Academic Reading IELTSFever Academic Reading Test 167

IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 168

Reading Passage 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on the IELTSFever
Academic IELTS Reading Test 168 Reading Passage child's play in medieval England below.

Child's Play in Medieval England

The history of childhood has been a topic of interest in social history since the highly influential
1960 book Centuries of Childhood, written by French historian Philippe Aries. He argued that
"childhood" is a concept created by modern society.

{A} One of the most hotly debated issues in the history of childhood has been whether
childhood is itself a recent invention. The historian Philippe Ares argued that in Western Europe
during the Middle Ages (up to about the end of the fifteenth century) children were regarded as
miniature adults, with all the intellect and personality that this implies. He scrutinized medieval
pictures and diaries and found no distinction between children and adults as they shared similar
leisure activities and often the same type of work. Aries, however, are forsaken or despised. The
idea of childhood is not to be confused with affection for children that particular nature which
distinguishes the child from the adult, even the young adult.

{B} There is a long tradition of the children of the poor playing a functional role in contributing to
the family income by working either inside or outside the home. In this sense, children are seen
as useful. Back in the Middle Ages, children as young as 5 or 6 did important chores for their
parents and from the sixteenth century, were often encouraged |( or forced) to leave the family
by the age of 9 or 10 to work as servants for wealthier families or to be apprenticed to a trade.

{C} With industrialization in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a new demand for child
labor was created, and, many children were forced to work for long hours, in mines,
wo9rkshops, and factories. Social reformers began to question whether laboring long hours
from an early age would harm children's growing bodies. They began to recognize the potential
of carrying out systematic studies to monitor how far these early deprivations might be affecting
children's development.

{D} Gradually, the concerns of the reformers began to impact the working conditions of children.
In Britain, the factory Act of 1833 signified the beginning of legal protection of children from
exploitation and was linked to the rise of schools for factory children. The worst forms of child
exploitation were gradually eliminated, partly through factory reform but also through the
influence of trade unions and economic changes during the nineteenth century which made
some forms of child labor redundant. Childhood was increasingly seen as a time for play and
education for all children not just for a privileged minority. Initiating children into work as useful
children became less of a priority. As the age for starting full-time work was delayed, childhood

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Academic Reading IELTSFever Academic Reading Test 167

was increasingly understood as a more extended phase of dependency, development, and

learning. even so, work continued to play a significant, if less central role in children's lives
throughout the later nineteenth and twentieth century. And the useful child has become a
controversial image during the first decade of the twenty-first century, especially in the context of
global concern about large numbers of the world's children engaged in child labor.

{E} The Factory act of 1833 established half-time schools which allowed children to work and
attend school. but in the 1840s, a large proportion of children never went to school, and if they
did, they left by the age of 10 or 11. the situation was very different by the end of the nineteenth
century in Britain. the school becomes central to images of ` a normal childhood.

{F} Attending school was no longer a privilege and all children were expected to spend a
significant part of their day in a classroom. By going to school, children's lives were now
separated from domestic life at home and from the adult world of work. The school became an
institution dedicated to shaping the minds, behaviors, and morals of the young. Education
dominated the management of children's waking hours, not just through the hours spent in
classrooms but through 'homework, the growth of 'after-school' activities, and the importance
attached to parental involvement.

{G} Industrialization, urbanization, and mass schooling also set new challenges for those
responsible for protecting children's welfare and promoting their learning. Increasingly, children
were being treated as a group with distinctive needs and they were organized into groups
according to their age. For example, teachers needed to know what to expect of children in their
classrooms, what kinds of instruction were appropriate for different age groups and how best to
assess children's progress. they also wanted tools that could enable them to sort and select
children according to their abilities and potential.

Questions 1-7
Do the following statements agree with the information given in IELTSFever Academic IELTS
Reading Test 168 Reading Passage 1?

Write your answers in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.

TRUE if the statement is True

FALSE if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN If the information is not given in the passage

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Academic Reading IELTSFever Academic Reading Test 167

Question (1) Aries pointed out that children did different types of work as adults during the
Middle Age.

Question (2) During the Middle Ages going to work necessarily means children were unloved
indicated by Aries.

Question (3) Scientists think that overworked labor damages the health of young children.

Question (4) The rise of trade unions majorly contributed to the protection of children from
exploitation in the 19th century.

Question (5) With the aid of half-time schools, most children went to school in the mid of 19
century.

Question (6) In 20 century almost all children need to go to school in a full-time schedule.

Question (7) Nowadays, children's needs were much differentiated and categorized based on
how old they are.

Questions 8-13
Answer the questions below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading
Test 168 Reading passage 1 for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.

Question (8) What is the controversial topic that arises with the French historian Philippe
Aries's concept

Question (9)What image for children did Aries believe to be like in Western Europe during the
Middle Ages

Question (10)What historical event generated the need for a great amount of child labor to work
a long time in 18 and 19 centuries

Question (11)What legal format initial the protection of children from exploitation in 19th
centenary

Question (12) what the activities were more and more regarded as being preferable for almost
all children time in the 19th centenary

Question (13) Where has been the central area for children to spend largely of their day as
people expect in modern society?

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Academic Reading IELTSFever Academic Reading Test 167

Reading Passage 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on the IELTSFever
Academic IELTS Reading Test 168 Reading Passage How to Reduce Employee Turnover
below.

How to Reduce Employee Turnover

{A} The chief executive of a large hotel became aware that his company was experiencing an
annual employee turnover of about 60 percent, at an annual cost estimated between $10 to $15
million. This large amount of money had calculated based on three factors: the money spent
hiring and training replacements; the cost to the business in lower productivity due to employees
becoming familiar with the requirements of their new job; and reduced occupancy rates, due to
poor guest satisfaction levels.

{B} The Chief Executive knew that in order to save his company, he had to reduce the high
turnover costs. Making up for the lost income due to turnover is not an easy task and many
companies have not declared war on unwanted employee turnover because they have not
taken the time to work out the costs of lost revenues and productivity. But the hotel boss
decided to tackle the issue head-on by implementing a 4-point plan, the hotel first took the time
to calculate their turnover costs; secondly to evaluate the main causes for the staff turnover and;
thirdly to discuss some of the solutions to the problems and lastly to prioritize actions and
evaluate future returns following implemented changes.

{C} Within a two-year period, the results were significant. The annual employee turnover had
reduced by 78 percent and this impacted downtime due to training and guest satisfaction. The
result was a $10 million in savings for the company. Because most do not know the root causes
of employee turnover and costs have often been estimated inaccurately, causes are usually not
known. As a result, solutions have commonly not targeted a company’s individual, specific
causes. The following is an examination of what the Chief Executive did to turn the hotel
around.

{D} Two factors had considered in relation to the calculation of costs: those departments that
had the highest rates of turnover and those whose turnover had the greatest potential effect on
profit. After some investigation, it had shown that some of the positions with the highest turnover
rates such as cleaners and gardeners did not carry with them high associated costs. In fact,
what had revealed- only 6 percent of employees accounted for 43 per cent of the turnover.
Positions that involved a substantial amount of time in training were the ones that attracted the
highest cost. The analysis revealed that those positions within the hotel had the greatest impact
on profit- people like the front office receptionists and those working in accounts.

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Academic Reading IELTSFever Academic Reading Test 167

{E} As unusual as it may sound, it is now a common understanding that offering employees
more money is not necessarily a good solution to high employee turnover – often they leave
because they simply dislike the work. Therefore, it was important to tackle the analysis from the
perspective of what were the chief causes for staff leaving. A holistic approach had undertaken
and several key findings emerged. The hotel found that fundamentally they adopted poor
recruiting and selection practices. For example, it had shown that almost 35 percent of the
cleaning staff left after the first week and a further 25% during the first month. Candidates were
being over-sold the job by recruiters and left soon after they encountered unrealistic job
expectations.

{F} Devising solutions to these issues was the other half of the equation. As far as recruiting
had concerned, they changed their approach by getting personnel from the hotel to handle it.
Once this change was made, the attrition rates decreased substantially. To add to employee
motivation, new staff were made aware of the mission and goals of the organization and how
they would be paid above industry standards for striving to attain hotel values. New staff were
shown where the hotel was heading and how they would have a guaranteed, stable
employment situation with a major force in the hotel industry’ – it was even suggested that after
a period of employment, new staff might be given the opportunity to contribute to organizational
goal setting.

{G} They had been losing many of their employees during the first month or two of employment,
so they made new staff aware that bonuses would be offered to newly-hired employees at the
end of their first three months which greatly assisted in goal-setting. Staff luncheons and the
in-house volleyball and basketball competitions remained an effective part of staff unity and
development and a support program was also introduced to help all staff with any job-related
issues which gave employees a heightened sense of being cared for by the establishment.
Another area of change that proved successful was the introduction of the Valuable Employee
Program (VEP). When a person was employed in the past they were assigned a senior member
of staff who assisted them with getting used to their new job.

{H} Due to the limitations of the senior member’s position, however, they were often not in a
position to explain any details regarding future advancement. Now, when staff is employed, they
are clearly told what is expected in the job and where it might lead to the right candidate. Hotel
surveys revealed that over 30 percent of employees were not satisfied with the career
opportunities in their current jobs so the articulation of the definite and realistic opportunity for
advancement through the VEP led to a major decrease in employee attrition. Once the ship had
been righted and the relative returns on human resource investments had been calculated,
setting priorities became a formality. Although at first a daunting task, the enormous cost of
employee turnover offered an excellent opportunity for the hotel to improve profitability.

Question 14-18
Complete the summary below of paragraphs A-D of IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test
168 Reading Passage 2.

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Academic Reading IELTSFever Academic Reading Test 167

Choose ONE OR TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

Training new employees; downtime as new employees get used to their new job, and
unfavorable guest satisfaction levels all led to a large (14)____________ for a large
hotel. It was determined that the solution to these problems, was in the reduction of
the company’s (15)___________. The hotel addressed these issues in 4 ways
through the implementation of a (16)___________. The efforts of the hotel chief
executive decreased downtime and reduced employee turnover which, in turn,
resulted in improvements in (17)_____________. The company's position was
improved by $10 million. It is not common for big companies to experience such
(18)____________.

Question 19-21

Do the following statements reflect the claims of the writer in IELTSFever Academic IELTS
Reading Test 168 Reading Passage 2?

In boxes 19-21 on your answer sheet write

YES if the statement agrees with the writer

NO if the statement does not agree with the writer

NOT GIVEN if there is no information about this in passage

Question (19) It was surprising that positions with the highest turnover were not connected to
high costs.

Question (20) There was a clear connection between high costs and length of training.

Question (21) New employees were given an incorrect description of their job.

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Academic Reading IELTSFever Academic Reading Test 167

Question 22-26

IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 168 Reading Passage 2 gives FIVE effective
changes that the hotel introduced for staff
Choose these changes from list A-L below.
Write the appropriate letters A-K in boxes 22-26 on your answer sheet.

[A] changes
[B] discussed future plans
[C] introduced regular staff luncheons
[D] started a regular sports program
[E] clearly defined job expectations
[F] did their own staff recruiting
[G] built new sporting facilities
[H] involved new staff in goal setting
[I] offered bonuses to proven, committed new staff
[J] began meeting regularly with new staff
[K] implemented a support program
[L] began recruiting through an employment service

Reading Passage 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on the IELTSFever
Academic IELTS Reading Test 150 Reading Passage Finding Out About The World From
Television News below.

Finding Out About The World From Television News

{A} The Ideological Octopus (1991). Justin Lewis points to an important issue concerning the
formal structure of television news. As he notes, television news lacks the narrative element
which, in other genres, serves to capture viewer interest and thus motivate viewing. Lewis posts
this as one of the key reasons why television news often fails to interest people and why, when
they do watch it. People often cannot understand it. Lewis argues that one fundamental problem
with watching television news is that its narrative structure means that the viewer is offered the
punchline before the joke – because the main point (the headline) comes right at the beginning,
after which the program, by definition, deals with less and less important things. Thus, in
television news our interest is not awakened by an enigma that is then gradually solved, to

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Academic Reading IELTSFever Academic Reading Test 167

provide a gratifying solution – as so often happens in fictional narratives. In Lewis’s terms, in

television news, there is no enigma, the solution of which will motivate the viewing process. As
he baldly states, ‘If we decided to try to design a television program with a structure that would
completely fail to capture an audience’s interest, we might (finally) come up with the format of
the average television news show’ (Lewis 1991).

{B} What Lewis also does is offers an interesting contrast, in this respect, between the
high-status phenomenon of television news and the low-status genre of soap operas. The latter,
he observes, offers the most highly developed use of effective narrative codes. To that extern
soap opera, with its multiple narratives, could be seen, in formal terms, as the most effective
type of television for the cultivation of viewer interest, and certainly as a far more effective form
than that of television news for this purpose. Clearly, some of Lewis’s speculation here is
problematic. There are counter­examples of his arguments (e.g. instances of programmes such
as sports news that share the problematic formal features he points to but which are
nonetheless popular – at least among certain types of viewers). Moreover, he may perhaps
overstress the importance of structure as against content relevance in providing the basis for
program appeal. Nonetheless, I would suggest that his argument, in this respect, is of
considerable interest.

{C} Lewis argues not only that soap opera is more narratively interesting than television news, in
formal terms, but, moreover, that the world of television fiction, in general, is much closer to
most people’s lives than that presented in the news. This, he claims, is because the world of
television fiction often feels to people like their own lives. They can, for example, readily identify
with the moral issues and personal dilemmas faced by the characters in a favorite soap opera.
Conversely, the world of television news is much more remote in all senses; it is a socially
distant world populated by another race of special or ‘elite’ persons, the world of them not. This
is also why ‘most people feel more able to evaluate TV fiction than TV news … because it
seems closer to their own lives and to the world they live in … [whereas] the world of television
news might almost be beamed in from another planet (Lewis 1991). It is as if the distant world of
‘the news’ is so disconnected from popular experience that it is beyond critical judgment for
many viewers. Hence, however, alienated they feel from it, they nonetheless lack any alternative
perspective on the events it portrays.

{D} One consequence of this, Lewis argues, is that precisely, because of this distance, people
who feel this kind of alienation from the ‘world news’ nonetheless use frameworks to understand
news items that come from within the news themselves. This, he argues, is because in the
absence of any other source of information or perspective they are forced back into using the
media’s own framework. Many viewers are simply unable to place the media’s portrayal of
events in any other critical framework (where would they get it from?). To this extent, Lewis
argues. Gerbner and his colleagues (see Gerbner et al. 1986; Signorielli and Morgan 1990) may
perhaps be right in thinking that the dominant perspectives and ‘associative logics’ offered by
the media may often simply be soaked up by audiences of their repetition. This is not to suggest
that such viewers necessarily believe, or explicitly accept these perspectives, but simply to note
that they have no other place to start from, however cynical they may be, at a general level,

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Academic Reading IELTSFever Academic Reading Test 167

about not believing what you see on television, and they may thus tend, in the end, to fall back
on ‘what it said on TV’.

{E} In one sense, this could be said to be the converse of Hall’s negotiated code’ (1980), as
taken over from Parkin (1973). Parkin argued, that many working-class people display a ‘split
consciousness’, whereby they accept propositions from the dominant ideology at an abstract
level, but then ‘negotiate’ or ‘discount’ the application of these ideological propositions to the
particular circumstances of their own situation. Here, by contrast, we confront a situation where
people often express cynicism in general (so that Hot believing what you see in the media is no
more than common sense), but then in any particular case, they often find themselves pushed
back into reliance on the mainstream media’s account of anything beyond the realm of their
direct personal experience, simply for lack of any alternative perspective.

Questions 27-34
Complete the summary below using words from the box.
Write your answers in boxes 27-34 on your answer sheet.
The structure of television news.

Justin Lewis says that television news does not have the (27)__________.feature that other
types of the program have. As a result, many viewers do not find it interesting and may find it
(28)_____________This is because the (29)___________information comes first and after
that (30)____________matters are covered, in television news, there is no (31)__________
progress towards a conclusion and nothing (32)______________ to find out about. In fact, he
believes that television news is an example of how the (33)_____________process in the
field of television could result in something that is (34)___________ to what constitutes an
interesting program.

upsetting contrary crucial repetitive creative

opinionated story-telling informative secondary routine

additional related controversial step-by-step overwhelming

contusing fast-moving informal mysterious diverse

Questions 35-40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in IELTSFever Academic IELTS
Reading Test 150 Reading Passage 3.
In boxes 35—40 on your answer sheet write

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Academic Reading IELTSFever Academic Reading Test 167

TRUE if the statement is True

FALSE if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN If the information is not given in passage

Question (35) Lewis concentrates more on the structure of programs than on what is actually in
them.
Question (36) Lewis regrets viewers’ preference for soap operas over television news.
Question (37) Lewis suggests that viewers sometimes find that television news contradicts their
knowledge of the world.
Question (38) Lewis believes that viewers have an inconsistent attitude toward the reliability of
television news.
Question (39) Parkin states that many working-class people see themselves as exceptions to
general beliefs.
Question (40) The writer of the text believes that viewers should have a less passive attitude
towards what they are told by the media.

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