Підготовка до IELTS. READING. Multiple choice. Short Answer.

Отже, ми продовжуємо розглядати другу частину письмового тесту IELTS. Про сам іспит та Listening Part можна почитати тут, а загальні відомості про Reading Part - тут.
А в цьому пості ми докладніше розглянемо завдання до текстів.
У Reading Part письмового тесту IELTS вам можуть зустрітися такі види завдань: 
Multiple Choice
Short Answer (Identifying information (True/False/Not given); Identifying writer’s views/claims (Yes/No/Not given))
Sentence Completion
Chart, Diagram, Table
Summery Completion
Paragraph Heading
Locating Information
Classification
Matching

Multiple choice
This type of question may be a question with four possible answers or the first half of a sentence with four possible sentence endings. You have to choose one correct answer (A, B, C or D), then write the correct answer on the answer sheet.
What's involved?  Sometimes you are given a longer list of possible answers and you have to choose more than one answer. You should read the question carefully to check how many answers you need to choose. The questions are in the same order as the information in the text: that is, the answer to the first question will be before the answer to the second question, and so on.
What skills are tested? This type of question tests many different reading skills including: detailed understanding of specific points or general understanding of the main points of the text.

Подивіться це відео, і прийміть до відома підказки та інформацію про деякі нюанси такого завдання 

А тепер розберемо приклад такого завдання: 
Australian Agricultural Innovations:
1850 – 1900
During this period, there was a wide spread expansion of agriculture in Australia. The selection system was begun, whereby small sections of land were parceled out by lot. Particularly in New South Wales, this led to conflicts between small holders and the emerging squatter class, whose abuse of the system often allowed them to take vast tracts of fertile land.
There were also many positive advances in farming technology as the farmers adapted agricultural methods to the harsh Australian conditions. One of the most important was “dry farming”. This was the discovery that repeated ploughing of fallow, unproductive land could preserve nitrates and moisture, allowing the land to eventually be cultivated. This, along with the extension of the railways allowed the development of what are now great inland wheat lands.

 What is dry farming?
A) Preserving nitrates and moisture.
B) Ploughing the land again and again.
C) Cultivating fallow land.

To answer this question you should have highlighted the word dry farming.
You should then have been able to scan the two paragraphs to quickly find this word.
Reading the information around it more carefully would the give you the answer:
Cultivating means to improve and prepare (land) by ploughing or fertilizing, for raising crops.
So the answer was "the ploughing of fallow land...to eventually be cultivated."

Тепер виконаємо завдання самостійно. Відповідь пишіть в коментарях. 
Task 1
NOW FOR THE BAD NEWS: A TEENAGE TIME BOMB
Para. 1
They are just four, five and six years old right now, but already they are making criminologists nervous. They are growing up, too frequently, in abusive or broken homes, with little adult supervision and few positive role models. Left to themselves, they spend much of their time hanging out on the streets or soaking up violent TV shows. By the year 2005 they will be teenagers – a group that tends to be, in the view of Notheastern University criminologist James Alan Fox, “temporary sociopaths – impulsive and immature”. If they also have easy access to guns and drugs, they can be extremely dangerous.
Para. 2
For all the heartening news offered by recent crime statistics, there is an ominous flip side.  While the crime rate is dropping for adults, it is soaring for teens. Between 1990 and 1994, the rate at which adults age 25 and older committed homicides declined 22%; yet the rate jumped  16% for youths between 14 and 17, the age group that in early ‘90s supplanted 18- to 24-year-olds as the most crime-prone. And that is precisely the age group that will be blooming in the next decade. There are currently 39 million children under 10 in the U.S., more than at any time since the 1950s. “This is the calm before the crime storm,” says Fox. “So long as we fool ourselves in thinking that we are winning the war against crime, we may be blindsided by this bloodbath of teenage violence that is lurking in the future”. 
Para. 3
Demographics don’t have to be destiny, but other social trends do little to contradict the dire predictions. Nearly all the factors that contribute to youth crime – single-parent households, child abuse, deteriorating inner-city schools – are getting worse. At the same time, government is becoming less, not more, interested in spending money to help break the cycle of poverty and crime. All of which has led John J. DiIulio JR., a professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton, to warn about a new generation of “superpredators”, youngsters who are coming of age in actual and “moral poverty”, without “the benefit of parents, teachers, coaches and clergy to teach them right or wrong and show them unconditional love”.
Para. 4
Predicting a generation’s future crime patterns is, of course, risky, especially when outside factors (Will crack use be up or down? Will gun laws be tightened?) remain unpredictable. Michael Tonry, a professor of law and public policy at the University of Minnesota, argues that the demographic doomsayers are unduly alarmist. “There will be a slightly larger number of people relative to the overall population who are at high risk for doing bad things, so that’s going to have some effect.” Norval Morris, professor of law and criminology at the University of Chicago, finds   DiIulio’s notion of superpredators too simplistic: “The human animal in young males is quite a violent animal all over the world. The people who put forth the theory of moral poverty lack a sense of history and comparative criminology.”
Para. 5
Yet other students of the inner city are more pessimistic. “all the basic elements that spawn teenage crime are still in place, and in many cases the indicators are worse,” says Jonathan Kozol, author of Amazing Grace, an examination of poverty in the South Bronx. “There is a dramatic increase of children in foster care, and that’s a very high-risk group of kids. We’re not creating new jobs, and we’re not improving education to suit poor people for the jobs that exist.”
Para. 6
Can anything defuse the demographic time bomb? For urges “reinvesting in children”: improving schools, creating after-school programs and providing other alternatives to gangs and drugs.  DiIulio, a law-and-order conservative, advocates tougher prosecution and wants to strengthen religious institutions to instill better values. Yet the opposes the Gingrichled effort to make deep cuts in social programs. “A failure to maintain existing welfare and health commitment for kids,”  he says, “is to guarantee that the next wave of juvenile predators will be even worse than we’re dealing with today.” DiIulio urges fellow conservatives to think of Medicaid not as a health-care program but as “an anticrime policy”.
695 words
(Source: Time Magazine)

1. Young children are making criminologists nervous because
    (a) they are committing too much crime.
    (b) they are impulsive and immature.
    (c) they may grow up to be criminals.

2. The general crime rate in the US is
    (a)increasing
    (b)decreasing
    (c)not changing

3. The age group which commits the highest rate of crime is
    (a)14 - 17.
    (b)18 - 24.
    (c)24 +.

4. James Fox believes that the improvement in crime figures could
    (a)make us complacent in the fight against crime.
    (b)result in an increase in teenage violence.
    (c)result in a decrease in teenage violence.

5. According to paragraph 3, the government
    (a)is doing everything it can to solve the problem.
    (b)is not interested in solving the problem.
    (c)is not doing enough to solve the problem.

6. In comparison with James Fox, Michael Tonry is
    (a)more pessimistic.
    (b)less pessimistic.
    (c)equally pessimistic.

7. Jonathan Kozol believes that
    (a)there is no solution to the problem.
    (b)employment and education are not the answer.
    (c)employment and education can improve the situation.

8. Professor DiIulio thinks that spending on social programs
    (a) should continue as it is
    (b)should be decreased.
    (c)is irrelevant to crime rates.

Short Answer
Identifying information (True/False/Not given)
In this type of question, you are given a number of statements and are asked: ‘Do the following statements agree with the information in the text?’ You have to write ‘True’, ‘False’ or ‘Not given’ in the boxes on your answer sheet.
What's involved? It is important to understand the difference between ‘False’ and ‘Not given’. ‘False’ means that the statement contradicts the information in the text. ‘Not given’ means that the statement neither agrees with nor contradicts the information in the text. You must be careful not to use any information you already know about the topic of the text when choosing your answer.
What skills are tested? This type of question tests your ability to recognise specific information given in the text.
Identifying writer’s views/claims (Yes/No/Not given)
In this type of question, you are given a number of statements and asked: ‘Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer?’ or ‘Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer?’ You have to write ‘Yes’, ‘No’ or ‘Not given’ in the boxes on your answer sheet.
What's involved? It is important to understand the difference between ‘no’ and ‘not given’. ‘No’ means that the statement contradicts the writer’s view or claim. ‘Not given’ means that the statement neither agrees with nor contradicts the writer’s view or claim. You must be careful not to use any information you already know about the topic of the text when choosing your answer.
What skills are tested? This type of question tests your ability to recognise opinions or ideas.
How to get the answers right

Some practical tips

•     Read the whole question. Do NOT focus on key words. Think about the meaning of the question.
•     Be especially careful with words such as “often” and “some”. They can change the meaning of the question dramatically.
•     Be careful with questions beginning “The writer says”: here you need to think about the writer’s opinions and not about facts.
•     The questions will follow the order of the text: if you can’t find answer 12, you know it must be somewhere between 11 and 13.
•     Do not spend too long on any one question. If the answer is “Not Given”, there may be nothing for you to find.
•     One possibility is to mark all the “True” answers and all the “False” answers and then guess “Not Given” for the others.

Щоб підготуватись до IELTS комплексно: пройти кожен розділ, попрактикувати вправи, розібратись зі структурою тесту та отримати купу порад, які допоможуть вам якісно підготуватися до здачі тесту IELTS, рекомендую самостійно пройти цей онлайн-курс від booyya.com - https://bit.ly/3KXu7p6.

Підказки та корисні поради з приводу того, як виконувати дане завдання, ви знайдете в наступних відео: 

Look at this statment, taken from the first sentence in the reading belowChiles originate in South America and have been eaten for at least 9,500 years.

Here are some example IELTS True False Not Given statements with answers
    Chiles come from South America - T
    People began eating Chiles in the last few centuries - F
    South Americans were the first people to start eating Chiles - NG

Number one is clearly true. Notice the use of the synonym 'come from' used instead of 'originates'. It is common to use different words.
Two is clearly false as it was 9,500 years ago, not a few 100 years ago.
Three is not in the text. Be careful about making assumptions then thinking it is true. It is quite probable the South Americans began eating Chiles first as they originated there; however, you can't be sure of that and the text does not tell you that.

Тепер виконаємо завдання самостійно. Відповідь пишіть в коментарях. 
Task 2
UN warns over impact of rapidly ageing populations
The world needs to do more to prepare for the impact of a rapidly ageing population, the UN has warned - particularly in developing countries. Within 10 years the number of people aged over 60 will pass one billion, a report by the UN Population Fund said. The demographic shift will present huge challenges to countries' welfare, pension and healthcare systems. The UN agency also said more had to be done to tackle "abuse, neglect and violence against older persons".
The number of older people worldwide is growing faster than any other age group. The report, Ageing in the 21st Century: A Celebration and a Challenge, estimates that one in nine people around the world are older than 60. The elderly population is expected to swell by 200 million in the next decade to surpass one billion, and reach two billion by 2050. This rising proportion of older people is a consequence of success - improved nutrition, sanitation, healthcare, education and economic well-being are contributing factors, the report says.
But the UN and a charity that also contributed to the report, HelpAge International, say the ageing population is being widely mismanaged. "In many developing countries with large populations of young people, the challenge is that governments have not put policies and practices in place to support their current older populations or made enough preparations for 2050," the agencies said in a joint statement.
The report warns that the skills and experience of older people are being wasted, with many under-employed and vulnerable to discrimination. HelpAge said more countries needed to introduce pension schemes to ensure economic independence and reduce poverty in old age. It stressed that it was not enough to simply pass legislation - the new schemes needed to be funded properly.
The UN report used India as an example, saying it needed to take urgent steps in this area. Almost two-thirds of India's population is under 30. But it also has 100 million elderly people - a figure that is expected to increase threefold by 2050. Traditionally, people in India live in large, extended families and elderly people have been well looked after. But the trend now is to have smaller, nuclear families and many of the country's elderly are finding themselves cast out, says the BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi.
There are more and more cases of physical and mental abuse, including neglect, suffered by the elderly at the hands of their families. It is slowly becoming a widespread social problem, particularly in urban areas, one which India still has not got to grips with, our correspondent says.
By contrast, the UN report cited the case of Bolivia as an example of good practice in the developing world. All Bolivians over the age of 60 get a pension that is the equivalent of about $30 (£19) a month. Bolivia suffers from frequent flooding and landslides, and older people there have been organised into "Brigadas Blancas" - White Haired Brigades. They help with preparations for emergencies, and accessing humanitarian aid.
Source: BBC News Website

Mark:
    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. The growth of the elderly population is going to make it extremely difficult to provide adequate social service provision
    True
    False
    Not Given
2. Approximately thirty per cent of the population are over 60 years old
    True
    False
    Not Given
3. Developed countries are much better prepared than developing countries for 2050
    True
    False
    Not Given
4. More financing is necessary to ensure new pension schemes are successful
    True
    False
    Not Given
5. Elderly people in India are not always being looked after as well as they were in the past
    True
    False
    Not GIven
6. India is starting to deal with the neglect of its elderly population
    True
    False
    Not Given
7. Bolivian Families tend to look after their elderly relatives better then many other countries
    True
    False
    Not Given

Відповіді пишіть в коментарях)
Ми продовжимо детально розбирати інші види завдань до Reading Part, а поки
важливе оголошення - подаруночок вам! 

З 11 травня на освітньої майданчику Future Learn починається безкоштовний онлайн курс Understanding IELTS: Techniques for English Language Tests
Можна піти сюди, зареєструватися і бадьоренько пройти курс. Дуже зручно.) Ну що ви, не дякуйте.)