Candidate number

Candidate name

INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE TESTING SYSTEM 2022/24

Academic Reading
TEST MATERIALS
Additional materials: Answer sheet for Listening and Reading

Time 1 hour

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES
Do not open this question paper until you are told to do so.
Write your name and candidate number in the spaces at the top of this page.
Read the instructions for each part of the paper carefully.
Answer all the questions.
Write your answers on the answer sheet. Use a pencil.
You must complete the answer sheet within the time limit.
At the end of the test, hand in both this question paper and your answer sheet.

INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES

There are 40 questions on this question paper.
Each question carries one mark.
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Reading Passage 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1.

Gamification in Education
Gamification is the use of game design and mechanics to enhance non-game contexts by increasing
participation, engagement, loyalty and competition. These methods can include points, leaderboards, direct
competitions and stickers or badges, and can be found in industries as varied as personal healthcare, retail—
and, of course, education.
Games, in any form, increase motivation through engagement. Nowhere else is this more important than
education. Nothing demonstrates a general lack of student motivation quite like the striking high school dropout
rates: approximately 1.2 million students fail to graduate each year (All4Ed, 2010). At the college level, a Harvard
Graduate School of Education study “Pathways to Prosperity” reports that just 56% of students complete four-
year degrees within six years. It’s argued that this is due to current systemic flaws in the way we teach; schools
are behind the times. Watch a single lecture on innovation trends in education, and the presenter likely notes
the striking similarities of a modern-day classroom and one of centuries past. It’s been proven that gamifying
other services has resulted in retention and incentive. For example, website builder DevHub saw the remarkable
increase of users who finished their sites shoot from 10 percent to 80 percent. So, in theory, it should work for
schools as well.
Educators have tested this theory and seen positive results. There are a variety of ways to introduce your
classroom to the gamification of education and we’re providing you with just a few ideas. We hope to spark a
discussion on gamifying education so that educators can discuss the topic more thoroughly and provide
examples in which they have used gamification to make learning more engaging.
One success story is Lee Sheldon, a professor at Indiana University, who gamified his course by abandoning
grades and implementing an “experience points” system. Students’ letter grades are determined by the amount
of points they have accumulated at the end of the course, in other words, by how much they have accomplished.
Because of the extracurricular interests of the current college-age generation (games!), Professor Sheldon
attributes success to the fact that “the elements of the class are couched in terms they understand.” Students
are progressing towards levels of mastery, as one does in games. Each assignment and each test feels rewarding,
rather than disheartening. Using experience points allows educators to align levels with skills and highlight the
inherent value of education.
For each assignment completed, award students with badges. This may seem like a regression back to
Kindergarten stickers of gold stars, but it’s working for Khan Academy. As students watch instructional videos
and complete problem sets, Khan Academy awards them with points and badges to track progress and
encourage perseverance. Western Oklahoma State College is implementing this form of gamification into their
technology classes, with badges like “Moodle Noob No More,” or, a personal favorite “Drop It Like It Hot” to
indicate mastery of Dropbox. However, as previously noted, it’s important to add value to the badges, like bonus
points, skill levels, etc.
The use of games allows students to fail, overcome, and persevere. Students are given a sense of agency—in
games, they control the choices they make, and the more agency students have, the better students do.
Instantaneous feedback and small rewards (or big ones, like winning) are external motivators that work. Case in
point, Mr. Pai, a 3rd grade teacher on a mission to make learning fun. He disrupted the traditional classroom
setting by introducing the Nintendo DS, among other technology, into his daily curriculum. Students practiced
math and language through the use of computer and video games. In just eighteen weeks, his class went from
a below 3rd grade level to a mid fourth-grade level.
Implement a class-wide rewards system: Encourage camaraderie among students by setting up a rewards system
where students achieve something as a team. For example, set a goal of 80% of the class passing an exam. As a
reward, give the entire class bonus points or even a party. That way, students are working to master the material
together instead of competing, and the highest-achieving students will help those around them.
Gamify homework to encourage informal learning: Ultimately, educators hope that games translate learning
into informal environments. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day for an educator. Games allow the
curiosity—and the learning—to continue after the bell rings. How about a treasure hunt? Quests?
Those who resist gamification in education often cite its improper use of rewards as a motivator. Critics argue
that relying on games can be detrimental to intrinsic motivation. Receiving a badge for a job well done is
meaningless without an understanding of what specific skills this badge rewards. We agree; games can’t be used
to replace pedagogy, but can be used to enhance the overall learning experience.

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Questions 1 - 7
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

1. Gamification is only theoretically effective in the education sector.

2. Students in Sheldon’s class can gain points after each lesson during the whole course.

3. The evaluation systems become more pleasant to students when games are included.

4. Each badge given to students should accompany other values.

5. Math and language can be learned simultaneously by the use of computer and video games.

6. A class-wide rewards system encourages students to work together.

7. Gamification can be applied in education even after school time.

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Questions 8-13
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.

The method of using games in many 8. ............................. is to increase motivation through engagement. This is also a case

for education. There is now a high rate of students who do not finish high school. Additionally, it takes over 50% of

9. ............................. students more time to graduate than expected. These figures indicate the absence of

10. ............................. which is due to the current systemic flaws in education. Therefore, educators have used gamification

to change learning in a 11. ............................. way and seen desired outcomes. However, some criticize that

12 ............................. can be adversely affected when games are used in class. There is a counter argument that games are

used to boost 13. ............................. instead of replacing teaching.

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Reading Passage 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2.
Questions 14-20
The passage below has 7 paragraphs, A - G
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet.

List of headings

i. The symptoms of existential crisis

ii. The different causes of existential crisis
iii. Various ways to combat existential crisis
iv. Various kinds of existential crisis
v. The definition of a specific term
vi. The comparison between a clinical condition and other similar terms
vii. The procedure of an alternative method
viii. An alternative method to treat existential crisis
ix. The appropriate time to seek professional help

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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 An Existential Crisis

A. Most people experience anxiety, depression, and stress at some point in their lives. For many, these
emotions are short-term and don’t interfere too much with their quality of life. But for others, negative emotions
can lead to deep despair, causing them to question their place in life. This is known as an existential crisis. The
idea of an existential crisis has been studied by psychologists and psychiatrists such as Kazimierz Dabrowski and
Irvin D. Yalom for decades, starting as early as 1929. Yet even with the abundance of old and new research on
the topic, you might be unfamiliar with this term, or not understand how it differs from normal anxiety and
depression.

B. “People can have an existential crisis when they start to wonder what life means, and what their
purpose or the purpose to life as a whole is,” explains Katie Leikam, a licensed therapist in Decatur, Georgia,
who specializes in working with anxiety, relationship stress, and gender identity. “It can be a break in thinking
patterns where you suddenly want answers to life’s big questions.” It’s not uncommon to search for meaning
and purpose in your life. With an existential crisis, however, the problem lies in being unable to find satisfying
answers. For some people, the lack of answers triggers a personal conflict from within, causing frustration and
loss of inner joy. An existential crisis can affect anyone at any age, but many experience a crisis in the face of a
difficult situation, perhaps the struggle to succeed.

C. Everyday challenges and stresses may not provoke an existential crisis. This type of crisis is likely to
follow deep despair or a significant event, such as a major trauma or a major loss. Typically, those experiencing
an existential crisis feel it after a major life-altering event, similar to what can spark a period of major depressive
disorder. Some causes of existential crises include loss of a loved one, realizing our own mortality, feeling
dissatisfied with life, a major life event/change (i.e. moving to a new place), or guilt about something that has
happened.

D. Different types of existential crises include crises of freedom and responsibility, in which a person may
be overwhelmed by a choice they have to make or by the responsibilities of work or school. They may question
the meaning of choice in life, whether actions are free, and why responsibilities exist. Crisis of death and
mortality includes what the meaning of life is, and a realization of the inevitability of death. Aging is usually
directly associated with this kind of thinking. There are also more existential crises, related to feeling isolated,
to missing your purpose, to false sense of happiness. Luckily, there are ways to avoid these devastating and
crippling emotions.

E. Finding your purpose and meaning in life can help you break free of an existential crisis. You might be
able to break through an existential crisis on your own, without a doctor. But if symptoms don’t go away, or if
they worsen, see a psychiatrist, psychologist, or therapist. These mental health experts can help you cope with
a crisis through talk therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy. This is a type of therapy that aims to change thinking
or behavior. Seek immediate help if you have suicidal thoughts. Keep in mind, however, you don’t have to wait
until a crisis reaches this point before speaking with a doctor or other healthcare provider. Even if you don’t
have thoughts about suicide, a therapist can help with severe anxiety, depression, or obsessive thoughts.

F. However, sometimes an existential therapist will simply not be enough. If you are looking for another
option, then ̧Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) Therapy could also be right for you. TMS by the company
My Transformations is a new and revolutionary treatment for a variety of mental health disorders, including
PTSD, OCD, anxiety, and depression. TMS works by using electromagnetic pulses to penetrate through the skull
and into the brain, thereby activating brain cells. The brain then uses electrical currents to communicate inside

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the brain, sending signals to the rest of the body. The magnetic waves emitted by TMS interact with the brain’s
natural chemistry to change the paths of the transmitters. It is widely believed that TMS works because it helps
boost areas of the brain that were functioning, due to depression or other mental health problems, at lower-
than-normal levels. It helps them become active again, releasing a large number of neurotransmitters and
thereby boosting a person’s mood, allowing them to see the light and help improve negative thoughts.

G. After a consultation, patients will complete a mapping session so TMS technicians can determine where
the electromagnetic coil should be placed on the brain, and how often the pulses should be released. This
depends on the patient’s brain and the severity of the mental illness. The psychiatrist on staff and the TMS
technician work to stimulate the patient’s motor strip, the part of the brain near the prefrontal cortex (the target
area). Movement in the patient’s hand is an indicator that they are stimulating the correct part of the brain.
When the magnetic pulses are released, it should feel like a soft tapping against the skull, and length of
treatment usually lasts around thirty minutes per session, and typically patients need six to eight sessions for
long-lasting results. There is also no recovery time, patients are free to exit after treatment.

Questions 21-22
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage to answer the questions.
Write your answer in boxes 21-22 on your answer sheet.
21. What health conditions does TMS aim to provide treatment for?
22. Which part of the brain do the electromagnetic pulses have a direct effect on?

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Questions 23-26
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-G, below.
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 23-26 on your answer sheet.

The TMS Therapy Process

The TMS Therapy process consists of three main stages. The staff provide patients with a 23. ............................. before giving

instructions. After that, TMS technicians can decide the 24. ............................. of the electromagnetic coil as well as the

25............................. of the pulses according to the structure of the brain and seriousness of the illness. The movement in

the patient’s hand shows that the targeted area has been 26. ............................. At the end of the process, patients should

have a feeling of a soft tapping against the skull.

A. mapping session

B. consultation

C. frequency

D. function

E. position

F. released

G. stimulated

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Reading Passage 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3.
WHAT IS MATH?
It all started with an innocuous video posted by a high school student named Gracie Cunningham. Applying
make-up while speaking into the camera, the teenager questioned whether math is “real.” She wondered where
it all came from. “I get addition,” she said, “but how would you come up with the concept of algebra? What
would you need it for?” Someone re-posted the video to Twitter, where it soon went viral. Many of the
comments were unkind: One person said it was the “dumbest video” they had ever seen; others suggested it
was indicative of a failed education system. Others, meanwhile, came to Cunningham’s defense, saying that her
questions were actually rather profound.
Cunningham had unwittingly re-ignited a very ancient and unresolved debate in the philosophy of science. What,
exactly, is math? Is it invented, or discovered? And are the things that mathematicians work with—numbers,
algebraic equations, geometry, theorems and so on—real? Some scholars feel very strongly that mathematical
truths are “out there,” waiting to be discovered—a position known as Platonism. It takes its name from the
ancient Greek thinker Plato, who imagined that mathematical truths differ from other domains in that they
inhabit a world of their own—a non-physical realm of unchanging perfection; a realm that exists outside of space
and time.
Many mathematicians seem to support this view. The things they’ve discovered over the centuries—that there
is no highest prime number; that the square root of two is an irrational number; that the number pi, when
expressed as a decimal, goes on forever—seem to be eternal truths, independent of the minds that found them.
If we were to one day encounter intelligent aliens from another galaxy, they would not share our language or
culture, but, the Platonist would argue, they might very well have made these same mathematical discoveries.
“I believe that the only way to make sense of mathematics is to believe that there are objective mathematical
facts, and that they are discovered by mathematicians,” says James Robert Brown, a philosopher of science
recently retired from the University of Toronto. “Working mathematicians overwhelmingly are Platonists. They
don't always call themselves Platonists, but if you ask them relevant questions, it’s always the Platonistic answer
that they give you.”
Other scholars—especially those working in other branches of science—view Platonism with skepticism. Modern
science tends to be empirical; scientists imagine the universe to be made up of things we can touch and taste
and so on; things we can learn about through observation and experiment. Platonism, as mathematician Brian
Davies has put it, “has more in common with mystical religions than it does with modern science.” The fear is
that if mathematicians give Plato an inch, he’ll take a mile. If the truth of mathematical statements can be
confirmed just by thinking about them, then why not ethical problems, or even religious questions? Why bother
with empiricism at all? Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York, was initially attracted
to Platonism—but has since come to see it as problematic. If something doesn’t have a physical existence, he
asks, then what kind of existence could it possibly have? “If one ‘goes Platonic’ with math,” writes Pigliucci,
empiricism “goes out the window.”
Platonism has various alternatives. One popular view is that mathematics is merely a set of rules, built up from
a set of initial assumptions—what mathematicians call axioms. Once such axioms are in place, a vast array of
logical conclusions follow, though many of these can be difficult to find. In this view, mathematics seems much
more like an invention than a discovery; at the very least, it seems like a much more human-centric endeavor.
But this view has its own problems. If mathematics is just something we dream up from within our own heads,
why should it “fit” so well with what we observe in nature? Why should a chain reaction in nuclear physics, or
population growth in biology, follow an exponential curve? Why are the orbits of the planets shaped like
ellipses? Why, in a nutshell, has mathematics proven so staggeringly useful in describing the physical world?
Theoretical physicist Eugene Wigner highlighted this issue in a famous 1960 essay titled, “The Unreasonable
Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences.” Wigner concluded that the usefulness of mathematics in
tackling problems in physics “is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.”
However, a number of modern thinkers believe they have an answer to Wigner’s dilemma. Although
mathematics can be seen as a series of conclusions that stem from a small set of axioms, those axioms were not
chosen on a whim, they argue. Rather, they were chosen for the very reason that they do seem to have
something to do with the physical world. As Pigliucci puts it: “The best answer that I can provide [to Wigner’s
question] is that this ‘unreasonable effectiveness’ is actually very reasonable, because mathematics is in fact
tied to the real world, and has been, from the beginning.”
Carlo Rovelli, a theoretical physicist at Aix-Marseille University in France, points to the example of natural
numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4... To most of us, and certainly to a Platonist, the natural numbers seem, well, natural. Were
we to meet those intelligent aliens, they would know exactly what we meant when we said that 2 + 2 = 4 (once
the statement was translated into their language). Not so fast, says Rovelli. Counting “only exists where you

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have stones, trees, people—individual, countable things,” he says. “Why should that be any more fundamental
than, say, the mathematics of fluids?” If intelligent creatures were found living within, say, the clouds of Jupiter’s
atmosphere, they might have no intuition at all for counting, or for the natural numbers, Rovelli says. Presumably
we could teach them about natural numbers—just like we could teach them the rules of chess—but if Rovelli is
right, it suggests this branch of mathematics is not as universal as the Platonists imagine.
Like Pigliucci, Rovelli believes that math “works” because we crafted it for its usefulness. “It’s like asking why a
hammer works so well for hitting nails,” he says. “It’s because we made it for that purpose.” In fact, says Rovelli,
Wigner’s claim that mathematics is spectacularly useful for doing science doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. He argues
that many discoveries made by mathematicians are of hardly any relevance to scientists. “There is a huge
amount of mathematics which is extremely beautiful to mathematicians, but completely useless for science,”
he says. “And there are a lot of scientific problems—like turbulence, for example—that everyone would like to
find some useful mathematics for, but we haven’t found it.”
Mary Leng, a philosopher at the University of York, in the U.K., holds a related view. She follows a school of
thought known as fictionalism, and sees mathematical objects as useful fictions, akin to the characters in a story
or a novel. “In a sense, they’re creatures of our creation, like Sherlock Holmes is.” But fictionalism holds that
there’s a key difference between the work of a mathematician and the work of a novelist: Mathematics has its
roots in notions like geometry and measurement, which are very much tied to the physical world. True, some of
the things that today’s mathematicians discover have almost no practical value, but in the end, math and science
are extremely close allies, Leng says. “Because [math] is invented as a tool to help with the sciences, it’s less of
a surprise that it is, in fact, useful in the sciences.”

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Questions 27-30
Complete the table below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet.

Type of perspective on mathematics Views

Platonism
● Sees mathematics as something that is discovered by
humans.
● Mathematics is 27 .............................and therefore might be
understood by aliens.
● Is more similar to 28 .............................than empiricism.

Mathematics is constructed from 29 .............................

● Mathematics was thought up by humans, making it more
30 .............................than platonism.
● Does not explain why mathematics appears so often in the
natural world.

Questions 31-34
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 31-34 on your answer sheet.
31. Gracie Cunningham was defended because:
A. Her question was about something surprisingly new.
B. Her question has yet to be solved by mathematicians.
C. Her question renewed an old discussion about mathematics.
D. She was not a result of miseducation in the U.S.
32. What is the main concern that scientists have about Platonism?
A. The mystical nature of Platonism completely contradicts the empiricist way of thinking.
B. Platonism could lead to the return of religion in scientific studies.
C. The vague Platonist principles could easily be used in other fields.
D. Platonism is a religion, and not a scientific philosophy.

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33. Why did the author mention the exponential curve in chain reactions and population growth?
A. to illustrate how mathematics is surprisingly effective in describing the world around us
B. to highlight how math appears in nature even though it was thought to be artificial
C. to emphasize how much we still do not know about mathematics' role in describing the natural world
D. to provide evidence that supports Eugene Wigner’s views on numbers
34. What does Carlo Rovelli say about aliens and natural numbers?
A. Aliens can understand numbers if they are taught by humans.
B. Physical objects are more essential to the understanding of numbers than liquids.
C. The concept of numbers might be completely foreign to aliens.
D. Translation is the key to make numbers understandable for aliens.

Questions 35-40
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-H, below.
Write the correct letter in boxes 35-40 on your answer sheet.
35. Plato envisioned that mathematics is unique because it
36. James Robert Brown said Platonism is a concept that
37. Eugene Wigner's essay in 1960 notes that mathematics
38. Massimo Pigliucci responded to a dilemma by saying that mathematics
39. Carlo Rovelli rejects the view that mathematics
40. Mary Leng thinks that, despite some exceptions, mathematics

A. is strangely effective at explaining natural events.

B. is almost inseparable from science.

C. is not an unusual phenomenon as previously thought.

D. is similar to works of literature.

E. is in a space separated from our physical world.

F. is based on solid evidence gathered from observation.

G. is still highly popular in modern times.

H. is exceptionally useful for modern science.

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