ability; C is tempting but not supported.
29. C
C is correct as most amusics can tell the difference between a sad and happy tune, even if they cannot sing in tune.
30. B
B is correct because the fourth paragraph outlines progress in understanding the brains of people with amusia.
31. NO
NO is correct because the passage suggests Peretz’s research is not fully convincing.
32. NOT GIVEN
NOT GIVEN is correct as the passage does not compare happiness of people with and without musical ability.
33. YES
YES is correct because the passage says it is not right to call amusia a real disorder.
34. NOT GIVEN
NOT GIVEN is correct since the passage does not mention handwriting and amusia.
35. E
E is correct because the passage says the reason some people are born with amusia is not yet well understood.
36. C
C is correct as the passage says amusics have trouble following the beat of music.
37. D
D is correct because the passage says amusics do not have problems understanding meaning in speech.
38. G
G is correct as the passage says certain brain reactions are stronger in amusics than in others.
39. B
B is correct because the passage says musical ability is considered desirable in most cultures.

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Reading Passage 1: Mechanisms of Linguistic Change

Reading Passage 2: Solving the problem of waste disposal

Reading Passage 3: When people are ‘deaf’ to music

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