IELTS 22
Reading Test 5
3 passages, 40 items, approximately 60 minutes
IELTS 22
Reading Test 5
3 passages, 40 items, approximately 60 minutes
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.

Wooden Buildings


Using wood as a construction material for large buildings is an ancient practice. The 67-metre-high Sakyamuni Pagoda in China was constructed in 1056, while Japan's Horyu-ji Temple is even older, dating from the 7th or 8th century. That these magnificent structures have survived for over a thousand years is evidence of wood's strength and durability as a building material. Still today, 80% of houses in the USA are built of wood. In Australia the proportion is lower, but it is increasing as more people choose timber construction for environmental reasons.

In modern times, however, wood has been largely replaced by concrete and steel for the construction of tall multi-storey buildings. This is mainly due to fears about fire safety and rot, as well as the perception that wood is not strong enough to support high-rise structures. But recent developments in technology and engineering are changing this view, and wood is making a comeback in urban architecture.
One of the key innovations is the development of engineered wood products, such as cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glued laminated timber (glulam). These materials are made by bonding layers of solid wood together with high-strength adhesives, creating planks that are stronger and more stable than traditional lumber. This allows engineers to design wooden buildings that can compete in height and strength with steel and concrete structures.

Several impressive wooden high-rises have already been constructed around the world. For instance, a 52.8-metre-high apartment tower in Norway and a 53-metre-high student dormitory in Canada demonstrate the capabilities of modern wood engineering. In Vienna, Austria, the HoHo building stands at 84 metres tall, utilizing a combination of wood and concrete to achieve its height. Even more ambitious is the proposed 70-storey Sumitomo Tower in Tokyo, Japan, which aims to utilize wood for earthquake safety and ease of repair.

Aside from structural innovations, building with wood offers significant environmental benefits. Unlike concrete and steel production, which releases massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, wood acts as a carbon sink, storing carbon absorbed by trees during their growth. Furthermore, modern timber buildings are highly recyclable, and components can often be reused at the end of the building's lifespan. Additionally, prefabricated wooden panels can be cut precisely with lasers and assembled layer-by-layer on-site, significantly reducing construction time and waste.

Questions 1-13
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READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.

The Truth about Lying


A

An area of scientific study that caught the public imagination during the 1970s involved a gorilla called Koko. Animal psychologist Francine Patterson claimed to have taught Koko a simplified form of American Sign Language, and through singing, Koko could apparently communicate basic ideas such as ‘food’ and ‘more’, as well as concepts such as ‘good’ and ‘sorry’. But Koko also used signs to blame other people for damage she had caused herself. While today there is some dispute about whether Koko truly understood the meaning of all the signs she made, Professor Karen Goodger believes she was certainly capable of dishonesty. ‘People use words to lie, but for animals with higher brain functions, there’s also a higher probability that they’ll demonstrate manipulative behaviours. We see this not just in gorillas, but in other creatures with a large neocortex.’


B

Human societies may appear to disapprove of lying, but that doesn’t mean we don’t all do it. And it seems that the ability, or at least the desire to deceive, starts from an early age. In one study run by psychologist Kang Lee, children were individually brought into a laboratory and asked to face a wall. They were asked to guess what toy one of Lee’s fellow researchers had placed on a table behind them – for example, a fluffy cat or dog. The researcher would then announce they had to leave the lab to take a phone call, reminding the child not to turn around. The research team were well aware that many children would be unable to resist peeking at the toy. Secret cameras showed that 30% of two-year-old children lied about not looking. This went up to 50% for three-year-olds and almost 80% of eight- year-olds. Interestingly, whereas the younger children simply named the toy and denied taking a peek, the older ones came up with some interesting reasons to explain how they had identified the toy correctly. Lee is reassured by this trend, seeing it as evidence in each case that the cognitive growth of a human child is progressing as it should. Parents, of course, may not be so pleased.


C

Adults, however, can hardly criticise children. According to Professor Richard Wiseman, it appears that adults typically tell two major lies per day, and that one third of adult conversations contain an element of dishonesty. Other research indicates that spouses lie in one out of every 10 interactions. This probably comes as no surprise to Tali Sharot at University College London, who has run a series of experiments proving we become desensitised to lying over time. She has found that while we might initially experience a sense of shame about small lies, this feeling eventually wears off. The result, Sharot has found, is that we progress to more serious ones.


D

Other researchers, including Tim Levine at the University of Alabama, have analysed our motives for lying. By far the most common is our desire to cover up our own wrongdoing. Second to this are lies we tell to gain economic advantage – we might lie during an interview to increase the chances of getting a job. Interestingly, ‘white lies’, the kind we tell to avoid hurting people’s feelings, account only for a small percentage of our untruths. But if we recognise our own tendency to lie, why don’t we recognise it in others? Professor Goodger thinks it has something to do with our strong desire for certain information we hear to be true, even when we might suspect it isn’t. This is because we might be ‘comforted by others’ lies or excited by the promise of a good outcome’, Goodger says.


E

We might not expect ordinary people to be good at recognising lies, but what about people whose job it is to investigate the behavior of others? Paul Erkman is a psychologist from the University of California. As part of his research into deception, he has invited a range of experts to view videos of people telling lies and of others telling the truth. Among the experts have been judges, psychiatrists and people who operate polygraph machines for police investigations. None of these experts have shown they can detect dishonestly any better than people without their experience. Part of the problem is that so many myths still prevail about ‘give-away signs’ indicating that someone is lying.


F

A common claim, for example, is that liars won’t look people in the eye during their explanations or while being questioned. Another is that they are likely to gesture as they tell their story, but so frequently that it seems unnatural – as if they are trying to convince others of their sincerity. However, many researchers have come to reject these ideas, suggesting a more effective approach is to listen to their narration style. A difficulty that liars face is having to remember exactly what they said, which is why they don’t provide as many details as a person giving an honest account would. It is also typical of liars to mentally rehearse their story, and this is why one stage follows another in apparently chronological fashion. Honest stories, however, feature revisions and repetition. Recent research has also disproved the widely believed notion that liars have a habit of fidgeting in their seats. Rather, it seems that they keep still, especially in the upper body, possibly hoping to give the impression of self-assurance. Liars also put some psychological distance between themselves and their lies. For that reason, they avoid the use of ‘I’ when narrating their stories. The reverse is true, however, when people write fake reviews, say, a hotel or restaurant. In these instances, ‘I’ features again and again as they attempt to convince use that their experience was real.

Questions 14-26
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READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

Review: The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben


That so many copies of Peter Wohlleben’s book The Hidden Life of Trees have been sold is no surprise. Life in the urban jungle can be overwhelming, and many of us long to escape by seeing more natural environments. We hope an encounter with nature might make us feel more ‘alive’. Would we use this same term to describe nature itself, though? Forests and the trees that form them are commonly perceived as objects lacking awareness, like rocks or stones. But here, Wohlleben would beg to differ. From his observations, he has concluded that they are conscious in a way we do not fully understand.

In recent decades, a number of writers have investigated our planet’s flora. The Cabaret of Plants by Richard Mabey and What a Planet Knows by Daniel Chamovitz, for example, have done much to reformulate our views about the green world. Central to many of these books is a serious message about sustainability, and The Hidden Life Trees is no exception. What sets it apart is its approach to description: at the start Wohlleben announces that’ When you know the trees … have memories and that tree parents live together with their children, then you can no longer just chop them down.’ Not everyone will be comfortable with this kind of anthropomorphism.

Nevertheless, Wohlleben’s experience of working in a beech forest in the Eifel mountains of Germany may put him in a better position than many to write a book about trees. In the introduction, he explains that he started out as a state-employed forester, taking care of trees purely for industrial reasons. The straighter they were, the more high-quality logs could be sawn. But after a while he began to appreciate trees for more than just their commercial worth. He gives some of the credit for this realisation to the tourists that would come to the forest, who were more enchanted by bent, crooked, which did not conform to the straight ideal.

An anectode that stands out is Wohlleben’s encounter with ‘the gnarled remains of an enormous tree stump’ in the Eifel forest. More than anything else, it was this encounter that prompted him to look further into the hidden behaviour of trees. To his surprise, after scraping at the outside layer of bark covering the stump, he discovered a green layer underneath. This was chlorophyll, the pigment normally produced by living trees. Wohlleben realised that the only way the stump could still be alive was if the surrounding beeches were providing it with a sugar solution through their own roots.

Wohlleben is not the first person to claim that trees are cooperative. In the 1990s, Dr Suzanne Simard realised that fir and birch trees were supplying each other with carbon. Simard’s findings made complete sense to Wohlleben, who believes that this kind of nutrient exchange between neighbours is typical of a healthy forest. Wohlleben also had the opportunity to deepen his understanding of tree biology when researchers from Aachen University set up investigative programmes in his beech forest. Discussions with them reinforced his beliefs about the way trees thrived, and Wohlleben eventually found himself strongly opposed to some traditional forestry practices. He finally succeeded in persuading local villagers that the forest should be allowed to return to a natural state: this involved banning the use of machinery for logging, and giving up on pesticides for a start. Since then, Wohllebenhas been noting how his beech forest has developed, and his observations formed the foundation for the book. Humour and straightforward narrative make it instantly appealing to readers without a science background – elements that have successfully been translated into over a dozen languages. Those that do have scientific training, however, will be more demanding. Critics of Wohlleben point out that proper academic studies need to be done to prove all his claims are factually accurate. This seems a fair point. What the book will certainly do is transform nature lovers’ experiences of a forest work. Once you know what is happening below ground, you can’t help but marvel at the complex life of trees. Will it transform the way we produce timber for the manufacturing industry? As large corporations tend to focus on immediate profits, they are hardly likely to adopt the longer-term practices that Wohlleben recommends.

One of these is allowing trees to grow nearer to each other. This is the opposite of what happens in many state-owned forests, where foresters deliberately space out trees so they can get more sunlight and grow faster. But Wohlleben claims this spacing prevents vital root interaction, and so lowers resistance to drought. Older, established trees, he explains, draw up moisture through their deep roots and provide this to juvenile trees is also given attention. For instance, when pines require more nitrogen, the fungi growing at their base release a poison into the soil. This poison kills many minute organisms, which release nitrogen as they die, and this is absorbed by the trees’ roots. In return, the fungi receive photosynthesised sugar from pines. Then Wohlleben explores the way trees employ scent, giving the example of acacia trees in sub-Saharan Africa. When giraffes begin feeding on an acacia’s leaves, the tree emits ethylene gas as a warning to neighbouring acacias. These they pump tannins into their leaves – substances toxic to giraffes. More controversial is Wohlleben’s suggestion that trees feel pain. Although scientific research has now established that if branches are broken off or the trunk is hit with an axe, a tree will emit electrical signals from the site of the wound, the application of the concept of ‘pain’ might be an instance where readers are unconvinced.
Questions 27-40
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