Reading
2 Scanning for a specific detail and skimming for general understanding
Reading
2 Scanning for a specific detail and skimming for general understanding
Scanning wily, Wired Consumers
The Internet has empowered shoppers both online and offline.
A The amount of time people spend researching, checking prices, visiting stores and seeking advice from friends tends to rise in proportion to the value of the product they are thinking of buying. A new car is one of the biggest purchases people make, and buyers typically spend four to six weeks mulling over their choices. So why are some people now walking into car showrooms and ordering a vehicle without even asking for a test drive? Or turning up at an electrical store and pointing out the washing machine they want without seeking advice from a sales assistant? Welcome to a new style of shopping shaped by the internet.
B More people are buying products online, especially at peak buying periods. The total value of e-commerce transactions in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2004 reached $18 billon, a 22% increase over the same period in 2003, according to the Department of Commerce in Washington DC. But that just represents 2% of America’s total retail market and excludes services, such as online travel, the value of goods auctioned on the Internet, and the $34 billion-worth of goods that individuals trade on eBay.
C If you consider the Internet’s wider influence over what people spend their money on, then the figures escalate out of sight. Some carmakers in America now find that eight out of ten of their buyers have logged on to the Internet to gather information about not just the exact vehicle they want, but also the price they are going to pay. Similarly with consumer electronics, nowadays if a customer wants to know which flat-screen TV they should buy, they are likely to start their shopping online – even though the vast majority will not complete the transaction there.
D The Internet is moving the world closer to perfect product and price information. The additional knowledge it can provide makes consumers more self-assured and bold enough to go into a car dealership and refuse to bargain. As a result, the process of shopping is increasingly being divorced from the transaction itself. Consumers might surf the web at night and hit the shops during the day. Visiting bricks-and-mortar stores can provide the final confirmation that the item or group of items that they are interested in is right for them.
E Far from losing trade to online merchants stores that offer the sorts of goods people find out about online can gain from this new form of consumer behaviour. This is provided they offer attractive facilities, good guarantees and low prices.
F Merchants who charge too much and offer poor service, however, should beware. The same,too, for shaky manufacturers: smarter consumers know which products have a good reputation and which do not, because online they now read not only the sales blurb but also reviews from previous purchasers. And if customers are disappointed, a few clicks of the mouse will take them to places
Reading
2 Scanning for a specific detail and skimming for general understanding
where they can let the world know.
G Some companies are already adjusting their business models to take account of these trends. The stores run by Sony and Apple, for instance, are more like brand showrooms than shops. They are there for people to try out devices and to ask questions of knowledge staff. Whether the products are ultimately bought online or offline is of secondary importance. Online traders must also adjust. Amazon, for one, is rapidly turning from being primarily a bookseller to becoming a mass retailer, by letting other companies sell products on its site, rather like a marketplace. Other transformations in the retail business are bound to follow.
1 Scan the Reading passage for the following details.(2min)
1 a large amount of money 4 two brand-name stores
2 a US government department 5 an Internet trading company 3 a percentage Skimming ● read the title and subheading of the article on the next page and predict the content; ●skim the passage and say what it is about.
IELTS Reading test practice Short-answer questions 5 Take ten minutes to answer questions 1-6.
Sifting through the Sands of time When you’re on the beach, you’re stepping on ancient mountains, skeletons of marine animals, even tiny diamonds. Sand provides a mineral treature trove, a record of geology’s earth-changing processes.
Sand: as children we play on it and as adults we relax on it. It is something we complain about when it gets in our food, and praise when it’s moulded into castles. But we don’t often look at it. If we did, we would discover an account of a geological past and a history of marine life that goes back thousands and in some cases millions of years.
Sand covers not just seashores, but also ocean beds, deserts and mountains. It is one of the most common substances on earth. And it is a major element in man-made items too – concrete is largely sand,while glass is made of little else.
What exactly is sand? Well, it is larger than fine dust and smaller than shingle. In fact, according to the most generally accepted scheme of measurement, devised by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, grains qualify if their diameter is greater than 0.06 of a millimeter and less than 0.6 of a millimeter.
Depending on its age and origin, a particular sand can consist of tiny pebbles or porous granules. Its grain may have the shape of stars or spirals, their edges jagged or smooth. They have come from the erosion of rocks, or from the skeletons of marine organisms which accumulate on the bottom of the oceans, or even from volcanic eruptions.
Reading
2 Scanning for a specific detail and skimming for general understanding
Colour is another clue to sand’s origins. If it is a dazzling white, its grains may have the shape of stars or spirals, their edges jagged or smooth. They have come from the erosion of rocks, or from the skeletons of marine organisms which accumulate on the bottom of the oceans, or even from volcanic eruptions.
Colour is another clue to sand’s origins. If it is a dazzling white, its grains may be derived from nearby coral outcrops, from crystalline quartz rocks or from gypsum, like the white sands of New Mexico. On Pacific islands jet black sands form from volcanic minerals. Other black beaches are magnetic. Some sand is very recent indeed, as is the case on the island of Kamoamoa in Hawaii, where a beach was created after a volcanic eruption in 1990. molten lava spilled into the sea and exploded in glassy droplets.
Usually, the older the granules, the finer they are and the smoother the edges. The fine, white beaches of northern Scotland, for instance, are recycled from sandstone several hundred million years old. Perhaps they will be stone once more, in another few hundred million.
Sand is an irreplaceable industrial ingredient whose uses are legion: but it has one vital function you might never even notice. Sand cushions our land from the sea’s impact, and geologists say it often does a better job of protecting our shores than the most advanced coastal technology. Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer. 1 What TWO materials made by humans are mentioned in the passage? 2 Which part of a grain of sand have scientists measured? 3 What TWO factors determine the size and shape of a piece of sand? 4 Which event produced the beach on Kamoamoa island? 5 Where, according to the passage, can beaches made of very ancient sand be found? 6 Who claims that sand can have a more efficient function than coastal technology? Vocabulary builder 7 Take five minutes to find out what the passage starting with the follow passage is about. 8 Scan effects on Salmon Biodiversity for words 1-9 and then match them to definitions A-I. Words Definitions 1 endangered A electricity produced from fast-flowing water 2 migrations B confuse someone or something about where it 3 mature is going 4 breeding C change the shape or appearance of something 5 hydropower slightly 6 survival D at risk of being harmed or destroyed 7 disorient E continued existence of a species 8 modify F become adult 9 habitat G natural area in which an animal lives Reading
2 Scanning for a specific detail and skimming for general understanding H mass movement of a species I producing young Effects on Salmon Biodiversity
The number of Pacific salmon has declined dramatically but the loss of genetic diversity may be a bigger problem.
Each year, countless salmon migrate from the rivers and streams along the western coasts of Canada and the US to the Pacific Ocean, while at the same time others leave the ocean and return to freshwater to spawn a new generation. This ritual has been going on for many millennia. But more than a century ago, the number of salmon returning from the sea began to fall dramatically in the Pacific Northwest. The decline accelerated in the 1970s and by the 1990s the US Endangered Species Act listed 26 kinds of salmon as endangered.
In North America, there are five species of Pacific salmon: pink salmon, chum, sockeye, coho and Chinook. Most of these fish migrate to the sea and then return to freshwater to reproduce. They are also semelparous – they die after spawning once. The life cycle of a typical salmon begins with females depositing eggs in nests, or redds, on the gravel bottoms of rivers and lakes. There must be large quantities of gravel for this process to be successful. The young emerge from here and live in freshwater for periods ranging from a few days to several years. Then the juveniles undergo a physiological metamorphosis, called smoltification, and head towards the ocean. Once in the sea, the salmon often undertake extensive migrations of thousands of miles while the mature. After anywhere from a few months to a few years, adult salmon return – with high fidelity – to the river where they were born. There they spawn and cycle begins again.
Stream-type Chinook spend one or more years in freshwater before heading to sea; they also undertake extensive offshore voyages and return to their natal streams during the spring or summer, often holding in freshwater for several months before spawning. In contrast, ocean-type Chinook move out very early in life, before they reach one year of age. But once these salmon reach open water, they do not travel far offshore. They usually spend their entire natal streams immediately before spawning.
Because salmon typically return to reproduce in the river where they were spawned, individual streams are home to local breeding populations that can have a unique genetic signature and the state of the oceans influences this. Also, salmon react in complex ways to human-induced changes to their environment.
The extensive development of hydropower on the major rivers of the western US has clearly disrupted populations of salmon. Other problems come from the very engineering fixes made to protect these fish from harm. Dams on some rivers are equipped with submersible screens designed to divert migrating juveniles away from turbines. Unfortunately, these measures do not benefit all fish. These screens steer as many as 95 percent of the stream-type Chinook around the turbines, but because of idiosyncrasies in behaviour these measures redirect as few as 15 percent of ocean-type Chinook. One thus expects to see genetic shifts in favour of the stream types.
Fish ladders too have drawbacks. Although these devices have helped to bring survival rates for mature fish closer to historic levels, dams have certainly altered their upstream journey. Rather than swimming against a flowing river, adults now pass through a series of reservoirs punctuated by dams, where discharge from the turbine can disorient the fish and make it hard for them to find ladders. Such impediments do not kill the fish, but they affect migration rates.
Dams may also modify salmon habitat in more subtle ways. An indirect effect of the 92-metre
Reading
2 Scanning for a specific detail and skimming for general understanding
Brownlee Dam on the Snake River provides a dramatic example. Historically, the upper Snake River produced some 25,000 to 30,000chincook salmon that spawned during the early fall. The completion of the dam in the late 1950s not only rendered the vast majority of their habitat inaccessible, but also led to more extreme water temperatures downstream from the dam. These changes, in turn, altered the life cycle of the small population of Snake River Chinook that remained. Today young Chinook emerge from the gravel later than they did before the dam was built, and thus they migrate downstream later, when temperatures are higher and water levels lower. Following referencing 9 Scan the text for the following reference words or phrases and then say what they refer to.
this ritual (Para.1) these measures (Para.5) the decline (para.1) these devices (Para.6) there they spawn (Para.2) such impediments (Para.6) influences this (Para.4) these changes (Para.7) other problems (Para.5)
IELTS Reading test practice completing a flowchart/diagram/table
10 Answer questions 1-5 and complete the flowchart.(8min)
Complete the flowchart below.
Choose NO MORE THAN ONE MORD from the passage for each answer.
Life cycle of salmon Females lay eggs in 1 ____________ on floor of river/ lake, where there must be plenty 2 _____________.
Young salmon occupy 3_____________ for up to several Process known as 4________________ Migration to oceans Return to 5____________of birth
Reading
2 Scanning for a specific detail and skimming for general understanding
11 Answer questions 6-12 and complete the table.(10min) Complete the table below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Effects of engineering projects on salmon Engineering object submersible screens Purpose Keep young migrating salmon clear of 6_________ to assist journey Impact Outcome mainly protect one species will 7___________ become more numbers Chinook. fish can’t locate them Negative impact on 9 because of turbine _____________ discharge fish can’t get to 12____________ of normal Snake River Chinook 10___________ very changed great changes in 11___________ 8_____________ Brownlee Dam