IELTS Reading assessment

Welcome to your IELTS Reading assessment For us to assess your suitablity to take the IELTS exam and reach the band score you require, we need to have an overall assessment of your English level and your awareness of the exam itself.

This part of the assessment will measure your reading ability with a short test. It is not a full test, however, it will provide us with the information we need.

Thank you.

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Please read the instructions before you begin the test.
( 시험시작 전에 지시사항을 읽어주세요 ).

There are 2 short texts of about 400 words each.
(각 약 400개의 단어로 이루어진 2개의 짧은 지문이 있습니다.)


You will have 25 minutes to read the texts and answer all questions.
( 25분동안 이 지문들을 읽고 모든 질문에 답해주세요. )

We have added 5 minutes to the time (20 minutes + 5 minutes reading and checking time).
(25분 중 5분은 checking 하는 시간으로 사용해주세요).

At the end of the time (use the timer), you must stop, and hit the 'submit' button. Your score will be given to you on the screen, and also an e-mail will be sent to you.

25분의 시간이 끝나면, ( 타이머를 이용하세요) 시험을 마치시고, 제출버튼을 누르세요.
(화면으로 점수가 나오며, 이메일로도 점수를 받아 보시게 됩니다).

The Story of the Battery
When people consider today how indispensable the Internet is, they often overlook that without electricity, it would not function. Living without the Internet would be a significant inconvenience today, but without electricity, life as we know now it would collapse. Since we started using electricity, which was in the middle of the nineteenth century, we have worked on ways to move and store it easily and efficiently and one of the most common ways of storing electricity has been
the battery. A battery does not actually store electricity. A battery, which is actually an electric cell, is a device that produces electricity from a chemical reaction. The story of the battery is one of people trying to create different compounds to create an electric current. The two goals on improving batteries have always been to create ones that can produce an electric current for a long time and to make them smaller and smaller.

Alessandro Volta is credited with creating in 1800 the first battery and the first practical method of generating electricity. Luigi Galvani, another Italian scientist and contemporary of Volta, almost made the discovery, but misinterpreted his research results. Using a frog’s leg in an experiment, Galvani concluded that the electric current was ‘animal electricity’ and did not come from the apparatus he had set up. Volta’s battery was made by piling up layers of silver and paper or cloth, soaked in salt, and zinc. These layers were assembled, without paper or cloth between the zinc and silver, until the current was created.

Volta’s battery was not good for delivering currents for any significant duration. This restriction was overcome in the Daniell Cell in 1820. Using different chemicals, John Daniell used a copper pot, copper sulphate, sulphuric acid and mercury to produce his electric current. Although we now know better than to put mercury into batteries, this battery, which produced about 1.1 volts, was used to power telegraphs, telephones, and even to ring doorbells in homes for over 100 years. Although many other chemical combinations were used in batteries over the years, the lead acid battery is one that stands out. First made in 1859, it was further improved in 1881 and this design even now forms the basis of the modern lead acid battery found in cars.

One very common battery used today is the lithium-ion battery, which was developed by the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a part of their efforts during the Cold War. The idea surrounding the lithium-ion battery was to create a power source that could provide a long duration, high-density energy supply in a small package. In the early 1960’s, both the private and public sectors
were experimenting with creating batteries using lithium, but the breakthrough in the chemistry was achieved by adding the ion into the equation. Not long after its invention, the CIA shared the lithium-ion battery concept with the public and a company working on an exploratory project developed and created the first patent for the lithium-ion battery for commercial use in 1968. Used for a variety of different applications, the first lithium-ion battery was a game-changer in the medical industry, where it is used as the power source in heart pacemakers.



Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS in the answer boxes below. 
Fill in boxes 1-5 with the correct words.

1.

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

Complete the sentences below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the text for each answer.

6.   The lithium-ion battery was invented as part of the United States' contribution to the .

7. The that allowed the success of the lithium-ion battery was the chemical addition of the ion to the equation.




                                AUSTRALIA’s DAM STORY (Part 1)
Section A

Measured across the continent, Australia receives an average of only 465 mm of rainfall a year, compared with Europe's 640 mm and Asia's 600 mm. High evaporation allows just 12 per cent of its rainfall to run off and reach waterways. Even so, there's enough water for everyone—but it's seldom in the right place at the right time.

Section B

European settlers solved this problem with dams. The first two—Yan Yean outside Melbourne and Lake Parramatta, Sydney—were completed in 1857. Dam building continued steadily until after World War II, when it accelerated. Today,
500 large (more than 15 m high) dams store a total of 93,957 gigalitres (Sydney Harbour holds about 562 GL). There are also countless smaller dams, called weirs, on most Australian rivers—8000 in the Murray-Darling Basin alone—and more than 2 million farm dams.

Section C

Large dams bring quick benefits. They can provide water and electricity, mitigate flooding and create beautiful lakes. But they also have adverse impacts. The first are those on people living in the way of a dam and its lake. They may need to be moved, causing families and communities to fragment. The lake may flood farmland or natural landscape. Many of the drowned river's plants and animals fail to adapt to lake conditions. Alien fish species, introduced into the reservoir accidentally, or for recreational fishing, may further alter the biological make-up of water life, and weeds and algae may thrive in the nutrient-rich water. Downstream, changes in the river's flow and water quality usually cause irreversible effects, often down to the river mouth and beyond. Fish
migration and reproduction, siltation and salinity in deltas are altered.

Section D

Once upon a time, these adverse impacts—some of which take years to manifest—weren't really considered before a dam was built. The human need for water, for drinking or to grow food, took precedence. Some people believe they should still. But over recent decades, science has deepened our understanding of natural systems, which we now know can't be broken into discrete pieces, some of which can be exploited and others not. This has given rise to the idea that the
environment itself is a legitimate water consumer, with attendant needs and rights. All this calls for careful study of a river's state and function before it's dammed.

Section E

Australia's newest megadam straddles a gentle valley on the Burnett River, 260 km north-west of Brisbane. Apart from a soupy stain low on its upstream face, the concrete is spotless and dazzles the eye under the sharp Queensland sun. This is Paradise Dam, completed in 2005. Impressive though it may be, Paradise, like other large dams, is a mix of good points and bad. For some people, the bad prevail. High among the complaints has been that the rationale behind it was political. Then there are the potential environmental impacts downstream, especially around the river's mouth in Hervey Bay, which worry people such as commercial fishers and tourism operators.


Questions 1 – 5

The reading passage on AUSTRALIA’s DAM STORY (Part 1) has five sections, A–E. Choose the
correct heading for sections B–E from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number i–ix below. Choose each heading once only.


List of Headings


i Problems in Paradise?
ii Benefits outstrip problems
iii Development of dams in Australia
iv The importance of water to humans
v How to solve problems with dams
vi Australia’s rainfall profile [Example]
vii The role of science in the planning of dams
viii Disadvantages outweigh gains
ix Meeting Sydney’s water needs

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

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