23 BÀI TẬP CHUYÊN ĐỀ IELTS READING VIEWPOINT QUESTIONS - QUAN ĐIỂM TÁC GIẢ (PHẦN 1)

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Bài tập thuộc chương trình học của lớp IELTS READING ONLINE 1 KÈM 1 của IELTS TUTOR

You are advised to spend about 15 minutes on the following passage.

It's been 90 years since Britain's first and only woman Nobel Prize winner. Why, asks Julia Higgins.

This year marks the anniversary of a unique event in UK science. It is 40 years since Dorothy Hodgkin won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry and became the only British woman so far to win the ultimate accolade in science.

Her achievement was all the more remarkable because she was afflicted for most of her life by severe rheumatoid arthritis and because her work was carried when few women were able to pursue successful careers in the laboratory. Four decades on, is it any easier for women to break through the glass ceiling in science?

Hodgkin (1910-1994) received the Nobel in 1964 for her discovery of the structure of vitamin B₁₂, four years after becoming a professor at the University of Oxford. She was one of only a handful of women occupying chairs in British science.

Today, there are a few more women in the upper echelons of academic science, but progress has been slow. In Hodgkin's discipline, chemistry, only 15 of the 385 full-time university professors are female, while women hold fewer than one in 10 of the 880 chairs in the biosciences and only one in 30 of the 450 in physics. Representation of women is better lower down the hierarchy, with nearly one in three full-time university lecturers in the biosciences being women, and more than one in six in chemistry.

These figures provide a startling indication that women are still much less likely than their male contemporaries to join the ranks of the scientific elite in universities. Why is this?

Overt discrimination against women in the workplace is now all but stamped out, thanks to changes reinforced through equal opportunity legislation. However, being a member of a minority at work has less obvious challenges. It can be more difficult to have your achievements recognised by male peers, and making those influential contacts with established senior figures who can help your career can be daunting. Often what you need most is a supportive mentor who can help guide you round the obstacles on your career path.

It was the recognition of these hurdles that partly led to the launch in 1999 of the Athena project, a UK initiative to significantly increase the number of women recruited to the top academic posts in science. By working with universities on staff development, mentoring and networking schemes for women, Athena is helping to embed best practice in science departments.

The project is having an increasing impact. But, it is perhaps surprising that it is being limited by a lack of recognition that many of the same hurdles facing women in university departments occur elsewhere in universities. The low number of women in senior positions is often thought of as a 'science problem', but things are not much better elsewhere.

For instance, men outnumber women by more than seven to one in professorships in the humanities at UK universities and by more than six to one in social studies.

Women may be more prevalent in senior positions in these subjects than in the sciences, but it is clear they are still severely under-represented. The truth is that too few universities are doing enough to improve career development and support for female staff across all disciplines. This is hampering the many good efforts in science.

More women are junior postdoctoral researchers than in Hodgkin's day, and it is hoped many of these may eventually go on to swell the ranks of professors in science. But experience shows women tend to leak out of the pipeline in disproportionately high numbers at this stage. In recognition of the additional difficulties, the Royal Society in 1995 launched a fellowship scheme, named after Hodgkin, specifically targeted at junior postdoctoral researchers. The scheme is open to both men and women, but its support for flexible working and built-in mentoring means it has proved particularly popular among women, with all but one of the current 47 posts filled by female researchers.

It aims to provide a vital early step in developing an independent research career, with current holders across the full spectrum of subjects, from mathematics to biology. With this early opportunity, and further nurturing throughout their careers, we may yet see one day another female Nobel Prize winner emerging from their midst. (734 words)

Question 1 - 10

Do the following statements reflect the views of the writer in the reading passage? Choose:
YES if the statement agrees with the writer's view;

NO if the statement contradicts the writer's view;

NOT GIVEN if the statement does not reflect the writer's view.

1. Ms. Dorothy Hodgkin won her Nobel Prize for Chemistry 40 years ago.

Answer:.......................................................................................................
2. Considering her physical condition and research environment, Ms. Dorothy Hodgkin's achievement was extraordinary. Answer:.......................................................................................................
3. Few women were able to do science jobs in the laboratory successfully.

Answer:.......................................................................................................

4. More women are at the top of British science now than in the 1950s and 1960s.

Answer:.......................................................................................................

5. Women are performing better as university lecturers in the fields of biology and chemistry.

Answer:.......................................................................................................

6. Equal opportunity legislation helps strengthen the discrimination against females.

Answer:.......................................................................................................

7. The lack of the authority's promotion proves to be a hurdle over women in the professional development.

Answer:.......................................................................................................
8. Different disciplines should have different ratio of senior positions for female staff.
Answer:.......................................................................................................
9. The more women continue their postdoctoral research, the better chance they will get to squeeze into the rank of professorship in the university.

Answer:.......................................................................................................

10. Consistent nurturing across the full spectrum of subjects is vital for the emergence of another female Nobel Prize winner.

Answer:.......................................................................................................

You are advised to spend about 15 minutes on the following passage.

It is not enough to fight social exclusion. The government should now focus on inequality.

It may seem a surprising admission for a social exclusion minister, but I have always worried whether social inclusion was really the right social justice goal for a Labour government. We must target help on groups excluded from mainstream society, who often face the greatest deprivation. But there are also many children across Britain living in close families and strong communities who suffer disadvantage and are denied opportunity.

Don't get me wrong. Tackling social exclusion is a difficult and vital challenge. And impressive progress has been made — as we set out in the latest report published today by the Social Exclusion Unit (SEU). But the unit's work on the causes of deprivation and the challenges ahead makes clear that we cannot simply promote a communitarian notion of inclusion. We have to tackle long-term inherited inequalities too.

Already the unit has fundamentally changed the terms of the debate. Remember when Sir George Young, then a Conservative cabinet minister, described the homeless as 'the sort of people you step over on the way out of the opera?' Or when Peter Lilley, then a social security secretary, vilified lone parents while presiding over a steady upward march of child poverty? Such statements would be politically unacceptable today, even from front bench Tories.

Life for thousands of families has been transformed. Rough sleeping is down by two thirds, thousands of lone parents have been helped by the New Deal, and child poverty is falling. Education and employment gaps between deprived districts and the rest are starting to narrow. Academic analysis shows that the investment in public services since 1997, as well as tax and benefit changes, has provided the greatest help to those with low incomes. New programmes have concentrated on addressing the root causes of social exclusion in poverty and unemployment, on the importance of the early years in widening opportunities, and the need to strengthen disadvantaged communities and neighbourhoods.

But child poverty remains a significant problem. Bangladeshi and Pakistani households are still three times more likely to be stuck on loss incomes. Though unemployment has fallen to record lows, new SEU research finds people living in the most deprived streets are 23 times more likely to be jobless than in the most affluent streets.

Now is not the time to pull back from investment in tackling disadvantage. Tory frontbenchers may recoil from the statements of their predecessors, wrapping themselves in the robes of compassionate conservatism. But their plans for a 5% cut in investment in housing and regeneration, Sure Start, and abolishing the New Deal would do just as much damage. Instead, this year's spending review must again champion the fight against injustice and exclusion. That is why the SEU is working with departments to audit spending review plans for their impact on social exclusion, deprivation and wider inequality. Today's SEU report strengthens the case for going beyond inclusion and taking a wider interpretation of the unit's work and the government's goals.

Inequalities still cascade from one generation to the next. Teenagers in Castleford, in my constituency, now expect to avoid long-term unemployment when they leave school. But they still stand a much lower chance of getting good qualifications, high-paid work, or even living to the age of 80, than those growing up in a leafy Surrey suburb. They aren't socially excluded, but they aren't getting a fair deal either. Inclusion alone can't tackle these inherited class injustices. In the last few decades of the 20^th Century, inherited disadvantage got worse, not better. Poverty in childhood for those born in 1970 was more likely to lead to poverty in adulthood compared with those born in 1958. Turning those trends around is no mean task. Though we have made a start, it is too early to measure the impact of Labour's policies since 1997 on breaking the link between parents' lives and children's chances.

We need to sustain the focus on the root causes of exclusion — unemployment, poverty and early childhood opportunities. New programmes address inequalities as well as inclusion. So the 'new localism' approach to devolving power to local communities needs to strengthen deprived areas, not leave them behind. New public health policies need to support those on low income, not just make the middle classes healthier. Expanding early years provision needs to reach disadvantaged families as a priority.

As we draw up government spending plans and party manifestoes, the issues in today's report should be at the centre of the debate. If we are to achieve social justice in the next generation, we have to tackle inequality as well as exclusion. (779 words)

Questions 1-10
Do the following statements reflect the views of the writer in the reading passage? Choose:
YES if the statement agrees with the writer's view;

NO if the statement contradicts the writer's view;

NOT GIVEN if the statement does not reflect the writer's view.

1. More progress needs to be made in tackling social exclusion.
Answer:......................................................................................
2. The homeless are the people who sleep on the street outside the grand opera house.

Answer:......................................................................................
3. Because it is falling, child poverty should no longer be the focus of the social workers.
Answer:......................................................................................
4. People in wealthy communities enjoy more work opportunities.

Answer:......................................................................................

5. It is unwise to decrease the investment in housing and regeneration.

Answer:......................................................................................
6. SEU, together with the relevant government departments, is attempting to review the reason of inequalities from one generation to the next.

Answer:......................................................................................
7. More school leavers are now willing to work but it is hard for them to get steady jobs.

Answer:......................................................................................
8. Social exclusion is the key to understanding the inherited class injustices.

Answer:......................................................................................
9. Parents' lives and children's chances are closely correlated.
Answer:......................................................................................
10. People in deprived areas are more afraid of being left behind than left out.

Answer:......................................................................................

You are advised to spend about 15 minutes on the following passage.

Brendan Gormley on why aid agencies must raise money to prevent humanitarian emergencies, not just respond to them.

In the first three months of the United Nations' 2003 Iraq appeal, donor governments raised nearly $2bn (£1.1bn) — $74 for every person in the country. In comparison, the Democratic Republic of Congo — where an estimated 3 million people have lost their lives in years of conflict — has received only $17 per person.

It is a dilemma of humanitarian aid that high-profile emergencies tend to receive more aid than those situations where people suffer far from the media spotlight. The 'war on terror' has deepened the gap. There are needs in Iraq. But appeals for aid for countries such as Liberia or Sudan often receive scant attention from donor countries.

It is not the only dilemma facing humanitarian agencies in an age where technology has shrunk the world, but failed to rid it of inequality, conflict, hunger, disease and disaster. How should humanitarian agencies operate? Does aid reach those in need? Do we know where those most in need are?

These are not new dilemmas. This year, the Disasters Emergency Committee, (DEC), which coordinates fund-raising for 12 leading aid, relief and humanitarian agencies in Britain, is marking 40 years of winning public support to help victims of wars and natural disasters. In those 40 years, almost £500m has been raised from the public for those distant victims.

One problem we grapple with continually is: how do we raise public awareness of the crisis faced by those living in impoverished countries? And, crucially, how do we do this before these chronic crises become full-blown emergencies in which people die? The potential for a famine is not often considered newsworthy. But a famine is. Yet, humanitarian agencies know that famines need not happen. They can be averted if the world is made aware of them and action is taken early.

Early warning systems now exist, but are often ignored or played down by decision-makers, as happened in Malawi in early 2002. The DEC and its member agencies are vulnerable to being damned if we do appeal and damned if we don't, either seeming to exaggerate the situation or to be ignoring it.

There is a tension between the time it takes to mobilise public compassion and the ability to mount a timely and appropriate emergency response. Little attention and resource is given to prevention and mitigation, yet we know this is the most cost-effective way of dealing with disasters. Prevention is better and cheaper than cure.

It is a constant struggle, for, sadly, the world has learned to tolerate — in large parts of Africa especially — very high levels of chronic malnutrition and collapsed services, where small climatic shocks or poor policies can have dramatic effects on the lives of the poor.

The DEC sets itself high standards, based on adherence to a set of principles and codes of best practice, collective action, accountability both to beneficiary and donor and investment in lesson learning. And it is the latter that is perhaps the most essential. It is built on independently commissioned evaluations of each disaster response.

The latest evaluation, of the DEC's Southern Africa Crisis Appeal, was encouraging. The independent evaluators concluded that the appeal was justified, that lives were prolonged and suffering averted.

It also said the complexity of the underlying problems of the region means there are big opportunities to learn from this new kind of preventative appeal. The link between the devastating HIV/AIDS epidemic and food security, for one, adds new complexities to an already difficult situation. No disaster is identical. But with each one we can add to our increasing fount of knowledge so that when a new disaster strikes, we might save — and rebuild — more lives.

Ideally, of course, we would prefer to act before disaster strikes — as we did in southern Africa. And ultimately, we would like it if our work ensured that, through the alleviation of poverty across the world, people were able to deal with their own problems without our help. Our aim is to make ourselves redundant.

But redundancy is a long way off. Until then, we have to raise money independently of governments, so we can act on the basis of need — irrespective of whether politicians are willing to pitch in. We need to raise awareness so governments cannot claim they didn't know there was a crisis. And we need to keep learning. (740 words)

Questions 1 - 10
Do the following statements reflect the views of the writer in the reading passage? Choose:
YES if the statement agrees with the writer's view;

NO if the statement contradicts the writer's view;

NOT GIVEN if the statement does not reflect the writer's view.

1. Iraq people received nearly four times as much aid as the people in Congo.

Answer:.............................................................................................................
2. Because of the publicity, Iraq people deserve more humanitarian aid.

Answer:.................................................................................................................
3. The war on Iraq launched by America has improved on the aid situation there.

Answer:.................................................................................................................
4. Humanitarian agencies should be more aware of the issue of equality.

Answer:............................................................................................................
5. The main task of the Disasters Emergency Committee is to help the people avoid a famine.

Answer:................................................................................................................
6. Early warning systems have been operating in Malawi since 1992.

Answer:...........................................................................................................

7. The world should accept Africa's high-level malnutrition and collapsed service.

Answer:...........................................................................................................
8. More funds ought to be spent on the lesson learning, namely, the evaluation of disasters.

Answer:...........................................................................................................
9. More and more HIV/AIDS makes it difficult to implement the preventative measures.

Answer:...........................................................................................................
10. The ideal of the humanitarian agencies is to find themselves no longer needed by the world.

Answer:...........................................................................................................

Bài tập thuộc chương trình học của lớp IELTS READING ONLINE 1 KÈM 1 của IELTS TUTOR

You are advised to spend about 15 minutes on the following passage.

The constitution of the world's most complex international organisation — the United Nations — fits easily into my jacket pocket. The constitution of one of the world's oldest and most successful democracies — the United States — would fit neatly into the other pocket. I do not have a pocket big enough for what passes as the constitution — 'the consolidated Treaties' — of the European Union.

Size is important. The smaller the better when it comes to constitutions. But size tells another, more important story — that of coherence. The UN charter is a genuinely good read for those interested. It sets out in logical form the purposes and principles of the organisation, its structure and its powers. The US constitution is similarly composed.

Both of these constitutions meet the standards set by this newspaper's most famous editor, Walter Bagehot, that they should 'excite and preserve the reverence of the population' and contain the efficient parts — those by which it, in fact, works and rules'.

While the practical achievements of the EU have been profound, the Union's treaties fail almost every test of clarity and brevity: 165 pages long, plus another 90 pages in the yet to be ratified Treaty of Nice. As for Bagehot's idea of excitement, forget it. There's no point reading the EU treaties in the hope of illumination. For a start, there is not one constitution, but two. One 'on European union', the other 'establishing the European community'. What's the difference? Although 'union' implies a more closely-knit organisation than 'community', the union treaty deals mainly with inter-governmental matters - defence, foreign policy and home affairs, whilst the community treaty deals with the core economic business of the customs union and single market, and so on. But both have overlapping preambles with 'objectives', 'tasks' and 'principles'. As for the institutional arrangements, they are shared between the two treaties. These complex texts make the case for a single, coherent constitution for the EU. The Convention on the Future of Europe, meeting under the chairmanship of former French President Valery Giscard d' Estaing, is currently debating the idea, with a view to making recommendations for a new draft treaty to be considered by an inter-governmental conference in 2004.

What should the new constitution look like? The minimal requirement is for the two current texts to be merged into one, and put in a logical order - purposes, principles, then organs and institutions - the 'why' and the 'how' first, then the 'what' in terms of broad policies, after that. But there's a much bigger point here. The very complexity of EU constitutional law is not just a matter of drafting but is indicative of serious shortcomings in the way the Union works. As last year's Laeken declaration made clear, real reform is urgently needed.

Any new text should answer the basic questions about the Union which have characterised the debate in the UK for the past three decades. It should set out the EU's mission in simple language, clarify for befuddled voters the role and responsibilities of its institutions, and draw a clear distinction between supranational and national competencies. The constitution should start with just a few lines, setting out what the EU is - a union of sovereign states who have decided to pool some of that sovereignty, and it is better to secure peace and prosperity in Europe and the wider world. It should confirm that the Union exercises only those powers which are explicitly and freely conferred on it by the member states, which remain the EU's primary sources of democratic legitimacy. The treaty should celebrate the lights citizens enjoy and the core values they live by. The text should then set out the roles of the EU's institutions. And here, the reality is that in an EU of 25 member states or more, each of the three main institutions - the council, the commission and the parliament needs to be strengthened.

Let me begin with the councils which represent the national governments. The European Council should set the strategic agenda for the Union. But one of the problems with delivery has been that - unlike the commission which is appointed for five years - there are musical chairs every six months in the European Council and the Councils of Ministers. The presidency switches from one country to the next. This stop-go comes at the expense of consistency and efficiency. I therefore support Jacques Chirac 's proposal for a full-time president of the European Council, chosen by and accountable to the heads of government. He or she would serve for several years, overseeing delivery of the Union's strategic agenda and communicating a sense of purpose to Europe's citizens.

For the functional councils, there should be 'team presidencies' whereby a group of member states would each chair, say, two of the councils for two to three years. At the same time, the six-monthly rotation for countries to be 'vice-presidents', hosting informal ministerial meetings — an important showcase for the EU, should continue. (824 words)

Question 1 - 10
Do the following statements reflect the views of the writer in the reading passage? Choose:
YES if the statement agrees with the writer's view;

NO if the statement contradicts the writer's view;

NOT GIVEN if the statement does not reflect the writer's view.

1. A lengthy and fuzzy constitution may interfere with people's rights.
Answer:.....................................................................................................
2. The UN charter and the US constitution set a good model for the EU to follow.
Answer:.....................................................................................................
3. A good wording of a constitution should be precise and exciting.
Answer:.....................................................................................................
4. A clear distinction must be drawn between union and community in terms of constitution.
Answer:.....................................................................................................
5. The verbosity and murkiness of the EU constitution leads to the current operation of the Union.

Answer:.....................................................................................................
6. Under the EU constitution, the national supremacy of the member states should be removed.

Answer:.....................................................................................................
7. As EU has 25 member states now, there should be more governing institutions.

Answer:.....................................................................................................

8. The citizens' rights and their core values must be embodied in the new constitution.

Answer:.....................................................................................................
9. A functional council is one with more authorised powers to take necessary actions.

Answer:.....................................................................................................
10. The informal ministerial meeting is an important occasion to discuss urgent issues.

Answer:.....................................................................................................

You are advised to spend about 15 minutes on the following passage.

Speakers of English as an International Language must claim it for themselves, argues Jennifer Jenkins.

The international spread of English is now taken for granted. Less widely acknowledged are the controversial implications of this spread, especially in terms of the Englishes that have resulted from it. At one extreme we have what Barbara Seidlhofer criticises as the 'FawIty Towers' attitude to the English of its non-native speakers: 'fawIty' merely because it differs in certain ways from the English of British and American native speakers.

At the other extreme we have what could be called the 'lvory Towers' attitude, held by a number of academics such as Peter Lowenberg. They take the view that language evolution, a natural and inevitable process, is currently affecting English as an International Language (ElL) in precisely the same ways in which it has always affected English as a Native language (ENL), and that the resulting changes cannot be dismissed as 'errors'.

The 'Fawlty Towers' view is, unfortunately, by far the most prevalent, and has given rise to numerous misinterpretations of the nature and functions of the English of its EIL speakers. The first concerns the word 'international' itself. This word acquires a very specific meaning in many people's minds whenever it is used in conjunction with the word 'language'. Despite the fact that other languages, such as Spanish, have international status, the assumption tends to be that international language = English language.

Second, the English that people generally have in mind is not any variety of English, and not even any native speaker variety, but only standard British and standard American English – varieties that are spoken by very small percentages of the world's (roughly) 2 billion English speakers. In other words, ENL (of the British and American kind) is regarded as the only legitimate version of English, whether we are talking of the idealised English used as a yardstick in much Second Language Acquisition research, or of the 'real' English found in native-speaker corpora. Both kinds, of course, are used worldwide to provide models in teaching materials.

The result is that learners in Hong Kong, Poznan, Tokyo, etc. – who are most likely to use their English with other non-native speakers – are being taught varieties of English that are more appropriate to conversation among native speakers in Brighton or Baltimore.

Third, the direct consequence of the 'international = English = standard British/ American English' assumption is that native speakers of English are lauded as the best teachers of EIL and given priority in the jobs market. Advertisements regularly request 'Native Speakers' whether overtly or covertly (for example, by specifying holders ( of British passports).

'Nativeness', it seems, is all. This inevitably affects the attitudes of the local non-native teachers and, in turn, their students. Even those, such as Japanese students, who perceive that they need English primarily for international communication and international understanding, also believe that their goal should be to sound as much like a native speaker as possible, and regard non-native varieties as deficient.

To avoid the 'problem' of speaking with a non-native accent, EIL learners may be offered extreme solutions such as 'therapy' (by a language school in Japan) and tongue surgery (in South Korea). An extreme result of the misinterpretation of EIL, then, is the implication that people who do not speak a native variety of English suffer from either a psychological or physical deficiency.

Further misinterpretations of EIL can be found in 'sugarcoated' approaches to the subject. The term 'sugarcoated' was coined by Ayako Suzuki, who is researching attitudes to EIL at King's College London. By 'sugarcoated EIL', she means the English advocated by those who claim allegiance to the concept of EIL but who, beneath the sugarcoating, are in fact promoting native-speaker norms. In effect, theirs is simply another version of 'international = English = standard British/America English'. The only difference is that whereas supporters of 'English-Only' or 'Speak Good English' campaigns openly promote native-speaker norms, advocates of sugars coated EIL seem to be unaware that they, too, are doing so. This sort of EIL goes under various names such as 'World Standard English', 'World Standard Spoken English', 'International English', 'Literate English', and so on.

On closer examination, these so-called international varieties are in fact ENL in disguise; they are not based on empirical evidence from the world's majority of English speakers (i.e. non-natives) and they therefore provide, as Suresh Canagarajah points out, 'ideological and economic advantages to centre communities'.

These — and similar — misinterpretations of EIL would not be rectified until there is a change of attitude towards non-native ways of speaking English as widespread as the English language itself. Languages develop, as Salikoko Mufwene demonstrates, through contact and accommodation. Mufwene argues that we are not justified in regarding English language contact involving native speakers as natural and acceptable, but that involving non-native speakers as being in some way contaminated. There is no good reason to talk of the results of L1-L2 contact as 'L1 interference' (or at best 'L1 transfer') when whole swathes of non-native speakers routinely use these forms in EIL contexts and understand each other with ease.

Until the major examination boards tackle and resolve such issues, however, there is unlikely to be any change. For example, as Fred Davidson pointed out over 10 years ago: 'The determination of what is and is not an error is in the hands of the linguistic variety that sets the test. Error is very much controlled by those in power.' For the time being, then, we have EIL in theory but not in practice and it remains 'business as usual'. (933 words)

Questions 1-10

Do the following statements reflect the views of the writer in the reading passage? Choose:
YES if the statement agrees with the writer's view;

NO if the statement contradicts the writer's view;

NOT GIVEN if the statement does not reflect the writer's view.

1. Different versions of English reveal the inevitable trend of globalisation.

Answer:........................................................................................................

2. The 'Fawlty Towers' attitude and the 'Ivory Towers' attitude are opposite views about the adaptation of the English language.

Answer:........................................................................................................

3. English teaching materials generally model on British and American English.

Answer:........................................................................................................

4. Physical therapy is offered to help people speak better native English.

Answer:........................................................................................................ 
5. 'Sugarcoated' approaches prefer various names such as 'World Standard English' or `International English', etc. Answer:........................................................................................................
6. English as an International Language should be interpreted as English as a Native Language.

Answer:........................................................................................................
7. Non-native speakers' daily use of English should be considered while considering language errors.

Answer:........................................................................................................
8. English examinations should change to accommodate the changing situation of the English language use.

Answer:........................................................................................................
9. Nativeness overwhelmingly dominates the language teaching field.
Answer:........................................................................................................
10. ENL and EIL will merge as a new version of language in the years ahead.

Answer:........................................................................................................

Bài tập thuộc chương trình học của lớp IELTS READING ONLINE 1 KÈM 1 của IELTS TUTOR

You are advised to spend about 15 minutes on the following passage.

Life-saving drugs must be developed differently - for all our sakes.

Innovation can be a driving force for improving public welfare. Nowhere is this more stark than in the creation of drugs to treat fatal diseases. If you have the drug you live; without it you die. Whether you have the drug depends on two issues: has it been developed, and if so, do you have access to it? The conflict between these issues revolves around how to stimulate innovation and how to pay for it. It is exemplified by the issue of access to AIDS drugs and is one of the most contentious issues of international economic policy and law.

Drugs are cheap to manufacture, but expensive to develop. Much of the underlying research comes out of academic institutions funded by government grants. Much of the development work is by pharmaceutical companies, which will not invest in research and development without incentives: in this case the patent system, which rewards a company that develops a successful drug with a 20-year marketing monopoly.

Allowing monopolies leads to bad side effects and drugs are no exception. The economic incentive is the freedom to charge what the market will stand, and invest in what gives the highest return, rather than in what maximises health care benefits. In developing countries, life-saving medicines are priced beyond the reach of most people, a morally offensive outcome. Huge publicity surrounds specific negotiated price reductions, yet the effect on the overall access problem is tiny. But it's not just an issue in the developing world.

Governments and health insurers are finding ways to deny access to the newest and priciest products — in the US and other countries without a universal public health system, the uninsured cannot afford the newest medicines. Less well known are the huge inefficiencies of the existing system. Only about 10% of the price of a drug goes to pay for research on new products, and three quarters of new drugs have no significant therapeutic benefit over existing treatments, implying that perhaps only 2%-3% of the money collected from drug sales is spent on developing medicines better than the ones we already have.

If the existing system were the only way to encourage innovation, it would be sensible to tolerate it, as we would all eventually benefit. However, we believe that it is possible and practical to implement an alternative system that would reduce drug prices and drive investment into innovations that actually address health priorities.

On January 1, 2005, the Trips agreement on intellectual property rights will come into force in most World Trade Organisation countries. It is an unbalanced treaty, based solely on enforcing patent rights worldwide as a mechanism to reward innovation.

We believe the way forward is to modify Trips in health care to require countries to maintain a GDP-related contribution to research and development, while being free to choose how they finance it. New methods of research — such as non-profit collaboration or prizes for exceptional ideas — would allow innovation to be rewarded directly, removing the need for marketing monopolies, and allow competition. Drugs could then be sold close to the cost of manufacture. The mechanisms to implement this would be far cheaper than the current system, which increases global prices by at least $300bn (£160bn) a year.

Evidence that alternative business models can support innovation comes from a variety of areas including open-source software development, the human genome project and open-access publishing. Last year, 69 respected scientists and economists wrote to the World Intellectual Property Organisation, a UN agency, asking that alternatives such as collaborative open models be considered. Yet the developed world continues to resist change. It is hard to avoid the suspicion that the dogged advocacy of intellectual property law as the only way to stimulate innovation is more about maintaining world economic power than anything else. But this is short-sighted. Although the developed world leads in patent applications owing to its science base, the developing world will catch up, and there is evidence that the rise in the number of patents is starting to inhibit innovation itself. It would be more sensible to develop worldwide policies that encourage and reward innovation, while allowing competitors to build on each others' ideas, and protecting consumers from unreasonable prices.

Supporting the existing policy direction for drugs is indefensible, especially after the November 2001 Doha declaration of the WTO that health was more important than intellectual property. Extending marketing monopolies on medicines worldwide prevents the very competition that reduces prices and increases access to life-saving medicines. In the face of other successful models to support innovation, we can no longer claim we have no choice. Perhaps we should ask ourselves if laws that restrict use of knowledge and thereby cause unnecessary death are really weapons of mass destruction. (801 words)

Question 1-10

Do the following statements reflect the views of the writer in the reading passage? Choose:
YES if the statement agrees with the writer's view;

NO if the statement contradicts the writer's view;

NOT GIVEN if the statement does not reflect the writer's view.

1. The creation of drugs is closely related to the international economic policy and law.

Answer:..........................................................................................................................
2. More funds are spent on the research and development of drugs than on the production of drugs.
Answer:..........................................................................................................................
3. Both pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions invest in new drugs.

Answer:..........................................................................................................................
4. Marketing monopolies are the cause of the high price of many life-saving medicines.

Answer:..........................................................................................................................
5. Government and medical insurance companies should afford newest medicines to the patients.

Answer:..........................................................................................................................
6. The costs of the research and development of new medicines need to be shared by countries according to their wealthy status.

Answer:..........................................................................................................................
7. Without the protection of the patent, the new drug competition will be destroyed.

Answer:..........................................................................................................................
8. The human genome project is an example of non-profit collaboration.

Answer:..........................................................................................................................
9. The developed world has more patent applications because of its powerful science base.

Answer:..........................................................................................................................
10. The existing policy of new drugs is maintained because of the lack of other measures to stimulate the new drug development.

Answer: ..........................................................................................................................

Bài tập thuộc chương trình học của lớp IELTS READING ONLINE 1 KÈM 1 của IELTS TUTOR

You are advised to spend about 10 minutes on the following passage.

Everyone has memories of lumpy custard and cold chips at school. Yet there is a remarkable amount of evidence about the benefits children derive from having a good meal at lunchtime.

Studies have shown that there is not only a strong link between nutrition and learning, but also that diet often has a profound effect on children's social skills, behaviour and self-esteem. This is why I believe it's time that the issue of free school meals, particularly at primary school, was debated properly.

But before my colleagues at the Treasury pick up the phone to tell me that they can't give such spending commitments, I would like to emphasise that this is about giving an important issue the debate it deserves. While I was discussing this article with fellow MPs recently, a well-known and popular minister cringed when she recalled the nightmare of lunchtime meals at her school. Although it's easy to deride school dinners in retrospect, they stopped children from going hungry and also provided many with their only nutritious meal of the day. A nourishing meal prepared on a shoestring budget is better than no meal at all.

For many children there is great social stigma attached to being one of the 1.8 million eligible for free school meals. Research suggests that some children do not take the meal they are entitled to simply to avoid being ridiculed by their classmates. The minister I talked to has a vivid recollection of being made to stand at the back of the queue with the other 'free' children.

But I don't think this is an insurmountable problem. If all children are entitled to a free meal, some of that stigma will be taken away.

The science suggests that children who do not skip lunch find it easier to concentrate on lessons, are less likely to suffer hunger pangs and headaches and are more likely to be better behaved both inside and outside the classroom. Even amongst children in young offender institutions, there is a strong link between diet and behaviour. Overall, the evidence emphatically shows that children who get a good meal at lunchtime will be easier to teach and will achieve better grades.

This evidence has led Hull city council to take an innovative approach to raising standards in its schools. Hull is proposing to give all children in its grant-maintained schools a lunchtime meal. This is on top of a programme already in operation that provides breakfast to children who want it and gives children the option of fresh fruit if they stay after school, for example, to do homework or play sport.

While it's obviously too early to judge the success of the scheme, Hull has high hopes. If they can tackle children's nutrition, the benefits could be reaped in terms of improved health as well as higher attendance and attainment in Hull schools.

At the moment, Hull's secondary schools are amongst the worst performing in England at GCSE level, while its primary schools are of average performance. The risk and cost of piloting a free meals programme could pay back many times over if the impact is great enough.

Of course, the idea of free school meals is about more than just helping children to get good grades. It's also about instilling a culture of healthy eating. Everyone wants to get away from the culture of burgers and chips, but you don't do that by forcing children to eat a plate of over-cooked sprouts. Hull and many other councils I are working on menus that will wean their pupils off junk food and teach them to eat healthily.

We can also learn from our European partners. In Italy, France, Denmark, Sweden, Austria and Germany, children are provided with highly nutritional meals, much of it organic and many of them provided free of charge.

And in Finland, children receive their free lunch as part of a programme that teaches them how to eat healthily. So I was heartened to hear that members of the Health Select Committee are planning a trip to see what lessons can be learned from Finland, and I look forward to hearing the outcome.

I am well aware that being the MP who was christened 'two dinners' Watson by Tribune and calling for free school meals for all does open me up to a lot of mickey-taking. But I think the potential benefits of a programme of free school meals are so great that we cannot afford to ignore it. Let the debate begin. (754 words)

Question 1-8

Do the statements on the next page reflect the views of the writer in the reading passage? Choose:
YES if the statement agrees with the writer's view;

NO if the statement contradicts the writer's view;

NOT GIVEN if the statement does not reflect the writer's view.

1. It is important to supply enough nutrition at lunch for school children.

Answer:.................................................................................................
2. In the past, free school meals were supplied at primary schools by the local government.

Answer:.................................................................................................
3. A lady minister mockingly recalled the meals she had at her school days.

Answer:.................................................................................................
4. A free school meal helps relieve some children of peer pressures.

Answer:.................................................................................................
5. The budget problem of providing free meals cannot be solved by the local city councils.

Answer: .................................................................................................
6. Children not taking lunch generally get poor grades in their studies.
Answer:.................................................................................................
7. Hull's secondary schools rank low in GCSE because of the lack of free meals.
Answer:.................................................................................................
8. All European countries, including Britain, should provide free meals at school.
Answer:.................................................................................................

You are advised to spend about 10 minutes on the following passage.

We have the financial technology, says Robert Shiller; to cope with growing economic risks.

Lately, a lot of attention has been focused on the stock market bust after the 1990s boom and on the short-term state of the economy, now teetering in and out of recession. Look ahead, though, and there is every reason to think that there are bigger, equally unpredictable economic risks on the way. Perhaps the biggest such issue in the next ten years will be the quick pace of change in the economic status of individuals. Advances in technology, in particular, have increased the chances both of striking it lucky, and becoming very wealthy — but also of being unlucky, and becoming very poor. The likely outcome is both greater economic uncertainty and greater inequality. But there is good news too: the financial tools that will allow ordinary folk to cope with increased uncertainty, and to insure against adverse economic events, are already being developed.

Inequality has been on the rise in virtually all rich countries in recent decades. This increase appears to be due, in large part, to changing technology, such as rapidly advancing communications, information and control technology, and its effects on an interdependent world economy. It is true that, by some measures, world income inequality has been decreasing -- notably because China and India have been catching up. But there are reasons to expect a longer-run tendency towards much greater inequality.

Advanced technology often means that a smaller number of skilled people supply their services over a wider area, producing a 'winner-take-all' effect, where only the best do well, and these lucky few command enormous income. The invention of the phonograph did this for singers, and the invention of the motion pie true did it for actors. Proliferating communications and information technology may do the same for many other occupations in the future.

So far, a good deal of public resentment about increasing inequality has centred on the most visible highly paid people. Recently, public policy has focused on preventing a few unscrupulous top executives from unfairly enriching themselves at investors' expense. However, we are likely to discover that this, while helpful, does relatively little to mitigate the forces that make or break fortunes, which are much bigger than any fraud or malfeasance that we see today. Why? Because new technology produces far more pervasive and important changes in fortunes than those caused by dishonest boards or accounting shenanigans. Such changes stem from the very stuff of capitalism, undramatic events that unfold over many years: word processors replacing secretaries, industrial robots replacing assembly-line workers, and online-learning sites replacing professors.

Although new technology can mean that jobs are replaced by machines, it has often created as much employment as it destroyed, albeit of a different type. When Cyrus McCormick's automatic harvester replaced field hands in the mid-19^th century, the invention promoted greater prosperity and helped to create a variety of other jobs, like turning grains into fancy breakfast cereals and packaged baked goods.

Now, though, with the pace of technological progress increasing, there is a high degree of uncertainty whether lost jobs will ever be replaced with others that are as remunerative. We have moved from the field to the factory to the service sector, but as technology relentlessly advances, it isn't clear where we will be heading next. A possible dearth of good career alternatives for many people could generate great inequality in coming decades.

Yet, paradoxically, the same technology that is creating this inequality could also reduce it. It got us into the problem and it can get us out. This technology needs to be coupled with the science of risk management, which combines elements of finance and insurance to help deal with the possibility of adverse events, in much the same way as bankers and financiers minimise the risks of doing business by using fancy financial arrangements such as currency hedging and interest-rate swaps. (655 words)

Questions 1-9
Do the following statements reflect the views of the writer in the reading passage? Choose:
YES if the statement agrees with the writer's view;

NO if the statement contradicts the writer's view;

NOT GIVEN if the statement does not reflect the writer's view.

1. It is unlikely that the economic disaster will stage a comeback in the next decade.
Answer: .....................................................................................
2. It depends on the luck of an individual to become rich or poor.
Answer:.....................................................................................
3. The issue of the world income inequality will get more and more serious.
Answer: .....................................................................................
4. Singers and actors make a great fortune with their special talents.
Answer:.....................................................................................
5. The income inequality is caused by the fact that high-ranking CEOs become rich at the sacrifice of the company shareholders.

Answer: .....................................................................................
6. Word processors and robots are the best replacement of the manual labour.
Answer:.....................................................................................
7. Evidence shows new technology will bring with its new job opportunities.
Answer:.....................................................................................
8. The development of new technology will solve the problem of the uncertainty.
Answer:.....................................................................................

9. Bankers and financiers depend on risk management to do their transactions.

Answer:.....................................................................................

You are advised to spend about 10 minutes on the following passage.

The American gun lobby thinks children should be taught to use guns. Safely, of course, and just for sport or personal security, what else? The idea is as old as it is dangerous.

Every generation delights in handing down its knowledge to the next — assuming, of course, that the next is ready to sit raptly at its feet. But some sorts of knowledge are treated with more urgency and reverence than others. Among these is the handling of guns. Children have to be kept away from firearms, yet, at the same time, instructed in the joy and skill of them. It is an extremely difficult balance to strike, and it is made no easier by the fact that, in some societies, the possession and use of a gun has become a metaphor for every right that parents wish to bequeath to their offspring.

Gun magazines in the United States delight to show the young, kitted out with mufflers and eye-protectors or casual in a camouflage cap, squinting through the sights of a rifle while braced in their father's arms. They are sometimes very young indeed: four or five. Such images repel Europeans and the anti-gun lobby, but America's gun enthusiasts see them quite differently: as symbols of freedom, tradition and delight in fatherly instruction. 'Those sure were the good times,' reads one advertisement. 'Just you, Dad, and his Smith & Wesson.'

Guns are also, of course, deadly: and not just in the shape of the handguns that flood America's cities. After the killing of four children and a teacher in a school in Jonesboro, Arkansas, in 1998, news agencies distributed photographs of one of the killers as he had been at the age of six: proudly smiling, in full camouflage, with a rifle in his hand. Andrew Golden had always loved hunting, and had lived in a house where guns of all sorts were displayed in unlocked cabinets. From popping birds to shooting schoolmates is a leap that very few children take. Nonetheless, young Andrew lived in a culture where enthusiasm for (even obsession with) guns among his elders meant that he came, much too early, to experience the heft of a gun and the thrill of a perfect aim.

NOT TOYS, JUST OBJECTS OF DESIRE

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has in recent years repackaged itself with some success as a preacher of gun-safety to children. As — these days — it admits, 'with a firearm present in about half of all American households, young children should learn that firearms are not toys'. The association's safety mascot is Eddie Eagle, an anxious-looking bird, usually with one wing raised in admonition, who now decorates sunglasses, T-shirts and lunch-boxes, and is available in cuddly form. His message to children who find a gun — `Stop! Don't touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult' — is, of course, a very sound one. It is slightly undercut by the disclaimer that follows: 'That's Eddie Eagle's fundamental, non-judgmental public-safety message.'

'Non-judgmental' seems a strange word to use in this context. But it is necessary, lest anyone think that Eddie might be saying that guns in themselves are bad, or that keeping them in the house might be dangerous. The guns have a right to be there; it is the children who must treat them as objects of fear and mystery. It is worth noting too that the message is aimed at 'young' children, or those the parent thinks 'not ready to be trained in a gun's handling and use'. At some undefined stage (the photographs in INSIGHTS, the NRA's magazine for junior members, suggest it comes when children are about seven or eight), guns change from being fearsome objects, better left alone, to items that children are positively encouraged to possess.

INSIGHTS is not a publication the NRA is keen to advertise. Outsiders are re-buffed if they ask for copies. Small wonder. Eddie Eagle still flutters in the back-ground, and safety is a subtheme: as in earmuffs, stylish eye goggles, and not pointing your rifle at people. The magazine says it also offers 'educational information about firearms'. With that aim, no doubt, its photographs show children who are thrilled to the marrow to have got their hands on guns. They grin broadly, shouldering a firearm as big as themselves, or glare through sights at the target. Articles invite them to test-fire the Remington EtronX Model 700, 'part of the new wave of guns', or to head to the NRA's annual exhibition in Charlotte, North Carolina, to get 'a jump start' on the latest fire power.

It is the advertisements, though, that make the blood run cold. The gun makers do not pretend to be addressing children of 10 or 12; they simply run the adult copy. 'The need for a quality "First Time" revolver never went away,' reads one. 'The Model 1929 is one package, one purchase that gets you into handgun shooting with all the right stuff, the first time.' A half-page from 'Savage Arms' offers a 'Predator' combination gun with a 'low-rebounding hammer and a built-in two-position barrel-selector'. The specifications are mind-numbing, but it seems the children can take them, for the letters article reads very similarly: boys boasting about the bore of their guns.

The NRA might well ask what it could do differently. At some stage, it would argue, children have to be inducted into the world of firearms and steered, if they can be, to the sporting side of them. Yet there is no way of writing about guns for children that does not presuppose in the latter an extraordinary maturity of thinking and acting. The child who picks up a gun has, in effect, ceased to be a child. (950 words)

Questions 1-10
Do the following statements reflect the views of the writer in the reading passage? Choose:
YES if the statement agrees with the writer's view;

NO if the statement contradicts the writer's view;

NOT GIVEN if the statement does not reflect the writer's view.

1. The American gun lobby is one of the most powerful associations to influence the US government policy.

Answer:.....................................................................................

2. Parents have long regarded it as highly risky to let children play with firearms.

Answer: .....................................................................................

3. Gun magazines in America help boost the sales of mufflers, eye-protectors and camouflage caps, etc.

Answer: .....................................................................................

4. Exposed to a gun culture, American children are prone to shoot their classmates and teachers.

Answer: .....................................................................................

5. It is not enough to tell children that firearms are not toys.

Answer:.....................................................................................

6. School-age children view guns differently from pre-school children.

Answer: .....................................................................................

7. Many goods such as sunglasses, T-shirts and lunch boxes bear the icon of the National Rifle Association to show its power.

Answer:.....................................................................................

8. The National Riffle Association teaches children to pay primary attention to the safety of playing with guns. Answer:.....................................................................................
9. Gun makers adopt different ways to approach children and adults.
Answer:.....................................................................................
10. The use or ownership of guns proves the maturity of children.

Answer:.....................................................................................

Bài tập thuộc chương trình học của lớp IELTS READING ONLINE 1 KÈM 1 của IELTS TUTOR

You are advised to spend about 15 minutes on the following passage.

It is usually a bad sign when a firm looks outside its own ranks for its next boss.

The revolt by shareholders of Walt Disney demonstrates, if nothing else, how difficult it is for a public company's owners to remove a boss who does not want to go. Despite 43% of shareholders withholding their votes from Michael Eisner in the board election at the firm's annual meeting on March 3^rd, the long-serving boss retained his position as chief executive, although he relinquished his position as chair-man in what will surely be an unsuccessful attempt to placate his opponents.

Yet almost as hard as getting rid of a chief executive is the task of finding a suitable replacement. Such has been the dominance of Mr. Eisner at Disney that, when he finally goes, the company may struggle to find a successor within the cowed ranks of its top management. But Disney is by no means alone in failing to groom a new leader from its in-house talent pool. ABB is a multinational engineering business with some 115,000 employees in around 100 countries. Yet not one of these employees is deemed capable of running the company. ABB announced last week that its next chief executive will be an outsider. Fred Kindle, currently the boss of Sulzer, a much smaller Swiss engineering business, will join Zurich-based ABB on September 1^st and take over as chief executive from Jurgen Dormann in January.

ABB used a firm of head-hunters, Egon Zehnder, to carry out 'a thorough and careful search and evaluation'. It took a year to come up with half a dozen candidates, some of them internal, some external. The winner has an MBA and four years' experience with McKinsey, a consulting firm with a decidedly mixed record among Switzerland's leading firms.

Choosing an outsider as chief executive is more common in America than it is in Europe. Coca-Cola recently announced that its boss, Douglas Daft, will be retiring at the end of this year and, more controversially, that it will employ a firm of head-hunters to 'carefully consider external candidates along with the internal candidate we have in Steve Heyer'. Given that Mr. Heyer only joined the company in 2001 — from AOL Time Warner — all the candidates are, in effect, outsiders.

Yet even in America, this is still the exception, not the rule. Recent regime changes at the top of other big companies have followed the more traditional pattern. This week, Lockheed Martin said that its boss, Vance Coffman, will step down on August 6^th to be replaced by Robert Stevens, currently the defence company's chief operating officer, while ExxonMobil, by promoting Rex Tillerson, its head of production, to president last week, suggested that he is being groomed to take over from Lee Raymond, the current chief executive. Both Mr. Stevens and Mr. Tillerson are long-time employees of the firms that they are in line to lead.

Every one of the top ten (nine of them are American) on the list of the world's most admired companies — admittedly, not an infallible yardstick of corporate merit - in the latest issue of FORTUNE magazine has a boss who was appointed from inside. None of them has spent less than 20 years with their current employer. The bosses of the top three British firms on the list (Tesco, BP and Shell) had notched up between them almost a century of employment with their respective firms. The first company on the worldwide list about to break that mould is 11^th-placed Coca-Cola.

HUNTING FOR CHARISMA

Boards have traditionally turned to outsiders when their companies have been in trouble. Scandal-hit firms such as Tyco and WorldCom probably had no choice — any internal appointment would have been viewed with too much suspicion, not least by investors and regulators. But in several less dramatic cases, the injection of fresh blood has worked. Lou Gerstner, brought into IBM from RJR Nabisco, famously converted a failing manufacturer of mainframe computers into a thriving IT-services business.

Chuck Lucier, of consultants Booz Allen Hamilton, has examined the performance of insiders and outsiders over time and found that, in general, outside chief executives do very well in the early part of their tenure and very badly in the latter part. Insiders have a 'remarkably even' performance over time. Outsiders are good at doing the rapid cost-cutting and divestment often needed by firms in trouble, but they are less good at building and sustaining long-term growth, says Mr. Lucier.

Michael Eisner's track record at Disney is a bit like this, argues Mr. Lucier. Hired from outside in 1984 to be chief executive, Mr. Eisner had some good years followed by a lot of bad ones, exacerbated by the death in 1994 of Frank Wells, his trusted operational chief, in a helicopter crash.

In recent years, it has become almost a matter of course for boards at least to look outside for their next leader, even if most still decide, in the end, to pick an insider. One of the reasons for this, says Dayton Ogden, a head-hunter with Spencer Stuart and co-author of CEO SUCCESSION (OUP, 2000), is 'to benchmark their insiders'. High-tech firms (not all of them struggling), such as Motorola, Hewlett-Packard and Yahoo, have led the way in appointing outside chief executives.

In SEARCHING FOR A CORPORATE SAVIOUR (Princeton University Press, 2002). Rakesh Khurana, a Harvard Business School professor, suggests that this is part of a growing 'irrational quest for charismatic chief executives'. Mr. Khurana argues that the process for finding a chief executive from outside (which invariably involves head-hunters) is so flawed that it 'frequently fails to hire the best people available' and 'tends to produce leaders with almost identical social, cultural, and demographic characteristics'. Spencer Stuart's Mr. Ogden says that this is 'bollocks'.

Roselinde Torres, US president of Mercer Delta Consulting, a firm that advises companies on chief-executive succession, suggests that boards are being tempted to look outside because they can more easily fantasise about the charisma of unknowns with great résumés than they can about the all-too-familiar insiders they meet in the lifts. But she finds that chief executives tail most often when they 'cannot provide the contextual stuff', the right networks and culture within the company — a particularly difficult task for an outsider.

One way to resolve the outsider-insider dilemma is to look for an outsider with inside knowledge of the business. Disney may yet find just such a person to succeed Mr. Eisner. If Comcast, the cable-TV firm which has launched a hostile bid for Disney, succeeds in taking over the firm, it is likely to put Stephen Burke in charge of the acquired Disney operations. Mr. Burke joined Comcast in 1998, after spending 12 years working for Disney. He is a classic 'insider-outsider', a man with experience of the company, but with a long enough absence from it to shake off much of the baggage that insiders bring to the top job. Perhaps if Disney shareholders want a solution to the unresolved issue of Mr. Eisner's succession, they could do worse than vote in favour of the Comcast bid. (1,185 words)

Question 1-10

Do the following statements reflect the views of the writer in the reading passage? Choose:
YES if the statement agrees with the writer's view;

NO if the statement contradicts the writer's view;

NOT GIVEN if the statement does not reflect the writer's view.

1. Disney is just one of many US companies to try to find an outsider to chair the company board.
Answer:..............................................................................................................................
2. Head-hunting firms find it profitable to get right replacement for the big company bosses.

Answer:..............................................................................................................................
3. Mr. Heyer is capable as he used to work for such a big company as AOL.
Answer:..............................................................................................................................
4. Companies in trouble would tend to find an outsider to rearrange the business.

Answer:..............................................................................................................................
5. There are many showcases that outsiders would do better than the previous leadership.

Answer:..............................................................................................................................
6. Outsiders and insiders have their strengths and weaknesses in running the company at different stages.

Answer:..............................................................................................................................
7. High-tech companies are more open to the choice of leaders from outside.
Answer:..............................................................................................................................
8. To get integrated into a company's culture is one of the great difficulties of the outsider.
Answer:..............................................................................................................................
9. The best way to solve the dilemma facing the companies is to find an outsider person who knows as much as any insider of the company.

Answer:..............................................................................................................................

10. When a company tries to find an outsider as a leader, it usually emits a bad signal of its present business operation and structure.

Answer:..............................................................................................................................

You are advised to spend about 15 minutes on the following passage.

If George W. Bush spent more time and money on mobilising Weapons of Mass Salvation (WMS) in addition to combating Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), we might actually get somewhere in making this planet a safer and more hospitable home. WMD can kill millions and their spread to dangerous hands needs to be opposed resolutely. WMS, in contrast, are the arsenal of life-saving vaccines, medicines and health interventions, emergency food aid and farming technologies that could avert literally millions of deaths each year in the wars against epidemic disease, drought and famine. Yet while the Bush administration is prepared to spend $100 billion to rid Iraq of WMD, it has been unwilling to spend more than 0.2% of that sum ($200m) this year on the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The great leaders of the Second World War alliance, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, understood the twin sides of destruction and salvation. Their war aims were not only to defeat fascism, but to create a world of shared prosperity. Roosevelt talked not only about Freedom from Fear but also Freedom from Want. One of the reasons why the Bush administration is losing the battle for the world's hearts and minds is precisely that it fights only the war on terror, while turning a cold and steely eye away from the millions dying of hunger and disease. When is the last time anybody heard Vice-President Dick Cheney even feign a word of concern for the world's poor?

Last month Mr. Bush made a speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations. In calling for action against Iraq, he challenged the international community to live up to its own words. 'We want the United Nations to be effective, and respectful, and successful. We want the resolutions of the world's most important multilateral body to be enforced.' He asked whether 'the United Nations will serve the purpose of its founding, or will be irrelevant?' The idea that UN commitments should be followed by action is indeed a radical one, especially for the United States, where wilful neglect of its own commitments is the rule.

Just one week before Mr. Bush's UN speech, at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, the rich countries promised to put real resources behind the 'Millennium Development Goals' of cutting poverty, disease and environmental degradation. They agreed (the United States among them) to 'urge the developed countries that have not done so to make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7% of GNP as ODA (official development assistance) to developing countries'. The United States falls $60 billion a year short of that target - a seemingly unbridgeable gap, until one realises that the annual military spending in America has risen by about that amount since Mr. Bush entered the White House. The United States spends just 0.1% of GNP on foreign assistance. It is firmly in last place among the 22 donor countries in aid as a share of income, a position it will continue to hold even after the small increases the administration announced earlier this year.

If we were to send teams of 'UN development inspectors' into the United States, the results would not be pretty. First, they would discover a nearly total disconnect between global commitments and domestic politics. Mr. Bush has not discussed America's commitments at Johannesburg with the American people (and perhaps his aides have not even discussed them with the president).

Second, they would find complete disarray with regard to the organisation, budgeting, and staffing necessary to fulfil the commitments. White House and State Department foreign-policy experts are overwhelmingly directed towards military and diplomatic issues, not development issues. Wale, Senior development specialists in the Treasury can be counted on one hand. America's government is not even aware of the gap between its commitments and actions, because almost nobody in authority understands the actions that would be needed to meet the commitments.

No serious work whatever is under way within the government to link annual budgetary allocations with the international development goals the United States has endorsed. For example, the Bush administration has failed to produce even one credible document spelling out America's role in a global-scale war against AIDS.

America's planned contribution to the global AIDS fund is around a sixth of what is needed in 2003, according to the fund itself. The evidence shows that $25 billion a year from the donors could avert around 8m deaths each year. The expected $100 billion cost of war against Iraq would therefore be enough to avert around 30m premature deaths from disease, if channelled into a sustained and organised partnership with the poor countries.

There is a way out. It is to empower the United Nations to do what it can truly do: organise a global response to the global challenges of disease control, hunger, lack of schooling and environmental destruction, an effort in which the United States would be a major participant and indeed financier, in exactly the manner that it has repeatedly pledged.

The idea that the UN system could provide leadership on the great development challenges will strain credulity in some quarters. A steady drumbeat of criticism about the UN agencies during the 1990s, led by right-wing leaders in Congress, has left the impression of nearly moribund institutions, busy securing patronage slots for friends and relatives, and disconnected from the rapid advances in technology, finance and globalisation. Indeed, when I began my own intensive work with the UN agencies three years ago, as chairman of a commission for the World Health Organisation, and then more recently as a special adviser to the secretary general for the Millennium Development Goals, I was unsure what to expect within the specialised agencies of the United Nations. (961 words)

Question 1-10

Do the following statements reflect the views of the writer in the reading passage? Choose:
YES if the statement agrees with the writer's view;

NO if the statement contradicts the writer's view;

NOT GIVEN If the statement does not reflect the writer's view.

1. It is fruitless for the Bush administration to stop the Spread of the Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Answer:.................................................................................................................................

2. More people are dying from such disasters as famine and draught than from what is called WMD.

Answer:.................................................................................................................................
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were powerful leaders in World War II.

Answer:.................................................................................................................................
4. America adopts a pragmatic strategy as to its obligation to the United Nations.

Answer:.................................................................................................................................
5. The increase in military expenditure inevitably causes the reduction of the foreign aid donation.

Answer:.................................................................................................................................
6. Development issues do not arouse attention because Bush government aides and officials are not interested in discussing them.

Answer:.................................................................................................................................

7. America's role in a global-scale war against AIDS is fuzzy and dubious.

Answer:.................................................................................................................................
8. On average around 8 million people die of AIDS all over the world.

Answer:.................................................................................................................................
9. UN special agencies need a reform to do a better and more efficient job.

Answer:.................................................................................................................................
10. In terms of foreign aid, action always speaks louder than words.

Answer:.................................................................................................................................

Summary Questions are another group of questions that test your ability to locate and identify particular details in a reading passage.

There are two types of Summary Questions.

• questions with a box of possible answers

(i.e. you choose answers from a box of possible answer.)

• questions without a box of possible answers

(i.e. you find the appropriate words or expressions from a reading passage)

For these two types of Summary Questions, you will be given a summary of either the whole reading passage or part of the passage. In the summary, there are a number of blank spaces that show where there are words missing. You will then have to choose the most appropriate word or words that belong in the blank spaces. The instructions will tell you the word limit, from one to four words.

The second type of Summary Questions is more difficult because it does not give you a box of possible answers. This mean that you have to find the appropriate word or words from the passage.

It is very important that you complete the blank spaces for the summary with the exact words from the reading passage. In other words, you should not change the words from the passage to fit the summary.

Tips

1. Read the instructions carefully to know whether you have to choose the answers from the words provided or you have to write your own answers; and if you can use any word more than once.
2. Skim through the summary to get an idea of the topic.
3. Decide which section of the passage the summary covers. In some cases, the summary may cover the whole passage.
4. Read through the summary, referring to the list of words each time you reach a gap. Select one or more possible words from the list to fill each gap. Reject any words that do not fit grammatically, even if the meaning seems correct. Confirm your choice by referring to the relevant sections of the passage.
5. Quickly read through your completed summary to check that it makes sense.

Notes:
In case there is no selection box provided, usually. You will have to answer with NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS chosen from the passage.

Usually, the words in front or right after the gap in the question will be found in the passage as synonyms. If you find the synonyms, you will find the answer in the same spot.

You are advised to spend about 8 minutes on the following passage.

A large proportion of Australians, regardless of social position, income and age, participate in some form of sporting activity. The impact of sports extends over a wide range of associated activities in community and commercial fields. Sports is a large industry in Australia encompassing not only participants but also employment within the sporting infrastructure, manufacture of apparel, equipment and other goods (e.g. trophies), tourism and supporting industries (e.g. printing, media). The sporting activities of Australians include a range of organised and social sports, recreational and leisure activities undertaken both at home and away from home.

INVOLVEMENT IN SPORTS

In March 1993, an ABS survey of persons 15 years of age and over was conducted throughout Australia to obtain information about involvement in sports during the previous 12 months. Involvement in sports was defined to include both paid and unpaid participation in playing and non-playing capacities. Spectator involvement in sports was excluded.

The survey found that one third of the Australian population aged 15 and over were involved in sports, as players (3.1 million), non-players (0.5 million) or both players and non-players (0.9 million). More men than women were involved as players and as non-players.

Overall, 35% of males played sports compared to 23% of females, and at all ages a greater proportion of males than females played sports. Younger men and women were more likely to play sports than older men and women. Fifty-six per cent of men aged 15 to 24 played sports compared to 39% of women in the same age group. In the 25 to 34 age group, 43% of men played sports compared to 28% of women. 20% of men and 12% of women aged 65 and over played sports. For those involved in sports solely as non-players, the 36 to 44 age group had the highest participation rate (8% for males, 9% for females). Their most common activities were as administrators or committee members. (324 words)

Question 1-8

Complete the summary of the reading passage on the previous page. Choose your answers from the box below the summary.

N.B. There are more words than you will need to till the gaps. You may use a word more than once if you wish.

Summary

In Australia, sports is not only a recreational and (1)................ activity but also an industry. One survey looked at participation in sports based on whether participation was (2)................ or (3)................ and whether they were paid or not. The survey did not consider (4)................ to be (5)................
In general, women were found to be (6)................ involved in sports than men and there were (7)................ young people involved than older people. The results of the survey also showed that (8)................ were generally involved in two different capacities.

business

non-players

more

unpaid

less

women

fewer

participants

social

most

players

spectators

1 ...........................

2 ...........................

3 ...........................

4 ...........................

5 ...........................

6 ...........................

7 ...........................

8 ...........................

Bài tập thuộc chương trình học của lớp IELTS READING ONLINE 1 KÈM 1 của IELTS TUTOR

You are advised to spend about 10 minutes on the following passage.

The greenhouse effect is not a new phenomenon. Scientists have known for centuries that a layer of gases naturally surrounds the earth like an insulating blanket, trapping the reflected energy from the sun and preventing it from escaping into space. That is what makes the earth warm enough for people, plants and animals. However, recent human activity has boosted the concentration of greenhouse gases and enhanced their heat-trapping ability. The main culprit is carbon dioxide (CO₂), which scientists estimate accounts for nearly half of global warming. CO₂ is released from burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) and from clearing and burning forests.

There are other important greenhouse gases too and they cannot be ignored — CFCs, for example, may account for 25 per cent of global warming in the next century if their production is not scaled back. But carbon dioxide is the pivotal one. The UN International Panel on Climate Change now says that CO₂ levels could double within the next 40 years if present rate of fossil-fuel burning and deforestation continues. That could mean an average temperature increase between two and four degrees centigrade and a sea-level rise of perhaps a foot by 2050.

No one knows for certain how local weather will change as a result of this warming. But one thing is clear — it will be no picnic. Indications are that the earth will be warmer than any time since the start of the last ice age nearly 100,000 years ago. But there's one major difference. This temperature increase occurs not over thousands of years, but over decades. And it is the speed of this change which makes the precise impact so difficult to predict.

The most sophisticated computerised climate models, in the US and Britain, agree that weather around the world will become more erratic and more extreme. In general, temperatures will rise more towards the pole than at the equator. Overall rainfall will also increase as higher temperatures boost evaporation from the seas. But the distribution of precipitation will shift. Some areas will become wetter, and others will be drier. In middle latitude, climate zones will march pole-wards. Saskatchewan may become like Kansas, southern England like southern France. In tropical and subtropical parts of the Third World, warming will be less but the impact on a relatively stable climate will be greater. Tropical storms and droughts could both increase. The pattern of the monsoons may shift.

Global warming will also cause ocean levels to rise - though not, as popular wisdom has it, due to the Antarctic ice cap melting. If this catastrophe occurs, it will not be for at least another century. Instead, sea level will rise simply because water expands as it warms. People living in low-lying coastal regions from New York and London to Jakarta and Dhaka will be in danger. The world's great river deltas, home to millions of Asia and Latin America and containing some of the Third World richest food-growing land, could become brackish graveyards. (499 words)

Question 1-12
The passage below is a summary of the reading passage. Complete this summary by writing ONE or TWO WORDS in each space. These words must be taken from the reading passage. The first one has been done as an example.

It has long been known that the earth is (example) to support life because of an (1)................ layer of the greenhouse gases which trap the sun's (2)................. Recently increased production of one of these gases, (3)............, by mankind's (4)................ of wood and fossil fuels, has been the main cause of (5)..................... If the (6).................... of CO₂ continue to increase, both temperature and (7)............... could rise significantly by 2050. The (8).................. has made predictions about the effect on the world's (9)................ uncertain. However, computers forecast greater unpredictability and a more (10).................. climate. And with the temperature rise will come a corresponding expansion of (11).............. and rising sea level, threatening (12).................... cities and fertile land alike.

Example: warm enough

1 ...........................

2 ...........................

3 ...........................

4 ...........................

5 ...........................

6 ...........................

7 ...........................

8 ...........................

9 ...........................

10 ...........................

11 ...........................

12 ...........................

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