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Psychology and Personality Assessment
Section A
Our daily lives are largely made up of contact we have with other people. In these interactions, we are constantly making judgments of their personalities and accommodating our behavior to them in accordance with these judgments. A casual meeting of neighbors on the street, an employer giving instructions to an employee, a mother telling her children how to behave, a journey on a train where strangers eye one another without exchanging a word – all these involve mutual interpretations of personal qualities.
Section B
Success in many vocations largely depends on our skill in making judgements about others. It is important not only to such professionals as the clinical psychologist, the psychiatrist or the social worker, but also to the doctor or lawyer in dealing with their clients, the businessman trying to outwit his rivals, the salesman with potential customers, the teacher with his pupils, not to speak of the pupils judging their teacher. Social life, indeed, would be impossible if we did not. to some extent, understand, and react to the motives and qualities of those we meet; and clearly, we are sufficiently accurate for most practical purposes, although we also recognize that misinterpretations easily arise – particularly on the part of others who judge us!
Section C
Errors can often be corrected as we go along. But whenever we are pinned down to a definite decision about a person, which cannot easily be revised through any feedback, the inadequacies of our judgments become apparent. The hostess who wrongly thinks that the Smiths and the Joneses will get on well together can do little to retrieve the success of her party. A school or a business may be saddled for years with an undesirable member of staff because the selection committee which interviewed him for a quarter of an hour misjudged his personality.
Section D
Owing to this process being so familiar to us, often to the point of being taken for granted, it has been of little scientific curiosity until recently. Dramatists, writers, and artists throughout the centuries have excelled in their portrayals of human characters, but have seldom stopped to ask how they, or we, get to know people, or how accurate is our knowledge. However, the popularity of such unscientific systems as Lavater’s physiognomy in the eighteenth century, Gall’s phrenology in the nineteenth, and of handwriting interpretations by graphologists, or palm-readings by Gypsies, show that people are aware of weaknesses in their judgments and wish to have better methods of diagnosis. It is natural that they should turn to psychology for help, in the belief that psychologists are specialists in what we call human nature.
Section E
This belief is hardly justified, for the primary aim of psychology had long been to establish the general laws and principles underlying behavior and thinking, rather than to apply these to concrete problems of the individual person. A great many professional psychologists still regard it as their main function to study the nature of learning, perception, and motivation in the abstracted or average human being, or in lower organisms and consider it premature to put so young a science to practical uses. They would not claim to have any superior skills in judging their fellow men. Indeed, they are more aware of the difficulties in making judgements than a non-psychologist would be, and therefore may be more reluctant to commit themselves to definite predictions or decisions about other people. Nevertheless, to an increasing extent psychologists are moving into educational, occupational, clinical and other applied fields, where they are called upon to use their expertise for such purposes as fitting educational assignments or jobs to children or adults. Thus, a considerable proportion of their activities consists of personality assessment.
Section F
The success of psychologists in personality assessment has been limited, in comparison with what they have achieved in the fields of abilities and training. The result seems to be that most people continue to rely on unscientific methods of assessment. In recent times, there has been a tremendous amount of work on personality tests and on carefully controlled experimental studies of personality. Investigations of personality by Freudian and other ‘depth’ psychologists have an even longer history. And yet psychology seems to be no nearer to providing society with practicable techniques which are sufficiently reliable and accurate to win general acceptance. The soundness of the methods of psychologists in the field of personality assessment and the value of their work is under constant fire from other psychologists, and it is far from easy to prove their worth.
Section G
The growth of psychology has probably helped responsible members of society to become more aware of the difficulties of assessment. But it is not much use telling employers, educationists, and judges how inaccurately they diagnose the personalities that they encounter unless psychologists are sure that they can provide something better. Even when university psychologists themselves appoint a new member of staff, they almost always resort to the traditional techniques of assessing the candidates through interviews, past records, and testimonials, and probably make at least as many bad appointments as other employers do. However, a large amount of experimental development of better methods has been carried out since 1940 by groups of psychologists in the Armed Services and in the Civil Service, and by such organizations as the (British) National Institute of Industrial Psychology and the American Institute of Research.
Reading Passage Vocabulary
Section A
Our daily lives are largely made up of contact we have with other people. In these interactions, we are constantly making judgments of their personalities and accommodating our behavior to them in accordance with these judgments. A casual meeting of neighbors on the street, an employer giving instructions to an employee, a mother telling her children how to behave, a journey on a train where strangers eye one another without exchanging a word – all these involve mutual interpretations of personal qualities.
Section B
Success in many vocations largely depends on our skill in making judgements about others. It is important not only to such professionals as the clinical psychologist, the psychiatrist or the social worker, but also to the doctor or lawyer in dealing with their clients, the businessman trying to outwit his rivals, the salesman with potential customers, the teacher with his pupils, not to speak of the pupils judging their teacher. Social life, indeed, would be impossible if we did not. to some extent, understand, and react to the motives and qualities of those we meet; and clearly, we are sufficiently accurate for most practical purposes, although we also recognize that misinterpretations easily arise – particularly on the part of others who judge us!
Section C
Errors can often be corrected as we go along. But whenever we are pinned down to a definite decision about a person, which cannot easily be revised through any feedback, the inadequacies of our judgments become apparent. The hostess who wrongly thinks that the Smiths and the Joneses will get on well together can do little to retrieve the success of her party. A school or a business may be saddled for years with an undesirable member of staff because the selection committee which interviewed him for a quarter of an hour misjudged his personality.
Section D
Owing to this process being so familiar to us, often to the point of being taken for granted, it has been of little scientific curiosity until recently. Dramatists, writers, and artists throughout the centuries have excelled in their portrayals of human characters, but have seldom stopped to ask how they, or we, get to know people, or how accurate is our knowledge. However, the popularity of such unscientific systems as Lavater’s physiognomy in the eighteenth century, Gall’s phrenology in the nineteenth, and of handwriting interpretations by graphologists, or palm-readings by Gypsies, show that people are aware of weaknesses in their judgments and wish to have better methods of diagnosis. It is natural that they should turn to psychology for help, in the belief that psychologists are specialists in what we call human nature.
Section E
This belief is hardly justified, for the primary aim of psychology had long been to establish the general laws and principles underlying behavior and thinking, rather than to apply these to concrete problems of the individual person. A great many professional psychologists still regard it as their main function to study the nature of learning, perception, and motivation in the abstracted or average human being, or in lower organisms and consider it premature to put so young a science to practical uses. They would not claim to have any superior skills in judging their fellow men. Indeed, they are more aware of the difficulties in making judgements than a non-psychologist would be, and therefore may be more reluctant to commit themselves to definite predictions or decisions about other people. Nevertheless, to an increasing extent psychologists are moving into educational, occupational, clinical and other applied fields, where they are called upon to use their expertise for such purposes as fitting educational assignments or jobs to children or adults. Thus, a considerable proportion of their activities consists of personality assessment.
Section F
The success of psychologists in personality assessment has been limited, in comparison with what they have achieved in the fields of abilities and training. The result seems to be that most people continue to rely on unscientific methods of assessment. In recent times, there has been a tremendous amount of work on personality tests and on carefully controlled experimental studies of personality. Investigations of personality by Freudian and other ‘depth’ psychologists have an even longer history. And yet psychology seems to be no nearer to providing society with practicable techniques which are sufficiently reliable and accurate to win general acceptance. The soundness of the methods of psychologists in the field of personality assessment and the value of their work is under constant fire from other psychologists, and it is far from easy to prove their worth.
Section G
The growth of psychology has probably helped responsible members of society to become more aware of the difficulties of assessment. But it is not much use telling employers, educationists, and judges how inaccurately they diagnose the personalities that they encounter unless psychologists are sure that they can provide something better. Even when university psychologists themselves appoint a new member of staff, they almost always resort to the traditional techniques of assessing the candidates through interviews, past records, and testimonials, and probably make at least as many bad appointments as other employers do. However, a large amount of experimental development of better methods has been carried out since 1940 by groups of psychologists in the Armed Services and in the Civil Service, and by such organizations as the (British) National Institute of Industrial Psychology and the American Institute of Research.
IELTS Academic Reading Tips for Success
Tips to improve your reading speed
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
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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 answerMedium Matching Features
Multiple choice
Matching Headings
Summary, Table, Flow-Chart CompletionDifficult Matching Sentence Endings
Matching Information
Identifying Information (TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN)
Identifying Viewer's claims (YES/NO/NOT GIVEN)
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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.
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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!
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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 Headings | IELTS Reading Lesson: Matching Headings |
| Matching Information | IELTS Reading Lesson: Matching Information |
| Matching Features | IELTS Reading Lesson: Matching Features |
| Summary Completion | IELTS Reading Lesson: Summary Completion |
| Identifying Information | IELTS Reading Lesson: Identifying Information |
| Identifying Writer's claims | IELTS Reading Lesson: Identifying Writer's claims |
| Multiple Choice | IELTS Reading Lesson: Multiple Choice |
| Short Answer | IELTS Reading Lesson: Short Answer |
| Match Sentence Ending | IELTS Reading Lesson: Match Sentence Ending |
| Sentence Completion | IELTS Reading Lesson: Sentence Completion |
| Table Completion | IELTS Reading Lesson: Table Completion |