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1. READING PASSAGE 3 (CAM 14 – TEST 02).......................................................................1

2. READING PASSAGE 3 (CAM 12 – TEST 01).......................................................................3
3. READING PASSAGE 2 (CAM 12 – TEST 02).......................................................................5
4. READING PASSAGE 1 (CAM 12 – TEST 03).......................................................................7
5. READING PASSAGE 3 (CAM 12 – TEST 04).....................................................................10
6. IELTS ACTUAL TEST 01......................................................................................................12
7. IELTS ACTUAL TEST 02......................................................................................................14
8. IELTS ACTUAL TEST 04......................................................................................................16
9. IELTS PRACTICE TEST 01..................................................................................................19
10. IELTS PRACTICE TEST 02................................................................................................21
11. IELTS PRACTICE TEST 03................................................................................................23

1. READING PASSAGE 3 (CAM 14 – TEST 02)

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on Reading Passage 3
below.
Why companies should welcome disorder
A
Organisation is big business. Whether it is of our lives – all those inboxes and calendars – or how
companies are structured, a multi-billion dollar industry helps to meet this need.
We have more strategies for time management, project management and self-organisation than at
any other time in human history. We are told that we ought to organize our company, our home
life, our week, our day and seven our sleep, all as a means to becoming more productive. Every
week, countless seminars and workshops take place around the world to tell a paying public that
they ought to structure their lives in order to achieve this.
This rhetoric has also crept into the thinking of business leaders and entrepreneurs, much to the
delight of self-proclaimed perfectionists with the need to get everything right. The number of
business schools and graduates has massively increased over the past 50 years, essentially
teaching people how to organise well.
B
Ironically, however, the number of business that fail has also steadily increased. Work-related
stress has increased. A large proportion of workers from all demographics claim to be dissatisfied
with the way their work is structured and the way they are managed.
This begs the question: what has gone wrong? Why is it that on paper the drive for organisation
seems a sure shot for increasing productivity, but in reality falls well short of what is expected?
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C
This has been a problem for a while now. Frederick Taylor was one of the forefathers of
scientific management. Writing in the first half of the 20th century, he designed a number of
principles to improve the efficiency of the work process, which have since become widespread in
modern companies. So the approach has been around for a while.
D
New research suggests that this obsession with efficiency is misguided. The problem is not
necessarily the management theories or strategies we use to organise our work; it’s the basic
assumptions we hold in approaching how we work. Here it’s the assumption that order is a
necessary condition for productivity. This assumption has also fostered the idea that disorder
must be detrimental to organizational productivity. The result is that businesses and people spend
time and money organising themselves for the sake of organising, rather than actually looking at
the end goal and usefulness of such an effort.
E
What’s more, recent studies show that order actually has diminishing returns. Order does increase
productivity to a certain extent, but eventually the usefulness of the process of organisation, and
the benefit it yields, reduce until the point where any further increase in order reduces
productivity. Some argue that in a business, if the cost of formally structuring something
outweighs the benefit of doing it, then that thing ought not to be formally structured. Instead, the
resources involved can be better used elsewhere.
F
In fact, research shows that, when innovating, the best approach is to create an environment
devoid of structure and hierarchy and enable everyone involved to engage as one organic group.
These environments can lead to new solutions that, under conventionally structured environments
(filled with bottlenecks in term of information flow, power structures, rules, and routines) would
never be reached.
G
In recent times companies have slowly started to embrace this disorganisation. Many of them
embrace it in terms of perception (embracing the idea of disorder, as opposed to fearing it) and in
terms of process (putting mechanisms in place to reduce structure).
For example, Oticon, a large Danish manufacturer of hearing aids, used what it called a
‘spaghetti’ structure in order to reduce the organisation’s rigid hierarchies. This involved
scrapping formal job titles and giving staff huge amounts of ownership over their own time and
projects. This approach proved to be highly successful initially, with clear improvements in
worker productivity in all facets of the business.
In similar fashion, the former chairman of General Electric embraced disorganisation, putting
forward the idea of the ‘boundaryless’ organisation. Again, it involves breaking down the barriers
between different parts of a company and encouraging virtual collaboration and flexible working.
Google and a number of other tech companies have embraced (at least in part) these kinds of

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flexible structures, facilitated by technology and strong company values which glue people
together.
H
A word of warning to others thinking of jumping on this bandwagon: the evidence so far suggests
disorder, much like order, also seems to have diminishing utility, and can also have detrimental
effects on performance if overused. Like order, disorder should be embraced only so far as it is
useful. But we should not fear it – nor venerate one over the other. This research also shows that
we should continually question whether or not our existing assumptions work.
Questions 27-34
Reading Passage 3 has eight sections, A-H. Choose the correct heading for each section from the
list of headings below. Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 27-34 on your answer sheet.
List of Headkings
i           Complaints about the impact of a certain approach
ii          Fundamental beliefs that are in fact incorrect
iii         Early recommendations concerning business activities
iv         Organisations that put a new approach into practice
v          Companies that have suffered from changing their approach
vi         What people are increasingly expected to do
vii        How to achieve outcomes that are currently impossible
viii       Neither approach guarantees continuous improvement
ix         Evidence that a certain approach can have more disadvantages that advantages
27   Section A
28   Section B
29   Section C
30   Section D
31   Section E
32   Section F
33   Section G
34   Section H

2. READING PASSAGE 3 (CAM 12 – TEST 01)

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on Reading Passage 3
below.
What’s the purpose of gaining knowledge?
A
‘I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any subject.’ That was the
founder’s motto for Cornell University, and it seems an apt characterization of the different
university, also in the USA, where I currently teach philosophy. A student can prepare for a
career in resort management, engineering, interior design, accounting, music, law enforcement,
you name it. But what would the founders of these two institutions have thought of a course
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called ‘Arson for Profit’? I kid you not: we have it on the books. Any undergraduates who have
met the academic requirements can sign up for the course in our program in ‘fire science’.
B
Naturally, the course is intended for prospective arson investigators, who can learn all the tricks
of the trade for detecting whether a fire was deliberately set, discovering who did it, and
establishing a chain of evidence for effective prosecution in a court of law. But wouldn’t this also
be the perfect course for prospective arsonists to sign up for? My point is not to criticize
academic programs in fire science: they are highly welcome as part of the increasing
professionalization of this and many other occupations. However, it’s not unknown for a
firefighter to torch a building. This example suggests how dishonest and illegal behavior, with the
help of higher education, can creep into every aspect of public and business life.
C
I realized this anew when I was invited to speak before a class in marketing, which is another of
our degree programs. The regular instructor is a colleague who appreciates the kind of ethical
perspective. I can bring as a philosopher. There are endless ways I could have approached this
assignment, but I took my cue from the title of the course: ‘Principles of Marketing’. It made me
think to ask the students, ‘Is marketing principled?’ After all, a subject matter can have principles
in the sense of being codified, having rules, as with football or chess, without being principled in
the sense of being ethical. Many of the students immediately assumed that the answer to my
question about marketing principles was obvious: no. Just look at the ways in which everything
under the sun has been marketed; obviously it need to be done in a principled (=ethical) fashion.
D
Is that obvious? I made the suggestion, which may sound downright crazy in light of the
evidence, that perhaps marketing is by definition principled. My inspiration for this judgement is
the philosopher Immanuel Kant, who argued that any body of knowledge consists of an end (or
purpose) and a means.
E
Let us apply both the terms ‘means’ and ‘end’ to marketing. The students have signed up for a
course in order to learn how to market effectively. But to what end? There seem to be two main
attitudes toward that question. One is that the answer is obvious: the purpose of marketing is to
sell things and to make money. The other attitude is that the purpose of marketing is irrelevant:
Each person comes to the program and course with his or her own plans, and these need not even
concern the acquisition of marketing expertise as such. My proposal, which I believe would also
be Kant’s, is that neither of these attitudes captures the significance of the end to the means for
marketing. A field of knowledge or a professional endeavor is defined by both the means and the
end; hence both deserve scrutiny. Students need to study both how to achieve X, and also what X
is.
F
It is at this point that ‘Arson for Profit’ becomes supremely relevant. That course is presumably
all about means: how to detect and prosecute criminal activity. It is therefore assumed that

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the end is good in an ethical sense. When I ask fire science students to articulate the end, or
purpose, of their field, they eventually generalize to something like, ‘The safety and welfare of
society,’ which seems right. As we have seen, someone could use the very same knowledge
of means to achieve a much less noble end such as personal profit via destructive, dangerous,
reckless activity. But we would not call that firefighting. We have a separate word for
it: arson. Similarly, if you employed the ‘principles of marketing’ is an unprincipled way, you
would not be doing marketing. We have another term for it: fraud. Kant gives the example of a
doctor and a poisoner, who use the identical knowledge to achieve their divergent ends. We
would say that one is practicing medicine, the other, murder.
Questions 27-32
Reading Passage 3 has six sections, A-F.
Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-viii, in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i           Courses that require a high level of commitment
ii          A course title with two meanings
iii         The equal importance of two key issues
iv         Applying a theory in an unexpected context
v          The financial benefits of studying
vi         A surprising course little
vii        Different names for different outcomes
viii       The possibility of attracting the wrong kind of student

27   Section A
28   Section B
29   Section C
30   Section D
31   Section E
32   Section F

3. READING PASSAGE 2 (CAM 12 – TEST 02)

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which are based on Reading Passage 2
below. 
The Lost City
An explorer’s encounter with the ruined city of Machu Picchu, the most famous icon of the Inca
civilsation
A
When the US explorer and academic Hiram Bingham arrived in South America in 1911, he was
ready for what was to be the greatest achievement of his life: the exploration of the remote
hinterland to the west of Cusco, the old capital of the Inca empire in the Andes mountains of
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Peru. His goal was to locate the remains of a city called Vitcos, the last capital of the Inca
civilisation. Cusco lies on a high plateau at an elevation of more than 3,000 metres, and
Bingham’s plan was to descend from this plateau along the valley of the Urubamba river, which
takes a circuitous route down to the Amazon and passes through an area of dramatic canyons and
mountain ranges.
B
When Bingham and his team set off down the Urubamba in late July, they had an advantage over
travelers who had preceded them: a track had recently been blasted down the valley canyon to
enable rubber to be brought up by mules from the jungle. Almost all previous travelers had left
the river at Ollantaytambo and taken a high pass across the mountains to rejoin the river lower
down, thereby cutting a substantial corner, but also therefore never passing through the area
around Machu Picchu.
C
On 24 July they were a few days into their descent of the valley. The day began slowly, with
Bingham trying to arrange sufficient mules for the next stage of the trek. His companions showed
no interest in accompanying him up the nearby hill to see some ruins that a local farmer, Melchor
Arteaga, had told them about the night before. The morning was dull and damp, and Bingham
also seems to have been less than keen on the prospect of climbing the hill. In his book Lost City
of the Incas, he relates that he made the ascent without having the least expectation that he would
find anything at the top.
D
Bingham writes about the approach in vivid style in his book. First, as he climbs up the hill, he
describes the ever-present possibility of deadly snakes, ‘capable of making considerable springs
when in pursuit of their prey’; not that he sees any. Then there’s a sense of mounting discovery as
he comes across great sweeps of terraces, then a mausoleum, followed by monumental staircases
and, finally, the grand ceremonial buildings of Machu Picchu. ‘It seemed like an unbelievable
dream … the sight held me spellbound …’ he wrote.
E
We should remember, however, that Lost City of the Incas  is a work of hindsight, not written
until 1948, many years after his journey. His journal entries of the time reveal a much more
gradual appreciation of his achievement. He spent the afternoon at the ruins noting down the
dimensions of some of the buildings, then descended and rejoined his companions, to whom he
seems to have said little about his discovery. At this stage, Bingham didn’t realise the extent or
the importance of the site, nor did he realise what use he could make of the discovery.
F
However, soon after returning it occurred to him that he could make a name for himself from this
discovery. When he came to write the National Geographic magazine article that broke the story
to the world in April 1913, he knew he had to produce a big idea. He wondered whether it could
have been the birthplace of the very first Inca, Manco the Great, and whether it could also have
been what chroniclers described as ‘the last city of the Incas’. This term refers to Vilcabamba, the

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settlement where the Incas had fled from Spanish invaders in the 1530s. Bingham made desperate
attempts to prove this belief for nearly 40 years. Sadly, his vision of the site as both the beginning
and end of the Inca civilisation, while a magnificent one, is inaccurate. We now know that
Vilcabamba actually lies 65 kilometres away in the depths of the jungle.
G
One question that has perplexed visitors, historians and archaeologists alike ever since Bingham,
is why the site seems to have been abandoned before the Spanish Conquest. There are no
references to it by any of the Spanish chroniclers – and if they had known of its existence so close
to Cusco they would certainly have come in search of gold. An idea which has gained wide
acceptance over the past few years is that Machu Picchu was a moya, a country estate built by an
Inca emperor to escape the cold winters of Cusco, where the elite could enjoy monumental
architecture and spectacular views. Furthermore, the particular architecture of Machu Picchu
suggests that it was constructed at the time of the greatest of all the Incas, the emperor Pachacuti
(c. 1438-71). By custom, Pachacuti’s descendants built other similar estates for their own use,
and so Machu Picchu would have been abandoned after his death, some 50 years before the
Spanish Conquest.
Questions 14-20
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-viii, in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet.
List of headings
i           Different accounts of the same journey
ii          Bingham gains support
iii         A common belief
iv         The aim of the trip
v          A dramatic description
vi         A new route
vii        Bingham publishes his theory
viii       Bingham’s lack of enthusiasm

14   Paragraph A
15   Paragraph B
16   Paragraph C
17   Paragraph D
18   Paragraph E
19   Paragraph F
20   Paragraph G

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4. READING PASSAGE 1 (CAM 12 – TEST 03)
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 1
below.
Flying tortoises
An airborne reintroduction programme has helped conservationists take significant steps to
protect the endangered Galápagos tortoise.
A
Forests of spiny cacti cover much of the uneven lave plains that separate the interior of the
Galápagos island of Isabela from the Pacific Ocean. With its five distinct volcanoes, the island
resembles a lunar landscape. Only the thick vegetation at the skirt of the often cloud-covered
peak of Sierra Negra offers respite from the barren terrain below. This inhospitable environment
is home to the giant Galápagos tortoise. Some time after the Galápagos’s birth, around five
million years ago, the islands were colonised by one or more tortoises from mainland South
America. As these ancestral tortoises settled on the individual islands, the different populations
adapted to their unique environments, giving rise to at least 14 different subspecies. Island life
agreed with them. In the absence of significant predators, they grew to become the largest and
longest-living tortoises on the planet, weighing more than 400 kilograms, occasionally exceeding
1.8 metres in length and living for more than a century.
B
Before human arrival, the archipelago’s tortoises numbered in the hundreds of thousands. From
the 17th century onwards, pirates took a few on board for food, but the arrival of whaling ships in
the 1790s saw this exploitation grow exponentially. Relatively immobile and capable of surviving
for months without food or water, the tortoises were taken on board these ships to act as food
supplies during long ocean passages. Sometimes, their bodies were processed into high-grade oil.
In total, an estimated 200,000 animals were taken from the archipelago before the 20th century.
This historical exploitation was then exacerbated when settlers came to the islands. They hunted
the tortoises and destroyed their habitat to clear land for agriculture. They also introduced alien
species – ranging from cattle, pigs, goats, rats and dogs to plants and ants – that either prey on the
eggs and young tortoises or damage or destroy their habitat.
C
Today, only 11 of the original subspecies survive and of these, several are highly endangered. In
1989, work began on a tortoise-breeding centre just outside the town of Puerto Villamil on
Isabela, dedicated to protecting the island’s tortoise populations. The centre’s captive-breeding
programme proved to be extremely successful, and it eventually had to deal with an
overpopulation problem.
D
The problem was also a pressing one. Captive-bred tortoises can’t be reintroduced into the wild
until they’re at least five years old and weigh at least 4.5 kilograms, at which point their size and

8
weight – and their hardened shells – are sufficient to protect them from predators. But if people
wait too long after that point, the tortoises eventually become too large to transport.
E
For years, repatriation efforts were carried out in small numbers, with the tortoises carried on the
backs of men over weeks of long, treacherous hikes along narrow trails. But in November 2010,
the environmentalist and Galápagos National Park liaison officer Godfrey Merlin, a visiting
private motor yacht captain and a helicopter pilot gathered around a table in a small café in
Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz to work out more ambitious reintroduction. The aim
was to use a helicopter to move 300 of the breeding centre’s tortoises to various locations close to
Sierra Negra.
F
This unprecedented effort was made possible by the owners of the 67-metre yacht While Cloud,
who provided the Galápagos National Park with free use of their helicopter and its experienced
pilot, as well as the logistical support of the yacht, its captain and crew. Originally an air
ambulance, the yacht’s helicopter has a rear double door and a large internal space that’s well
suited for cargo, so a custom crate was designed to hold up to 33 tortoises with a total weight of
about 150 kilograms. This weight, together with that of the fuel, pilot and four crew, approached
the helicopter’s maximum payload, and there were times when it was clearly right on the edge of
the helicopter’s capabilities. During a period of three days, a group of volunteers from the
breeding centre worked around the clock to prepare the young tortoises for transport. Meanwhile,
park wardens, dropped off ahead of time in remote locations, cleared landing sites within the
thick brush, cacti and lava rocks.
G
Upon their release, the juvenile tortoises quickly spread out over their ancestral territory,
investigating their new surroundings and feeding on the vegetation. Eventually, one tiny tortoise
came across a fully grown giant who had been lumbering around the island for around a hundred
years. The two stood side by side, a powerful symbol of the regeneration of an ancient species.
Questions 1-7
Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs, A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-viii, in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet
List of Headings
i           The importance of getting the timing right
ii          Young meets old
iii         Developments to the disadvantage of tortoise populations
iv         Planning a bigger idea
v          Tortoises populate the islands
vi         Carrying out a carefully prepared operation
vii        Looking for a home for the islands’ tortoises
viii       The start of the conservation project 

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1   Paragraph A
2   Paragraph B
3   Paragraph C
4   Paragraph D
5   Paragraph E
6   Paragraph F
7   Paragraph G

5. READING PASSAGE 3 (CAM 12 – TEST 04)

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on Reading Passage 3
below.
UK companies need more effective boards of directors
A
After a number of serious failures of governance (that is, how they are managed at the highest
level), companies in Britain, as well as elsewhere, should consider radical changes to their
directors’ roles. It is clear that the role of a board director today is not an easy one. Following the
2008 financial meltdown, which resulted in a deeper and more prolonged period of economic
downturn than anyone expected, the search for explanations in the many post-mortems of the
crisis has meant blame has been spread far and wide. Governments, regulators, central banks and
auditors have all been in the frame. The role of bank directors and management and their widely
publicised failures have been extensively picked over and examined in reports, inquiries and
commentaries.
B
The knock-on effect of this scrutiny has been to make the governance of companies in general an
issue of intense public debate and has significantly increased the pressures on, and the
responsibilities of, directors. At the simplest and most practical level, the time involved in
fulfilling the demands of a board directorship has increased significantly, calling into question the
effectiveness of the classic model of corporate governance by part-time, independent non-
executive directors. Where once a board schedule may have consisted of between eight and ten
meetings a year, in many companies the number of events requiring board input and decisions
has dramatically risen. Furthermore, the amount of reading and preparation required for each
meeting is increasing. Agendas can become overloaded and this can mean the time for
constructive debate must necessarily be restricted in favour of getting through the business.
C
Often, board business is devolved to committees in order to cope with the workload, which may
be more efficient but can mean that the board as a whole is less involved in fully addressing some
of the most important issues. It is not uncommon for the audit committee meeting to last longer
than the main board meeting itself. Process may take the place of discussion and be at the
expense of real collaboration, so that boxes are ticked rather than issues tackled.
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D
A radical solution, which may work for some very large companies whose businesses are
extensive and complex, is the professional board, whose members would work up to three or four
days a week, supported by their own dedicated staff and advisers. There are obvious risks to this
and it would be important to establish clear guidelines for such a board to ensure that it did not
step on the toes of management by becoming too engaged in the day-to-day running of the
company. Problems of recruitment, remuneration and independence could also arise and this
structure would not be appropriate for all companies. However, more professional and better-
informed boards would have been particularly appropriate for banks where the executives had
access to information that part-time non-executive directors lacked, leaving the latter unable to
comprehend or anticipate the 2008 crash.
E
One of the main criticisms of boards and their directors is that they do not focus sufficiently on
longer-term matters of strategy, sustainability and governance, but instead concentrate too much
on short-term financial metrics. Regulatory requirements and the structure of the market
encourage this behaviour. The tyranny of quarterly reporting can distort board decision-making,
as directors have to ‘make the numbers’ every four months to meet the insatiable appetite of the
market for more date. This serves to encourage the trading methodology of a certain kind of
investor who moves in and out of a stock without engaging in constructive dialogue with the
company about strategy or performance, and is simply seeking a short-term financial gain. This
effect has been made worse by the changing profile of investors due to the globalisation of capital
and the increasing use of automated trading systems. Corporate culture adapts and management
teams are largely incentivised to meet financial goals.
F
Compensation for chief executives has become a combat zone where pitched battles between
investors, management and board members are fought, often behind closed doors but increasingly
frequently in the full glare of press attention. Many would argue that this is in the interest of
transparency and good governance as shareholders use their muscle in the area of pay to pressure
boards to remove underperforming chief executives. Their powers to vote down executive
remuneration policies increased when binding votes came into force. The chair of the
remuneration committee can be an exposed and lonely role, as Alison Carnwath, chair of
Barclays Bank’s remuneration committee, found when she had to resign, having been roundly
criticised for trying to defend the enormous bonus to be paid to the chief executive; the irony
being that she was widely understood to have spoken out against it in the privacy of the
committee.
G
The financial crisis stimulated a debate about the role and purpose of the company and a
heightened awareness of corporate ethics. Trust in the corporation has been eroded and
academics such as Michael Sandel, in his thoughtful and bestselling book What Money Can’t
Buy, are questioning the morality of capitalism and the market economy. Boards of companies in

11
all sectors will need to widen their perspective to encompass these issues and this may involve a
realignment of corporate goals. We live in challenging times.
Questions 27-33
Reading Passage 3 has seven paragraphs, A-G
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-viii, in boxes 27-33 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i           Disputes over financial arrangements regarding senior managers
ii          The impact on companies of being subjected to close examination
iii         The possible need for fundamental change in every area of business
iv         Many external bodies being held responsible for problems
v          The falling number of board members with broad enough experience
vi         A risk that not all directors take part in solving major problems
vii        Broads not looking far enough ahead
viii       A proposal to change the way the board operates

27   Paragraph A
28   Paragraph B
29   Paragraph C
30   Paragraph D
31   Paragraph E
32   Paragraph F
33   Paragraph G

6. IELTS ACTUAL TEST 01

William Gilbert and Magnetism
A
The 16th and 17th centuries saw two great pioneers of modern science: Galileo and Gilbert. The
impact of their findings is eminent. Gilbert was the first modern scientist, also the accredited
father of the science of electricity and magnetism, an Englishman of learning and a physician at
the court of Elizabeth. Prior to him, all that was known of electricity and magnetism was what the
ancients knew, nothing more than that the lodestone possessed magnetic properties and that
amber and jet, when rubbed, would attract bits of paper or other substances of small specific
gravity. However, he is less well known than he deserves.
B
Gilbert’s birth pre-dated Galileo. Born in an eminent local family in Colchester County in the
UK, on May 24, 1544, he went to grammar school, and then studied medicine at St John’s
College, Cambridge, graduating in 1573. Later he travelled in the continent and eventually settled
down in London.
C
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He was a very successful and eminent doctor. All this culminated in his election to the president
of the Royal Science Society. He was also appointed personal physician to the Queen (Elizabeth
I), and later knighted by the Queen. He faithfully served her until her death. However, he didn’t
outlive the Queen for long and died on November 30, 1603, only a few months after his
appointment as personal physician to King James.
D
Gilbert was first interested in chemistry but later changed his focus due to the large portion of
mysticism of alchemy involved (such as the transmutation of metal). He gradually developed his
interest in physics after the great minds of the ancient, particularly about the knowledge the
ancient Greeks had about lodestones, strange minerals with the power to attract iron. In the
meantime, Britain became a major seafaring nation in 1588 when the Spanish Armada was
defeated, opening the way to British settlement of America. British ships depended on the
magnetic compass, yet no one understood why it worked. Did the Pole Star attract it, as
Columbus once speculated; or was there a magnetic mountain at the pole, as described in
Odyssey, which ships would never approach, because the sailors thought its pull would yank out
all their iron nails and fittings? For nearly 20 years, William Gilbert conducted ingenious
experiments to understand magnetism. His works include On the Magnet, Magnetic Bodies, and
the Great Magnet of the Earth.
E
Gilbert’s discovery was so important to modern physics. He investigated the nature of magnetism
and electricity. He even coined the word “electric”. Though the early beliefs of magnetism were
also largely entangled with superstitions such as that rubbing garlic on lodestone can neutralise
its magnetism, one example being that sailors even believed the smell of garlic would even
interfere with the action of compass, which is why helmsmen were forbidden to eat it near a
ship’s compass. Gilbert also found that metals can be magnetised by rubbing materials such as
fur, plastic or the like on them. He named the ends of a magnet “north pole” and “south pole”.
The magnetic poles can attract or repel, depending on polarity. In addition, however, ordinary
iron is always attracted to a magnet. Though he started to study the relationship between
magnetism and electricity, sadly he didn’t complete it. His research of static electricity using
amber and jet only demonstrated that objects with electrical charges can work like magnets
attracting small pieces of paper and stuff. It is a French guy named du Fay that discovered that
there are actually two electrical charges, positive and negative.
F
He also questioned the traditional astronomical beliefs. Though a Copernican, he didn’t express
in his quintessential beliefs whether the earth is at the centre of the universe or in orbit around the
sun. However, he believed that stars are not equidistant from the earth but have their own earth-
like planets orbiting around them. The earth itself is like a giant magnet, which is also why
compasses always point north. They spin on an axis that is aligned with the earth’s polarity. He
even likened the polarity of the magnet to the polarity of the earth and built an entire magnetic
philosophy on this analogy. In his explanation, magnetism is the soul of the earth. Thus a

13
perfectly spherical lodestone, when aligned with the earth’s poles, would wobble all by itself in
24 hours. Further, he also believed that the sun and other stars wobble just like the earth does
around a crystal core, and speculated that the moon might also be a magnet caused to orbit by its
magnetic attraction to the earth. This was perhaps the first proposal that a force might cause a
heavenly orbit.
G
His research method was revolutionary in that he used experiments rather than pure logic and
reasoning like the ancient Greek philosophers did. It was a new attitude towards scientific
investigation. Until then, scientific experiments were not in fashion. It was because of this
scientific attitude, together with his contribution to our knowledge of magnetism, that a unit of
magneto motive force, also known as magnetic potential, was named Gilbert in his honour. His
approach of careful observation and experimentation rather than the authoritative opinion or
deductive philosophy of others had laid the very foundation for modern science.
List of headings
i Early years of Gilbert
ii What was new about his scientific research method
iii The development of chemistry
iv Questioning traditional astronomy
v Pioneers of the early science
vi Professional and social recognition
vii Becoming the president of the Royal Science Society
viii The great works of Gilbert
ix His discovery about magnetism
x His change of focus

1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
3. Paragraph C
4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
6. Paragraph F
7. Paragraph G

7. IELTS ACTUAL TEST 02

What is a dinosaur?
A. 
Although the name dinosaur is derived from the Greek for "terrible lizard", dinosaurs were not, in
fact, lizards at all. Like lizards, dinosaurs are included in the class Reptilia, or reptiles, one of the

14
five main classes of Vertebrata, animals with backbones. However, at the next level of
classification, within reptiles, significant differences in the skeletal anatomy of lizards and
dinosaurs have led scientists to place these groups of animals into two different superorders:
Lepidosauria, or lepidosaurs, and Archosauria, or archosaurs.
B. 
Classified as lepidosaurs are lizards and snakes and their prehistoric ancestors. Included among
the archosaurs, or "ruling reptiles", are prehistoric and modern crocodiles, and the now extinct
thecodonts, pterosaurs and dinosaurs. Palaeontologists believe that both dinosaurs and crocodiles
evolved, in the later years of the Triassic Period (c. 248-208 million years ago), from creatures
called pseudosuchian thecodonts. Lizards, snakes and different types of thecodont are believed to
have evolved earlier in the Triassic Period from reptiles known as eosuchians.
C. 
The most important skeletal differences between dinosaurs and other archosaurs are in the bones
of the skull, pelvis and limbs. Dinosaur skulls are found in a great range of shapes and sizes,
reflecting the different eating habits and lifestyles of a large and varied group of animals that
dominated life on Earth for an extraordinary 165 million years. However, unlike the skulls of any
other known animals, the skulls of dinosaurs had two long bones known as vomers. These bones
extended on either side of the head, from the front of the snout to the level of the holes on the
skull known as the antorbital fenestra, situated in front of the dinosaur's orbits or eyesockets.
D. 
All dinosaurs, whether large or small, quadrupedal or bipedal, fleet-footed or slow-moving,
shared a common body plan. Identification of this plan makes it possible to differentiate
dinosaurs from any other types of animal, even other archosaurs. Most significantly, in dinosaurs,
the pelvis and femur had evolved so that the hind limbs were held vertically beneath the body,
rather than sprawling out to the sides like the limbs of a lizard. The femur of a dinosaur had a
sharply in-turned neck and a ball-shaped head, which slotted into a fully open acetabulum or hip
socket. A supra-acetabular crest helped prevent dislocation of the femur. The position of the knee
joint, aligned below the acetabulum, made it possible for the whole hind limb to swing backwards
and forwards. This unique combination of features gave dinosaurs what is known as a "fully
improved gait". Evolution of this highly efficient method of walking also developed in mammals,
but among reptiles it occurred only in dinosaurs.
E. 
For the purpose of further classification, dinosaurs are divided into two orders: Saurischia, or
saurischian dinosaurs, and Ornithischia, or ornithischian dinosaurs. This division is made on the
basis of their pelvic anatomy. All dinosaurs had a pelvic girdle with each side comprised of three
bones: the pubis, ilium and ischium. However, the orientation of these bones follows one of two
patterns. In saurischian dinosaurs, also known as lizard-hipped dinosaurs, the pubis points
forwards, as is usual in most types of reptile. By contrast, in ornithischian, or bird-hipped,
dinosaurs, the pubis points backwards towards the rear of the animal, which is also true of birds.
F. 

15
Of the two orders of dinosaurs, the Saurischia was the larger and the first to evolve. It is divided
into two suborders: Therapoda, or therapods, and Sauropodomorpha, or sauropodomorphs. The
therapods, or "beast feet", were bipedal, predatory carnivores. They ranged in size from the
mighty Tyrannosaurus rex, 12m long, 5.6m tall and weighing an estimated 6.4 tonnes, to the
smallest known dinosaur, Compsognathus, a mere 1.4m long and estimated 3kg in weight when
fully grown. The sauropodomorphs, or "lizard feet forms", included both bipedal and
quadrupedal dinosaurs. Some sauropodomorphs were carnivorous or omnivorous but later species
were typically herbivorous. They included some of the largest and best-known of all dinosaurs,
such as Diplodocus, a huge quadruped with an elephant-like body, a long, thin tail and neck that
gave it a total length of 27m, and a tiny head.
G. 
Ornithischian dinosaurs were bipedal or quadrupedal herbivores. They are now usually divided
into three suborders: Ornithipoda, Thyreophora and Marginocephalia. The ornithopods, or "bird
feet", both large and small, could walk or run on their long hind legs, balancing their body by
holding their tails stiffly off the ground behind them. An example is Iguanodon, up to 9m long,
5m tall and weighing 4.5 tonnes. The thyreophorans, or "shield bearers", also known as armoured
dinosaurs, were quadrupeds with rows of protective bony spikes, studs, or plates along their
backs and tails. They included Stegosaurus, 9m long and weighing 2 tonnes.
H. 
The marginocephalians, or "margined heads", were bipedal or quadrupedal ornithschians with a
deep bony frill or narrow shelf at the back of the skull. An example is Triceratops, a rhinoceros-
like dinosaur, 9m long, weighing 5.4 tonnes and bearing a prominent neck frill and three large
horns.
List of headings
i 165 million years
ii The body plan of archosaurs
iii Dinosaurs - terrible lizards
iv Classification according to pelvic anatomy
v The suborders of Saurischia
vi Lizards and dinosaurs - two distinct superorders
vii Unique body plan helps identify dinosaurs from other animals
viii Herbivore dinosaurs
ix Lepidosaurs
x Frills and shelves
xi The origins of dinosaurs and lizards
xii Bird-hipped dinosaurs
xiii Skull bones distinguish dinosaurs from other archosaurs

16
27. Paragraph A
28. Paragraph B
29. Paragraph C
30. Paragraph D
31. Paragraph E
32. Paragraph F
33. Paragraph G

8. IELTS ACTUAL TEST 04

Music: Language We All Speak
Section A
Music is one of the human species' relatively few universal abilities. Without formal training, any
individual, from Stone Age tribesman to suburban teenager, has the ability to recognise music
and, in some fashion, to make it. Why this should be so is a mystery. After all, music isn't
necessary for getting through the day, and if it aids in reproduction, it does so only in highly
indirect ways. Language, by contrast, is also everywhere - but for reasons that are more obvious.
With language, you and the members of your tribe can organise a migration across Africa, build
reed boats and cross the seas, and communicate at night even when you can't see each other.
Modern culture, in all its technological extravagance, springs directly from the human talent for
manipulating symbols and syntax.
Scientists have always been intrigued by the connection between music and language. Yet over
the years, words and melody have acquired a vastly different status in the lab and the seminar
room. While language has long been considered essential to unlocking the mechanisms of human
intelligence, music is generally treated as an evolutionary frippery - mere "auditory cheesecake",
as the Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker puts it.
Section B
But thanks to a decade-long wave of neuroscience research, that tune is changing. A flurry of
recent publications suggests that language and music may equally be able to tell us who we are
and where we're from - not just emotionally, but biologically. In July, the journal Nature
Neuroscience devoted a special issue to the topic. And in an article in the 6 August issue of the
Journal of Neuroscience, David Schwartz, Catherine Howe, and Dale Purves of Duke University
argued that the sounds of music and the sounds of language are intricately connected.
To grasp the originality of this idea, it's necessary to realise two things about how music has
traditionally been understood. First, musicologists have long emphasised that while each culture
stamps a special identity onto its music, music itself has some universal qualities. For example, in
virtually all cultures, sound is divided into some or all of the 12 intervals that make up the
chromatic scale -that is, the scale represented by the keys on a piano. For centuries, observers
have attributed this preference for certain combinations of tones to the mathematical properties of
sound itself.

17
Some 2,500 years ago, Pythagoras was the first to note a direct relationship between the
harmoniousness of a tone combination and the physical dimensions of the object that produced it.
For example, a plucked string will always play an octave lower than a similar string half its size,
and a fifth lower than a similar string two thirds its length. This link between simple ratios and
harmony has influenced music theory ever since.
Section C
This music-is-math idea is often accompanied by the notion that music, formally speaking at
least, exists apart from the world in which it was created. Writing recently in The New York
Review of Books, pianist and critic Charles Rosen discussed the long-standing notion that while
painting and sculpture reproduce at least some aspects of the natural world, and writing describes
thoughts and feelings we are all familiar with, music is entirely abstracted from the world in
which we live. Neither idea is right, according to David Schwartz and his colleagues. Human
musical preferences are fundamentally shaped not by elegant algorithms or ratios but by the
messy sounds of real life, and of speech in particular – which in turn is shaped by our
evolutionary heritage. "The explanation of music, like the explanation of any product of the
mind, must be rooted in biology, not in numbers per se," says Schwartz.
Schwartz, Howe, and Purves analysed a vast selection of speech sounds from a variety of
languages to reveal the underlying patterns common to all utterances. In order to focus only on
the raw sounds, they discarded all theories about speech and meaning, and sliced sentences into
random bites. Using a database of over 100,000 brief segments of speech, they noted which
frequency had the greatest emphasis in each sound. The resulting set of frequencies, they
discovered, corresponded closely to the chromatic scale. In short, the building blocks of music
are to be found in speech.
Far from being abstract, music presents a strange analogue to the patterns created by the sounds
of speech. "Music, like visual arts, is rooted in our experience of the natural world," says
Schwartz. "It emulates our sound environment in the way that visual arts emulate the visual
environment." In music we hear the echo of our basic sound-making instrument - the vocal tract.
The explanation for human music is simpler still than Pythagoras's mathematical equations: We
like the sounds that are familiar to us - specifically, we like the sounds that remind us of us.
This brings up some chicken-or-egg evolutionary questions. It may be that music imitates speech
directly, the researchers say, in which case it would seem that language evolved first. It's also
conceivable that music came first and language is in effect an imitation of song - that in everyday
speech we hit the musical notes we especially like. Alternately, it may be that music imitates the
general products of the human sound-making system, which just happens to be mostly speech.
"We can't know this," says Schwartz. "What we do know is that they both come from the same
system, and it is this that shapes our preferences."
Section D
Schwartz's study also casts light on the long-running question of whether animals understand or
appreciate music. Despite the apparent abundance of "music" in the natural world - birdsong,

18
whalesong, wolf howls, synchronised chimpanzee hooting - previous studies have found that
many laboratory animals don't show a great affinity for the human variety of music making.
Marc Hauser and Josh McDermott of Harvard argued in the July issue of Nature Neuroscience
that animals don't create or perceive music the way we do. The fact that laboratory monkeys can
show recognition of human tunes is evidence, they say, of shared general features of the auditory
system, not any specific chimpanzee musical ability. As for birds, those most musical beasts, they
generally recognise their own tunes - a narrow repertoire - but don't generate novel melodies like
we do. There are no avian Mozarts.
But what's been played to animals, Schwartz notes, is human music. If animals evolve
preferences for sound as we do - based upon the soundscape in which they live - then their
"music" would be fundamentally different from ours. In the same way our scales derive from
human utterances, a cat's idea of a good tune would derive from yowls and meows. To
demonstrate that animals don't appreciate sound the way we do, we'd need evidence that they
don't respond to "music" constructed from their own sound environment.
Section E
No matter how the connection between language and music is parsed, what is apparent is that our
sense of music, even our love for it, is as deeply rooted in our biology and in our brains as
language is. This is most obvious with babies, says Sandra Trehub at the University of Toronto,
who also published a paper in the Nature Neuroscience special issue.
For babies, music and speech are on a continuum. Mothers use musical speech to "regulate
infants' emotional states", Trehub says. Regardless of what language they speak, the voice all
mothers use with babies is the same: "something between speech and song". This kind of
communication "puts the baby in a trancelike state, which may proceed to sleep or extended
periods of rapture". So if the babies of the world could understand the latest research on language
and music, they probably wouldn't be very surprised. The upshot, says Trehub, is that music may
be even more of a necessity than we realise.
List of Headings
i Communication in music with animals
ii New discoveries on animal music
iii Music and language contrasted
iv Current research on music
v Music is beneficial for infants.
vi Music transcends cultures.
vii Look back at some of the historical theories
viii Are we genetically designed for music?

1. Section A
2. Section B
3. Section C
19
4. Section D
5. Section E

9. IELTS PRACTICE TEST 01

The Spice of Life!
A. When thinking of the most popular restaurant dish in the UK, the answer ‘chicken tikka
masala’ does not spring readily to mind. But it is indeed the answer, often now referred to as a
true ‘British national dish’. It may even have been invented by Indian immigrants in Scotland,
who roasted chicken chunks (tikka), mixed them with spices and yoghurt, and served this in a
bowl of masala sauce. The exact ingredients of the sauce vary from restaurant to restaurant, but
the dish usually includes purced tomatoes and cream, coloured orange by turmeric and paprika.
British cuisine? Yes, spices have come a long way.
B. Spices are dried seeds, fruit, roots, bark, or vegetative parts of plants, added to food in small
amounts to enhance flavour or colour. Herbs, in contrast, are only from the leaves, and only used
for flavouring. Looking at the sources of some common spices, mustard and black pepper arc
from seeds, cinnamon from bark, cloves from dried flower buds, ginger and turmeric from roots,
while mace and saffron are from seed covers and stigma tips, respectively. In the face of such
variety, it is becoming increasingly common for spices to be offered in pre-made combinations.
Chili powder is a blend of chili peppers with other spices, often cumin, oregano, garlic powder,
and salt. Mixed spice, which is often used in baking, is a British blend of sweet spices, with
cinnamon being the dominant flavour. The ever-popular masala, as noted, could be anything,
depending on the chef.
C. Although human communities were using spices tens of thousands of years ago, the trade of
this commodity only began about 2000 BC, around the Middle Last. Farly uses were less
connected with cooking, and more with such diverse functions as embalming, medicine, religion,
and food preservation. Eventually, extensive overland trade routes, such as the Silk Road, were
established, yet it was maritime advances into India and East Asia which led to the most dramatic
growth in commercial activities. From then on, spices were the driving force of the world
economy, commanding such high prices that it pitted nation against nation, and became the major
impetus to exploration and conquest, It would be hard to underestimate the role spices have
played in human history.
D. Originally, Muslim traders dominated these routes, seeing spice-laden ships from the Orient
crossing the Indian Ocean to Red Sea and Persian Gulf ports, from where camel caravans
transported the goods overland. However, although slow to develop, European nations, using
aggressive exploration and colonisation strategies, eventually came to rule the Far East and,
consequently, control of the spice trade. At first, Portugal was the dominant power, but the
British and Dutch eventually gained the upper hand, so that by the 19th century, the British
controlled India, while the Dutch had the greater portion of the East Indies (Indonesia). Cloves,
nutmeg, and pepper were some of the most valuable spices of the time.

20
E. But why were spices always in such demand? There are many answers. In the early days, they
were thought to have strong medicinal properties by balancing ‘humours’, or excesses of
emotions in the blood. Other times they were thought to prevent maladies such as the plague,
which often saw prices of recommended spices soar. But most obviously, spices flavoured the
bland meat-based European cuisines. Pepper, historically, has always been in highest demand for
this reason, and even today, peppercorns (dried black pepper kernels) remain, by monetary value,
the most widely traded spice in the world. However, saffron, by being produced within the small
saffron flower, has always been among the world’s most costly spice by weight, valued mostly
for its vivid colour.
F. Predictably, the majority of the world’s spices are produced in India, although specific spices
arc often produced in greater amounts in other countries. Vietnam is the largest producer and
exporter of pepper, meeting nearly one third of the world’s demand. Indonesia holds a clear lead
in nutmeg production, Iran in saffron, and Sri Lanka in cinnamon. However, exportation of such
spices is not always simple. Most are dried as a whole product, or dried and ground into powder,
both forms allowing bulk purchase, easier storage and shipping, and a longer shelf life. For
example, the rhizomes (underground stems) of turmeric are boiled lor several hours, then dried in
ovens, after which they are ground into the yellow powder popular in South-Asian and Middle-
Eastern cuisines.
G. However, there are disadvantages in grinding spices. It increases their surface area many fold,
accelerating the rate of evaporation and oxidation of their flavour-bearing and aromatic
compounds. In contrast, whole dried spices retain these for much longer. Thus, seed-based
varieties (which can be packaged and stored well) are often purchased in this form. This allows
grinding to be done at the moment of cooking or eating, maximising the flavour and effect, a fact
which often results in pepper ‘grinders’, instead of ‘shakers’, gracing the tables of the better
restaurants around the world.
List of Headings
i Uses of spice
ii Spices for cooking
iii Changing leaders
iv A strange choice
v Preserving flavours
vi Famous spice routes
vii The power of spice
viii Some spices
ix Medicinal spices
x Spice providers

1. Paragraph B
2. Paragraph C
21
3. Paragraph D
4. Paragraph E
5. Paragraph F
6. Paragraph G

10. IELTS PRACTICE TEST 02

Single-Gender Education: A Case Made?
A. All modern democracies, instilled as they are with the ethics of freedom and equality of the
sexes, nevertheless offer the option of single-sex education. This separates the genders into their
own classrooms, buildings, and often schools. Traditionally, women had to fight hard and long to
achieve equal opportunities in education, and the single-gender controversy is mostly in relation
to them. The question is whether this educational system advances or retards their cause, and
there are supporters on both sides, each convinced that the case is made.
B. Given that the word ‘segregation’ has such negative connotations, the current interest in
single-gender schooling is somewhat surprising. In the same way that a progressive society
would never consider segregation on the basis of skin colour, income, or age, it seems innately
wrong to do this on gender. Yet in the real world and the society in which we live, segregation of
some sort happens all the time. Clubs inevitably form - for example, of clerical workers, of
lawyers, of the academically gifted, and of those skilled in music or the arts. Exclusionary
cliques, classes, and in-groups, are all part of everyday life. Thus, it may simply be an idealistic
illusion to condemn single-gender settings on that basis alone, as do many co-educational
advocates.
C. This suggests that single-gender education must necessarily be condemned on other grounds,
yet the issue is complicated, and research often sinks into a morass of conflicting data. and.
occasionally, emotional argument. Thus, one study comes out with strong proof of the efficacy of
single-gender schooling, causing a resurgence of interest and positive public sentiment, only to be
later met with a harshly-titled article. 'Single-Sex Schooling: The Myth and the Pseudoscience’,
published and endorsed by several respected magazines. Similarly, the arguments on both sides
have apparent validity and often accord, on the surface at least, with common sense and personal
observation. What then can parents do?
D. Proponents of separating the genders often argue that it promotes better educational results,
not only in raw academic scores but also behaviour. The standard support for this is the claim of
innate gender differences in the manner in which boys and girls learn and behave in educational
settings. Separation allows males to be taught in a ‘male way' and in accordance with the 'male'
developmental path, which is said to be very different to the female one. Such claims demand
hard evidence, but this is difficult to come by. since statistics are notoriously unreliable and
subject to varying interpretations.
E. Of course, one of the key factors'that leads to superior performance at single-gender schools is
often the higher quality of the teachers, the better resources at hand, and the more motivated
students, often coming as they do from wealthier or more privileged backgrounds. Single-gender
22
schools are often the most prestigious in society, demanding the highest entry marks from their
new students, who, in turn, receive more deference and respect from society. When taking these
factors into account, large-scale studies, as well as the latest findings of neuroscientists, do not
support the claims of superior results or persistent gender differences, respectively. Those who
make such claims are accused of emphasising favourable data, and drawing conclusions based
more on anecdotal evidence and gender stereotyping.
F. Yet the single-sex educationalists come out with other positives. One of the most common is
that girls are free from the worry of sexual harassment or negative behaviour originating from the
presence of boys. Girls are said to develop greater self-confidence, and a preparedness to study
subjects, such as engineering and mathematics, which were once the exclusive province of males.
Conversely, boys can express a greater interest in the arts, without the possible jibe, ‘That’s a
girls’ subject’. But logically, one senses such stereotyping could equally come in single-gender
settings, since it is the society outside of school, with all its related expectations, which has the
greatest influence.
G. Among this welter of conflicting argument, one can, at least, fall back on one certainty - that
the real world is co-gendered, and each side often misunderstands the other. Supporters of co-
education argue that positive and co-operative interaction between the genders at school reduces
such divisions by de-emphasising gender as a factor of concern. In theory, stereotypes are broken
down, and inclusion is emphasised, providing benefits for society as a whole. But such
sentiments, admittedly, do sound as if we are retreating into self-promotional propaganda. In
other words, these statements are just glib and unreal assertions, rather than a reflection of what
actually happens in the co-educational classroom.
H. The key point is whether the interaction in co-educational settings is indeed positive and co-
operative. Some would say it could equally be the opposite, and surely it must occasionally be so
(if we abandon the rosy picture painted in the previous paragraph). But I would say that that
interaction, whether good or bad, whether academically enhancing or retarding, still constitutes
education, and of a vital nature. It presents exactly the same subset of challenges that students,
male or female, will ultimately have to deal with in the real world. This is the most important
point, and would determine my choice regarding in which educational setting I would place my
children.
List of Headings
i Another argument in favour
ii Conflicting evidence
iii Negatives are positives
iv An emotional argument
v Does it help or not?
vi Looking at the other side
vii A counter-argument
viii It's happening anyway
23
ix The problems with genders
x An argument in favour

14. Paragraph B
15. Paragraph C
16. Paragraph D
17. Paragraph E
18. Paragraph G
19. Paragraph H

11. IELTS PRACTICE TEST 03

A Meat-Eater’s Counter
A. You might be forgiven sometimes for thinking that vegetarians are somehow superior human
beings. In today’s climate of New Age spiritualism, animal rights, and Mother Earth naturalism,
confirmed meat-eaters must necessarily be categorised as selfish, environmentally-irresponsible,
spiritually-deprived gluttons, whose dietary desire is akin to cannibalism. Each lamb chop,
carving of roast beef, or chicken drumstick, signifies a brutal execution of a sentient animal, to
whose suffering we remain callously indifferent. Here, I would like to offer some arguments to
counter the more extreme claims of the bean-sprout crowd.
B. Vegetarians’ first justification is that eating meat is cruel to animals. But when pondering
cruelty, it may pay to reflect on how animals fare in the wild. I was recently watching a
documentary concerning herbivores on the African plains — where the parasite and insect-
tormented herds lead lives of hair-raising and nerve-jittering bolts and dashes as they are
constantly stalked by a range of predators. Now, compare this to the animals munching grass in
our domestic pastures. Our four-legged friends, watered, well-fed, and attended to when sick,
have an essentially stress-free and easy existence.
C. But, the vegetarians claim, our slaughterhouses deal out brutal deaths. Brutal? Let us reflect
again on that documentary. At one point, it showed an injured zebra, an animal which was
quickly spotted by a pack of hyenas. The rest was a display of such cruelty and barbarity that it
would make vegetarians think twice before intoning the mantra that ‘nature is good’. Yet being
viciously torn to pieces by snapping jaws is more or less the inevitable end of most animals in the
wild. It is simply a fact that they do not expire peacefully — they face, instead, brutalising and
painful exits. If not becoming another animal’s dinner, they starve to death, or are victims of
floods, droughts, and other merciless acts of nature. Compared to this, the relatively quick and
clean death that we humans deliver to our cud-chewing cousins must be considered a privileged
way to go.
D. So, eating meat is not ‘cruel’ — at least, not compared to the natural world, and in fact can
even allow the animals in question a certain quality of life that they would almost certainly never
enjoy in the wild. But the vegetarians counter that, we, the human species, have a higher
awareness, and should avail ourselves of other forms of food, rather than causing the deaths of
24
living creatures. Yet it is worth realising that for tens of thousands of years our species did not
have this luxury of choice. Killing animals was essential in staying alive. It is only very recently
(in terms of human history), that society has reached a stage of affluence whereby a sufficiently
high amount of non-animal nutrition can be obtained, and then only by a privileged and small
percentage of the world’s population. Thus, the argument from moral high ground is, at best, an
arbitrary one.
E. But then the vegetarians come out with their next core claim to superiority — that their diet is
healthier. Eating meat is going to have such nasty consequences for the heart, lungs, kidneys, and
immune system that we will end up in an early grave. One can agree that this may be true for
people who eat too much meat, but is it true for those who eat meat in proportion with an
otherwise balanced diet? So many dubious facts and figures are produced to ‘prove’ the
vegetarians’ viewpoint that I would recommend a quick read of a well-known book entitled,
‘How to lie with statistics’. This emphasises two foundations for statistical validity: gaining truly
representative samples, and eliminating outside variables, both of which the green-eaters ignore.
F. It is the second point I would like to look at. The lean and fit, health-conscious vegetarian
doing his daily yoga and nightly guitar-strumming will certainly live much longer, on average,
than the meat-eating, chain-smoking, beer-swilling, donut-chomping couch potatoes of this
world, but not necessarily due (or in any way related) to the former’s abstinence from meat. It is
not hard to deduce that those cigarettes, beer, donuts, and sedentary lifestyle are almost certainly
responsible for the meat-eater’s diminished life expectancy. For a true comparison, one must
compare lean and fit, health-conscious vegetarians with lean and fit, health-conscious non-
vegetarians, the latter of whom mix moderate amounts of meat in their diet.
G. And this is the point. It is almost impossible in this complex, mixed, and multi-faceted modern
society to find enough people who can constitute a truly representative sample, while eliminating
the many outside variables. Any assertion that statistics ‘prove’ vegetarians live longer must note
that these vegetarians have already made (compared to the average sofa sprouts) a very rigorous
and disciplined health-enhancing lifestyle change, which is probably accompanied with many
other similar choices, all of which are almost certainly the real cause of any statistical trends.
Factor these into the equation, and so far there is no convincing statistical evidence that
vegetarianism is better for the health.
List of Headings
i Animals attack
ii Needless killing countered
iii Better people?
iv A need for statistics
v The real cause of longer lives
vi Untrustworthy numbers
vii Cruel killing countered
viii Comparing lives
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ix Quick efficient killing
x The real cause of early deaths

14. Paragraph B
15. Paragraph C
16. Paragraph D
17. Paragraph E
18. Paragraph F
19. Paragraph G

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