IELTS EASY8

TEST 1
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Question 1-13 which are based on Reading
Passage 1 on pages 2 and 3.
The development of the silk industry
Silk, a natural fibre produced by a particular worm called a silkworm, has been used
in clothing for many centuries.
When silk was first discovered in China over actually existed before the Silk Roadt was
4,500 years ago, it was reserved exclusively officially opened in the second century BC.
for the use of the emperor, his close relations An Egyptian mummy with a silk thread in her
and the very highest of his dignitaries. Within hair, dating from 1070 BC, has been
the palace, the emperor is believed to have discovered in the village of Deir el Medina
worn a robe of white silk; outside, he, his near the Valley of the Kings, and is probably
principal wife, and the heir to the throne wore the earliest evidence of the silk trade. During
yellow, the colour of the earth. the second century BC, the Chinese emperor
Gradually silk came into more general use, Han Wu Di's ambassadors travelled as far
and the various classes of Chinese society west as Persia and Mesopotamis, bearing
began wearing tunics of silk. As well as being gifts including silks. A range of important finds
used for clothing and decoration, silk was of Chinese silks have also been made along
quite quickly put to industrial use, and rapidly the Silk Road. One of the most dramatic of
became one of the principal elements of the these finds was some Tang silk discovered in
Chinese economy. It was used in the 1900. It is believed that around 1015 AD
production of musical instruments, as string Buddhist monks, possibly alarmed by the
for fishing, and even as the world's first luxury threat of invasion by Tibetan people, had
paper. Eventually even the common people sealed more than ten thousand manuscripts
were able to wear garments of silk. and silk paintings, silk banners and textiles in
During the Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), caves near Dunhuang, a trading station on
silk ceased to be a mere fabric and became the Silk Road in north-west China.
a form of currency. Farmers paid their taxes Some historians believe the first Europeans
in grain and silk, and silk was used to pay civil to set eyes upon the fabulous fabric were the
servants and to reward subjects for Roman legions of Marcus Licinius Crassus,
outstanding services. Values were calculated Governor of Syria. According to certain
in lengths of silk as they had previously been accounts of the period, at an important battle
calculated in weight of gold. Before long, silk near the Euphrates River in 53 BC, the
became a currency used in trade with foreign Roman soldiers were so startled by the
countries, which continued into the Tang bright silken banners of the enemy that they
dynasty (6 16-907 AD). It is possible that this fled in panic. Yet, within decades Chinese
added importance was the result of a major silks were widely worn by the rich and noble
increase in production. Silk also found its way families of Rome. The Roman Emperor
so thoroughly into the Chinese language that Heliogabalus (218-222 AD) wore nothing
230 of the 5,000 most common characters of but silk. By 380 AD, the Roman historian
Mandarin· have 'silk' as their key component. Marcellinnus Ammianus reported that. The
Silk became a precious commodity, highly use of silk, which was one
sought after by other countries from an early
date, and it is believed that the silk trade

• A group of related Chinese dialects which have t An ancient trade route between China and the
been recognised as the 'national language' since mediterranean Sea
the early 20th century
 IELTS EASY8

confined to the nobility, has now spread to all

classes without distinction - even to the lowest. The
desire for silk continued to increase over the
centuries. Despite this demand, the price of silk
remained very high.
In spite of their secrecy about production methods,
the Chinese eventually lost their monopoly on silk
production. Knowledge of silk production methods
reached Korea around 200 BC, when waves of
Chinese immigrants arrived there. Shortly after 300
AD, it travelled westward, and the cultivation of the
silkworm was established in India.
Around 550 AD silk production reached the
Middle East. Records indicate that two monks from
Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), capital of
the Byzantine Empire, appeared at their emperor's
court with silkworm eggs which they had obtained
secretly, and hidden in their hollow bamboo walking
sticks. Under their supervision the eggs hatched
into worms, and the worms spun silk threads.
Byzantium was in the silk business at last. The
Byzantine church and state created imperial
workshops, monopolising production and keeping
the secret to themselves. This allowed a silk
industry to be established, undercutting the market
for ordinary-grade Chinese silk. However, high
quality silk textiles, woven in China especially for
the Middle Eastern market, continued to achieve
high prices in the West, and trade along the Silk
Road continued as before. By the sixth century the
Persians, too, had mastered the art of silk weaving,
developing their own rich patterns and techniques.
But it wasn't until the 13th century that Italy began
silk production, with the introduction of 2,000 skilled
silk weavers from Constantinople. Eventually, silk
production became widespread throughout
Europe.
World silk production has approximately
doubled during the last 30 years in spite of man­
made fibres replacing certain uses of silk. Before
this period, China and Japan were the two main
producers, together manufacturing more than 50
per cent of world production each year. After the
late 1970s, however, China dramatically increased
its silk production, and once again became the
world's leading producer.
 IELTS EASY8

Questions 1-7
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.
Chinese silk
Early Uses
Clothing
• at first, silk only available to Chinese of high rank
• emperor wore 1 ............. silk indoors
In industry
• silk items included parts of musical instruments, fishing strings and 2 ............
Currency
• silk was used as payment of 3 ............ as well as for wages and rewards
• silk replaced 4 ............. as a unit of value
• silk soon used as payment in 5 .............. trade

Evidence of silk trade

1070 BC, Egypt:
• hair of a 6 ............ contained silk
2nd century BC, Persia and Mesopotamia:
• gifts of silk were presented by Chinese ambassadors
1015 AD, north-west China:
• silk objects were hidden inside 7 .............. .
 IELTS EASY8

Questions 8-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVE if there is no information on this
8 Their first sight of silk created fear among Roman soldiers.
9 The quality of Chinese silk imported by the early Romans varied widely.
10 The Byzantine emperor first acquired silkworm eggs from the Chinese emperor.
11 The price of high-grade Chinese silk fell due to competition from Middle-Eastern
producers.
12 Silk was produced in the Middle East several centuries before it was produced
in Europe.
13 Global silk production has declined in recent years.
 IELTS EASY8

READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading
Passage 2 on pages 6 and 7.
The discovery of a baby mammoth
A near-perfect frozen mammoth offers clues to a great vanished species
A On a May morning in 2007, on the Yamal Peninsula in northwestern Siberia, a Nenets
reindeer herder named Yuri Khudi stood on a sandbar on the Yuribey River, looking
carefully at a diminutive corpse. Although he'd never seen such an animal before, Khudi
had seen many mammoth tusks, the thick corkscrew shafts that his people found each
summer, and this persuaded him the corpse was a baby mammoth. It was eerily well
preserved. Apart from its missing hair and toenails, it was perfectly intact. Khudi realised
the find might be significant and he knew he couldn't just return home and forget all about
it. He therefore decided to travel to the small town of Yar Sale to consult an old friend
named Kirill Serotetto. His friend took him to meet the director of the local museum, who
persuaded the local authorities to fly Khudi and Serotetto back to the Yuribey River to
collect the baby mammoth.
B Mammoths became extinct between 14,000 and 10,000 years ago and since the extinctions
coincided with the end of the most recent Ice age, many researchers believe that the
primary cause of the great die-off was the sharp rise in temperature, which dramatically
altered the vegetation. 'We have strong evidence that the temperature rise played a
significant part in their extinction.' says Adrian Lister, a palaeontologist and mammoth
expert at London's Natural History Museum. 'In Eurasia, the timing of the two events
matches closely.' The extinctions also coincided, however, with the arrival of modern
humans. In addition to exploiting mammoths for food, they used their bones and tusks to
make weapons, tools, and even dwellings. Some scientists believe humans were as much
to blame as the temperature rise for the great die-off. Some say they caused it.
C The body of the baby mammoth was eventually sent to the St Petersburg Zoological
Museum in Russia. Alexei Tikhonov, the museum's director, was one of the first scientists
to view the baby, a female. According to Tikhonov, Khudi had rescued 'the best preserved
mammoth to come down to US from the Ice Age', and he gratefully named her Lyuba, after
Khudi's wife. Tikhonov knew that no-one would be more excited by the find than Dan
Fisher, an American colleague at the University of Michigan who had spent 30 years
researching the lives of mammoths. Tikhonov invited Fisher, along with Bernard Buigues,
a French mammoth hunter, to come and view the baby mammoth. Fisher and Buigues had
examined other specimens together, including infants, but these had been in a relatively
poor state. Lyuba was another story entirely. Other than the missing hair and toenails, the
only flaw in her pristine appearance was a curious dent above the trunk.
D Fisher was particularly excited about one specific part of Lyuba's anatomy: her milk tusks.
Through his career, Fisher has taken hundreds of tusk samples. Most of these came from
the Great Lakes region of North America, and his research showed that these animals
continued to thrive, despite the late Pleistocene· temperature change. On the other hand,

• Pleistocene era: the time between roughly 2.6 million years ago and 10.000 years ago
 IELTS EASY8

to Fisher the tusks often revealed telltale evidence of human hunting. His samples
frequently came from animals that had died in the autumn, when they should have been at
their peak after summer grazing, and less likely to die of natural causes, but also when
humans would have been most eager to stockpile meat for the coming winter. He has done
limited work in Siberia, but his analysis of tusks from Wrangel Island, off the coast of
Siberia, suggests the same conclusion.
E In December 2007, Buigues arranged for the specimen to be transported to Japan to
undergo a CT scan by Naoki Suzuki of the Jikei University School of Medicine. The test
confirmed her skeleton was undamaged, and her internal organs seemed largely intact. It
also showed that the end of her trunk, and her throat, mouth, and windpipe were filled with
dense sediment. Six months later, in a laboratory in St Petersburg, Fisher, Buigues,
Suzuki, Tikhonov and other colleagues began a three-day series of tests on Lyuba. During
these, Fisher noted a dense mix of clay and sand in her trunk, mouth and throat, which
had been indicated earlier by the scan. In fact, the sediment in Lyuba's trunk was packed
so tightly that Fisher saw it as a possible explanation for the dent above her trunk. If she
was frantically fighting for breath and inhaled convulsively, perhaps a partial vacuum was
created in the base of her trunk, which would have flattened surrounding soft tissue. To
Fisher, the circumstances of Lyuba's death were clear: she had asphyxiated. Suzuki,
however, proposed a different interpretation, seeing more evidence for drowning than
asphyxiation.
F Studies are ongoing, but Lyuba has begun to shed the secrets of her short life and some
clues to the fate of her kind. Her good general health was shown in the record of her dental
development, a confirmation for Fisher that dental research is useful for evaluating health
and thus key to investigating the causes of mammoth extinction. Analysis of her well­
preserved DNA has revealed that she belonged to a distinct population of Mammuthus
primigenius and that, soon after her time, another population migrating to Siberia from
North America would take their place. Finally, Lyuba's premolars and tusks revealed that
she had been born in late spring and was only a month old when she died.
 IELTS EASY8

Questions 14-18
Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A-F.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.
14 Similarities between studies of mammoth remains from different parts of the
world.
15 Details of the uses to which mammoth body parts were put.
16 A theory that accounts for the damage to lyuba's face.
17 An explanation of how an individual was able to identify a small corpse.
18 A comparison between lyuba and other young mammoth corpses.
 IELTS EASY8

Questions 19-23
Look at the following statements (Questions 19-23) and the list of people below.
Match each statement with the correct person, A-G.
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 19-23 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
19 The indications are that mammoths died as a result of climate change.
20 Teeth analysis is important in discovering why mammoths died out.
21 The corpse of the baby mammoth is in better condition than any other that has
been discovered.
22 It would be a mistake to ignore the baby mammoth's discovery, because of its
potential importance.
23 Mammoths often died at a time of year when they should have been in good
physical condition.
List of People
A Yuri Khudi
B Kirill Serotetto I
C Adrian Lister
D Alexei Tikhonov
E Dan Fisher
F Bermard Buigues
Naoki Suzuki

Questions 24 - 26
Complete the sentences below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet.
24 Some researchers say that a marked rise in temperature impacted on
mammoths by changing the type of............ available.
25 Fisher concluded that many of the mammoth tusks he looked at displayed signs
of ............
26 Not long after Lyuba's death, the Mammuthus primigenius group she belonged
to was replaced by another group that came from ............ .
 IELTS EASY8

READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading
Passage 3 on pages 10 and 11.
What makes a musical expert?
How does someone become expert in music? And IS it really
possible to have a 'talent' for music?
Does that class of people acknowledged to be musical experts just have more of the same
basic skills we are all endowed with, or do they have a set of abilities - or neural structures -
that are totally different from those of the rest of US? Are high levels of musical achievement
simply the result of training and practice, or are they based on innate brain structure - what we
refer to as 'talent'? Talent can be defined as something that originates in genetic structures
and that is identifiable by trained people who can recognize its existence before a person has
achieved exceptional levels of performance. The emphasis on early identification means that
to investigate it, we study the development of skills in children.

It is evident that some children acquire skills more rapidly than others: the age of onset for
walking and talking varies widely, even between children in the same household. There may
be genetic factors at work, but these are closely linked with other factors - with a presumably
environmental component - such as motivation and family dynamics. Similar factors can
influence musical development and can mask the contribution of genetics to musical ability.

Brain studies, so far, haven't been of much use in sorting out the issues. Gottfried Schlaug at
Harvard collected brain scans of individuals with absolute pitch· (AP) and showed that a region
in the brain called the planum temporale is larger in these people than in others. This suggests
that the planum is involved in AP, but it's not clear if it starts out larger in people who eventually
acquire AP, or if the acquisition of AP makes the planum increase in size.

Results of research into the areas of the brain involved in skilled motor movement are more
conclusive. Studies of violin players have shown that the region of the brain responsible for
controlling the movement of the left hand (the hand that requires greater precision in violin
playing) increases in size as a result of practice. We do not know yet if the propensity for
increase pre-exists in some-peopled not others.

The evidence against talent comes from research on how much training the experts do. Like
experts in mathematics, chess, or sports, experts in music require lengthy periods of instruction
and practice. In several studies, the very best music students
Were found to have practiced more than twice as much as the others. In another study,
students were secretly divided into two groups based on teachers' perceptions of their talent.
Several years later, it was found that the students who achieved the highest performance
ratings had practiced the most, irrespective of which 'talent' group they had been assigned to,

* individuals with absolute pitch: people who can identify or sing any musical note correctly without
help
 IELTS EASY8

suggesting that practice does not merely correlate with achievement, but causes it.

Anders Ericsson, at Florida State University, approaches the topic of musical expertise as a
general problem in cognitive psychology. He takes as a starting point the assumption that there
are certain issues involved in becoming an expert at anything; that we can learn about musical
expertise by studying expert chess players, athletes, artists, mathematicians, as well as the
musicians themselves. The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of
practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert
- in anything. In study after study, of composers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players
and master criminals, this number comes up again and again. Someone would do this amount
of practice if they practiced, for example, roughly 20 hours a week for ten years. Of course,
this does not address why some people do not seem to get anywhere when they practice, and
why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others. But no-one has yet found
a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes
the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.

The ten-thousand-hour theory is consistent with what we know about how the brain learns.
Learning requires the assimilation and consolidation of information in neural tissue. The more
experiences we have with something, the stronger the memory/learning trace for that
experience becomes. Although people differ in how long it takes them to consolidate
information neutrally, it remains true that increased practice leads to a greater number of neural
traces, which create stronger memory representation.

The classic rebuttal to this theory goes something like this: 'What about Mozart? I hear that he
composed his first symphony at the age of four!' First, there is a factual error here: Mozart did
not write it until he was eight. Still, this is unusual, to say the least. However, this early work
received little acclaim and was not performed very often. In fact, the only reason we know
about it is because the child who wrote it grew up to become Mozart. And Mozart had an expert
teacher in his father, who was renowned as a teacher of musicians all over Europe. We do not
know how much Mozart practiced, but if he started at age two and worked thirty- two hours a
week (quite possible, given that his father was a stern taskmaster) he would have made his
ten thousand hours by the time he composed his first symphony. This does not mean that
there are no genetic factors involved in Mozart's greatness, but that inborn traits may not be
the only cause.
 IELTS EASY8

Questions 27-30
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet.
27 In the first paragraph, the writer suggests that a musician who IS talented
someone
A who is aware of being set apart from other people.
B whose brain structure is unlike that of other people,
C who can perform extremely well in early childhood.
D whose essential skills are more varied than those of ordinary people.
28 According to the writer, what is unclear about the findings of Gottfried Schlaug?
A which part of the brain is linked to a particular musical skill.
B which type of musical skill leads to the greatest change in the brain.
C whether a feature of the brain is a cause or an effect of a musical skill.
D whether the acquisition of a musical skill is easier for some people than
others.
29 According to the writer, what has been established by studies of violin players?
A Changes may occur in the brain following violin practice.
B Left-handed violinists have a different brain structure from other people.
C A violinist's hand size is not due to practice but to genetic factors.
D Violinists are born with brains that have a particular structure
30 According to the writer, findings on the amount of practices done by expert
musicians suggest that
A talent may have little to do with expertise.
B practice may actually prevent the development of talent.
C talent may not be recognised by teachers.
D expertise may be related to quality of instruction.
 IELTS EASY8

Questions 31-36
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 31-36 on your answer sheet, write
YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
31 Anders Ericsson's work with cognitive psychology has influenced other
researchers.
32 Different areas of expertise seem to have one specific thing in common.
33 In order to be useful, practice must be carried out regularly every day.
34 Anyone who practices for long enough can reach the level of a world-class
expert.
35 Occasionally, someone can become an expert at global level with fewer than
10,000 hours' practice.
36 Existing knowledge of learning and cognitive skills supports the importance of
practice.

Questions 37- 40
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-J, below.
Write the correct letter, A-J, in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.
Mozart
The case of Mozart could be quoted as evidence against the 10,000-hour-practice
theory. However, the writer points out that the young Mozart received a lot of
37...............from his father, and that the symphony he wrote at the age of
38. .............was not 39............. and may be of only academic interest. The case
therefore supports the view that expertise is not solely the result of
40............characteristics.
A popular B artistic C completed
D eight E tuition F encouragement
G inherited H four I practice
J two