IELTS® Academic Reading Practice 50

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Studying Infant Perception A It was once commonly thought that infants lack the ability to form complex ideas. For much of the 20th century, most psychologists accepted the traditional thesis that a newborn’s mind is a blank slate (tabula rasa) on which the record of experience is gradually impressed.It was once commonly t...
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This reading practice simulates one part of the IELTS Academic Reading test. You should spend about twenty minutes on it. Read the passage and answer questions 27-40.
Questions 27-29
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Write your answers in boxes 27-29 on your answer sheet.

27. Researchers use indirect methods primarily to observe the ….

28. Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a problem in using the technique of direct  observation?

29. Which of the following leads to the conclusion that infants are able to differentiate between stimuli in a habituation-dishabituation study?

Questions 30-36
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage? In boxes 30-36 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE   if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE   if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN   if there is no information on this.

30. The focus of early research methods in child development have been similar to those conducted more recently.

31. Piaget showed that each new stage of learning builds upon the previous one.

32. Researchers using observational assessment techniques on infants must base their conclusions on data from many studies.

33. When researchers fail to make generalizations from their studies, their observed data is often inconclusive.

34. Different areas of an infant's brain respond to different types of stimuli.

35. Observational assessment is less useful for studying infant perception than researchers previously believed.

36. A neonate is able to perceive stimuli better than researchers once thought.

Questions 37-40
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-I, below.
  1. Non-nutritive sucking
  2. Perception
  3. Stimuli
  4. Direct indicators
  5. Procedures
  6. Studies
  7. Film analysis
  8. Indirect indicators
  9. Recovery

Early studies of an infant’s perception ability were limited by data incongruencies and inconsistent . As science progressed, researchers linked a tally counter to a pacifier to measure and corresponding responses. Researchers used the device and to conclude that an infant’s perception occurs at an earlier age than expected.  These measurements and methodology, however, often rely on rather than hard data. Without them, any study of an infant’s perception ability can be inconclusive.


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Reading Passage Vocabulary
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IELTS Academic Reading Tips for Success
These are general tips that will appear on all reading questions.

Tips to improve your reading speed
To get a high score on the IELTS reading section, you need to have a fast reading speed. To have a fast reading speed, you need to improve your vocabulary and practice dissecting sentences. One strategy to dissect a sentence is to look for the subject and verb of the sentence. Finding the subject and verb will help you better understand the main idea of said sentence. Keep in mind, a common feature of a IELTS reading passage is to join strings of ideas to form long compound sentences. This produces large chunks that students have a hard time absorbing. Do not get overwhelmed by its length, just look for the subject and verb, the rest of the ideas will flow.

Keep in mind, having a slow reading speed makes skimming or scanning a reading passage more difficult. The process of quickly skimming through a reading passage for specific keywords or main ideas is a requirement for you to employ successful reading strategies to improve your IELTS reading score. In other words, skimming and scanning are critical skills to ensure you complete all questions in the allotted time frame.
IELTS Reading Strategies
Once you can read and comprehend a passage with a rate of, at least, 220 words per minute, you'll be ready to start implementing our strategies. All too often, students spend too much time reading the passages and not enough time answering the questions. Here is a step by step guide for tackling the reading section.

  1. Step 1: Read questions first

    One of the most common mistakes that candidates make when approaching the reading exam is reading every single word of the passages. Although you can practice for the exam by reading for pleasure, "reading blindly" (reading without any sense of what the questions will ask) will not do you any favors in the exam. Instead, it will hurt your chances for effectively managing your time and getting the best score.

    The main reason to read the questions first is because the type of question may determine what you read in the passage or how you read it. For example, some question types will call for the "skimming" technique, while others may call for the "scanning" technique.

    It is important to answer a set of questions that are of the same question type. You'll need to determine which question type you want to tackle first. A good strategy would be to start with the easier question type and move on to more difficult question types later. The Easiest question types are the ones where you spend less time reading. For example, the Matching Heading question type is an easier one because you only need to find the heading that best describes the main idea of a paragraph. An example of a difficult question type would be Identifying Information. For this question type, you'll need to read each paragraph to find out if each statement is TRUE, FALSE, or NOT GIVEN according to the passage.

    Here is a table that lists the difficulty levels for each question type. Use this table as a reference when choosing which question type you want to tackle first.

    Difficulty level Question Type
    Easy Sentence Completion
    Short answer
    Medium Matching Features
    Multiple choice
    Matching Headings
    Summary, Table, Flow-Chart Completion
    Difficult Matching Sentence Endings
    Matching Information
    Identifying Information (TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN)
    Identifying Viewer's claims (YES/NO/NOT GIVEN)

  2. Step 2: Read for an objective

    After you've read the questions for the passage, you will be able to read for an objective. What does this mean? For example, if you come across a question that includes the year "1896", you can make a note of when this year comes up in the text, using it to answer the question later on. There are two reading techniques that will help you stay on track with reading for an objective. The first one, skimming, is best defined as reading fast in order to get the "gist", or general idea, or a passage. With this technique, you are not stopping for any unfamiliar words or looking for specific details. The second technique, scanning, is best defined as reading for specific information. With this technique, you are not reading for the overall gist, but rather, specific information. Notice how each of these techniques has a specific objective in mind. This will help you find information more quickly.

  3. Step 3: Take notes

    As you're reading for an objective, you should also be making notes on the margins of the passage, placing stars next to key information, or underlining things that you believe will help you answer the various questions. This will make it easier for you to check back when you are asked certain things in the questions. Choose whichever note-taking system is right for you - just make sure you do it!

  4. Step 4: Answer wisely

    After you've read the questions, read the passage, and have taken any appropriate notes, you you should have located the part of the text where you where you need to read carefully. Then just read carefully and think critically to determine the correct answer.

IELTS Reading Question Types

The IELTS reading test contains many different question types:

Matching HeadingsIELTS Reading Lesson: Matching Headings
Matching InformationIELTS Reading Lesson: Matching Information
Matching FeaturesIELTS Reading Lesson: Matching Features
Summary CompletionIELTS Reading Lesson: Summary Completion
Identifying InformationIELTS Reading Lesson: Identifying Information
Identifying Writer's claimsIELTS Reading Lesson: Identifying Writer's claims
Multiple ChoiceIELTS Reading Lesson: Multiple Choice
Short AnswerIELTS Reading Lesson: Short Answer
Match Sentence EndingIELTS Reading Lesson: Match Sentence Ending
Sentence CompletionIELTS Reading Lesson: Sentence Completion
Table CompletionIELTS Reading Lesson: Table Completion
 
academic reading Practice 50
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