IELTS Reading
CODE 26

READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1
below.

                           Why Risks can go wrong




                           Human intuition is a bad guide to handling risk


A. People make terrible decisions about the future. The evidence is all around, from their
investments in the stock markets to the way they run their businesses. In fact, people are consistently
bad at dealing with uncertainty, underestimating some kinds of risk and overestimating others.
Surely there must be a better way than using intuition?
B. In the 1960s a young American research psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, became interested in
people's inability to make logical decisions. That launched him on a career to show just how
irrationally people behave in practice. When Kahneman and his colleagues first started work, the
idea of applying psychological insights to economics and business decisions was seen as rather
bizarre. But in the past decade the fields of behavioural finance and behavioural economics have
blossomed, and in 2002 Kahneman shared a Nobel prize in economics for his work. Today he is in
demand by business organizations and international banking companies. But, he says, there are
plenty of institutions that still fail to understand the roots of their poor decisions. He claims that, far
from being random, these mistakes are systematic and predictable.
C. One common cause of problems in decision-making is over-optimism. Ask most people about the
future, and they will see too much blue sky ahead, even if past experience suggests otherwise.
Surveys have shown that people's forecasts of future stock market movements are far more
optimistic than past long-term returns would justify. The same goes for their hopes of ever-rising
prices for their homes or doing well in games of chance. Such optimism can be useful for managers



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or sportsmen, and sometimes turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. But most of the time it results in
wasted effort and dashed hopes. Kahneman's work points to three types of over-confidence. First,
people tend to exaggerate their own skill and prowess; in polls, far fewer than half the respondents
admit to having below-average skills in, say, driving. Second, they overestimate the amount of
control they have over the future, forgetting about luck and chalking up success solely to skill. And
third, in competitive pursuits such as dealing on shares, they forget that they have to judge their skills
against those of the competition.
D. Another source of wrong decisions is related to the decisive effect of the initial meeting,
particularly in negotiations over money. This is referred to as the 'anchor effect'. Once a figure has
been mentioned, it takes a strange hold over the human mind. The asking price quoted in a house
sale, for example, tends to become accepted by all parties as the 'anchor' around which negotiations
take place. Much the same goes for salary negotiations or mergers and acquisitions. If nobody has
much information to go on, a figure can provide comfort - even though it may lead to a terrible
mistake.
E. In addition, mistakes may arise due to stubbornness. No one likes to abandon a cherished belief,
and the earlier a decision has been taken, the harder it is to abandon it. Drug companies must decide
early to cancel a failing research project to avoid wasting money, but may find it difficult to admit
they have made a mistake. In the same way, analysts may have become wedded early to a single
explanation that coloured their perception. A fresh eye always helps.
F. People also tend to put a lot of emphasis on things they have seen and experienced themselves,
which may not be the best guide to decision-making. For example, somebody may buy an
overvalued share because a relative has made thousands on it, only to get his fingers burned. In
finance, too much emphasis on information close at hand helps to explain the tendency by most
investors to invest only within the country they live in. Even though they know that diversification is
good for their portfolio, a large majority of both Americans and Europeans invest far too heavily in
the shares of their home countries. They would be much better off spreading their risks more widely.
G. More information is helpful in making any decision but, says Kahneman, people spend
proportionally too much time on small decisions and not enough on big ones. They need to adjust the
balance. During the boom years, some companies put as much effort into planning their office party
as into considering strategic mergers.
H. Finally, crying over spilled milk is not just a waste of time; it also often colours people's
perceptions of the future. Some stock market investors trade far too frequently because they are
chasing the returns on shares they wish they had bought earlier.



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I. Kahneman reckons that some types of businesses are much better than others at dealing with risk.
Pharmaceutical companies, which are accustomed to many failures and a few big successes in their
drug-discovery programmes, are fairly rational about their risk-taking. But banks, he says, have a
long way to go. They may take big risks on a few huge loans, but are extremely cautious about their
much more numerous loans to small businesses, many of which may be less risky than the big ones.
And the research has implications for governments too. They face a whole range of sometimes
conflicting political pressures, which means they are even more likely to take irrational decisions.


Questions 1 – 6
Reading Passage 1 has nine paragraphs A-I.
Choose the correct heading for Paragraphs B and D-H from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number (i-xi) in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.



                                           List of Headings
                    i Not identifying the correct priorities
                    ii A solution for the long term
                    iii The difficulty of changing your mind
                    iv Why looking back is unhelpful
                    v Strengthening inner resources
                    vi A successful approach to the study of decision – making
                    vii The danger of trusting a global market
                    viii Reluctance to go beyond the familiar
                    ix   The power of the first number
                    x    The need for more effective risk assessment
                    xi   Underestimating the difficulties ahead



 1. Paragraph B
 2. Paragraph D
 3. Paragraph E
 4. Paragraph F
 5. Paragraph G
 6. Paragraph H


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IELTS Reading
CODE 26
Questions 7 – 10
Choose the correct letter, A – D and write them in boxes 7 – 10 on your answer sheet.
7. People initially found Kahneman’s work unusual because he
   A. Saw mistakes as following predictable patterns.
   B. Was unaware of behavioural approaches.
   C. Dealt with irrational types of practice.
   D. Applied psychology to finance and economics


8. The writer mentions house – owners’ attitudes towards the value of their homes to illustrate that
   A. Past failures may destroy an optimistic attitude.
   B. People tend to exaggerate their chances of success.
   C. Optimism may be justified in certain circumstances.
   D. People are influenced by the success of others


9. Stubbornness and inflexibility can cause problems when people
   A. Think their financial difficulties are just due to bad luck.
   B. Avoid seeking advice from experts and analysts
   C. Refuse to invest in the early stages of a project.
   D. Are unwilling to give up unsuccessful activities of beliefs


10. Why do many Americans and Europeans fail to spread their financial risks when investing?
   A. They feel safer dealing in a context which is close to home.
   B. They do not understand the benefits of diversification.
   C. They are over influenced by the successes of their relatives.
   D. They do not have sufficient knowledge of one another’s countries




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Questions 11 – 13
Answer the questions.
Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
       Which two occupations may benefit from being over – optimistic?
 11.   ____________________________________________________
       Which practical skill are many people over – confident about?
 12.   ____________________________________________________
       Which type of business has a generally good attitude to dealing with uncertainty?
 13.   ____________________________________________________




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IELTS Reading
CODE 26

READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14 – 26, which are based on Reading Passage 2
below.

                Why are so few tigers man – eaters?




A. As you leave the Bandhavgarh National Park in central India, there is a notice which shows a
huge, placid tiger. The notice says, ‘You may not have seen me, but I have seen you.’ There are more
than a billion people In India and Indian tigers probably see humans every single day of their lives.
Tigers can and do kill almost everything they meet in the jungle, they will kill even attack elephants
and rhino. Surely, then, it is a little strange that attacks on humans are not more frequent.
B. Some people might argue that these attacks were in fact common in the past. British writers of
adventure stories, such as Jim Corbett, gave the impression that village life in India in the early years
of the twentieth century involved a stage of constant siege by man-eating tigers. But they may have
overstated the terror spread by tigers. There were also far more tigers around in those days (probably
60.000 in the subcontinent compared to just 3000 today). So in proportion, attacks appear to have
been as rare then as they are today.
C. It is widely assumed that the constraint is fear; but what exactly are tigers afraid of? Can they
really know that we may be even better armed than they are? Surely not. Has the species
programmed the experiences of all tigers with humans its genes to be inherited as instinct? Perhaps.
But I think the explanation may be more simple and, in a way, more intriguing.
D. Since the growth of ethology in the 1950s. we have tried to understand animal behaviour from the
animal’s point of view. Until the first elegant experiments by pioneers in the field such
as Konrad Lorenz, naturalists wrote about animals as if they were slightly less intelligent humans.
Jim Corbett’s breathless accounts of his duels with a an-eaters in truth tell us more about Jim Corbett
than they do about the animals. The principle of ethology, on the other hand, requires us to attempt to


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think in the same way as the animal we are studying thinks, and to observe every tiny detail of its
behaviour without imposing our own human significances on its actions.
E. I suspect that a tiger’s afraid of humans lies not in some preprogramed ancestral logic but in the
way he actually perceives us visually. If you think like a tiger, a human in a car might appear just to
be a part of the car, and because tigers don’t eat cars the human is safe-unless the car is menacing the
tiger or its cubs, in which case a brave or enraged tiger may charge. A human on foot is a different
sort of puzzle. Imagine a tiger sees a man who is 1.8m tall. A tiger is less than 1m tall but they may
be up to 3m long from head to tail. So when a tiger sees the man face on, it might not be
unreasonable for him to assume that the man is 6m long. If he meet a deer of this size, he might
attack the animal by leaping on its back, but when he looks behind the mind he can’t see a back.
From the front the man is huge, but looked at from the side he all but disappears. This must be very
disconcerting. A hunter has to be confident that it can tackle its prey, and no one is confident when
they are disconcerted. This is especially true of a solitary hunter such as the tiger and may explain
why lions-particularly young lionesses who tend to encourage one another to take risks are more
dangerous than tigers.
F. If the theory that a tiger is disconcerted to find that a standing human is both very big and yet
somehow invisible is correct, the opposite should be true of a squatting human. A squatting human is
half he size and presents twice the spread of back, and more closely resembles a medium-sized deer.
If tigers were simply frightened of all humans, then a squatting person would be no more attractive
as a target than a standing one. This, however appears not to be the case. Many incidents of attacks
on people involving villagers squatting or bending over to cut grass for fodder or building material.
G. The fact that humans stand upright may therefore not just be something that distinguishes them
from nearly all other species, but also a factor that helped them to survive in a dangerous and
unpredictable environment.
Note:
Ethology = the branch of zoology that studies the behaviour of animals in their natural habitats




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Questions 14 – 18
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs labelled A – G
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A – G in boxes 14 – 18 on your answer sheet.
 14.   A rejected explanation of why tiger attacks on humans are rare.
 15.   A reason why tiger attacks on human might be expect to happen more often than they do.
 16.   Examples of situations in which humans are more likely to be attacked by tigers.
 17.   A claim about the relative frequency of tiger attacks on humans.
 18.   An explanation of tiger behavior based on the principles of ethology.


Questions 19 – 23
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?
In boxes 19 – 23 on your answer sheet, write
       TRUE              if the statement is true
       FALSE             if the statement is false
       NOT GIVEN         if the information is not given in the passage


19 Tigers in the Bandhavgarh National Park are a protected species.
20 Some writers of fiction have exaggerated the danger of tigers to man.
21 The fear of humans may be passed down in a tiger’s genes.
22 Konrad Lorenz claimed that some animals are more intelligent than humans
23 Ethology involves applying principles of human behavior to animals




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Questions 24 – 26
Choose the correct letter, A – D and write them in boxes 24 – 26 on your answer sheet.
24. Why do tigers rarely attack people in cars?
   A. They have learned that cars are not dangerous.
   B. They realize that people in cars cannot be harmed.
   C. They do not think people in cars are living creatures.
   D. They do not want to put their cubs at risk


25. The writer says that tigers rarely attack a man who is standing up because
   A. They are afraid of the man’s height.
   B. They are confused by the man’s shape.
   C. They are puzzled by the man’s lack of movement.
   D. They are unable to look at the man directly.


26. A human is more vulnerable to tiger attack when squatting because
   A. He may be unaware of the tiger’s approach.
   B. He cannot easily move his head to see behind him.
   C. His head becomes a better target for the tiger.
   D. His back appears longer in relation to his height.




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IELTS Reading
CODE 26

READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3
below.

                                   Keep taking the tablets




The history of aspirin is a product of a rollercoaster ride through time, of accidental
discoveries, intuitive reasoning and intense corporate rivalry.
In the opening pages of Aspirin: The Remarkable Story of a Wonder Drug, Diarmuid Jeffreys describes
this little white pill as ‘one of the most amazing creations in medical history, a drug so astonishingly
versatile that it can relieve headache, ease your aching limbs, lower your temperature and treat some of
the deadliest human diseases’.
Its properties have been known for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptian physicians used extracts from
the willow tree as an analgesic, or pain killer. Centuries later the Greek physician Hippocrates
recommended the bark of the willow tree as a remedy for the pains of childbirth and as a fever reducer.
But it wasn't until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that salicylates the chemical found in the
willow tree became the subject of serious scientific investigation. The race was on to identify the active
ingredient and to replicate it synthetically. At the end of the nineteenth century a German company,
Friedrich Bayer & Co. succeeded in creating a relatively safe and very effective chemical
compound, acetylsalicylic acid, which was renamed aspirin.
The late nineteenth century was a fertile period for experimentation, partly because of the hunger among
scientists to answer some of the great scientific questions, but also because those questions were within
their means to answer. One scientist in a laboratory with some chemicals and a test tube could make
significant breakthroughs whereas today, in order to map the human genome for instance, one needs ‘an
army of researchers, a bank of computers and millions and millions of dollars’.
But an understanding of the nature of science and scientific inquiry is not enough on its own to explain
how society innovates. In the nineteenth century, scientific advance was closely linked to the industrial



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revolution. This was a period when people frequently had the means, motive and determination to take an
idea and turn it into reality. In the case of aspirin that happened piecemeal - a series of minor, often
unrelated advances, fertilised by the century’s broader economic, medical and scientific developments,
that led to one big final breakthrough.
The link between big money and pharmaceutical innovation is also a significant one. Aspirin is continued
shelf life was ensured because for the first 70 years of its life, huge amounts of money were put into
promoting it as an ordinary everyday analgesic. In the 1070s other analgesics, such as ibuprofen
and paracetamol, were entering the market, and the pharmaceutical companies then focused on
publicising these new drugs. But just at the same time, discoveries were made regarding the beneficial
role of aspirin in preventing heart attacks, strokes and other afflictions. Had it not been for these findings,
this pharmaceutical marvel may well have disappeared.
So the relationship between big money and drugs is an odd one. Commercial markets are necessary for
developing new products and ensuring that they remain around long enough for scientists to carry out
research on them. But the commercial markets are just as likely to kill off' certain products when
something more attractive comes along. In the case of aspirin, a potential ‘wonder drug* was around for
over 70 years without anybody investigating the way in which it achieved its effects, because they were
making more than enough money out of it as it was. If ibuprofen or paracetamol had entered the market
just a decade earlier, aspirin might then not be here today. It would be just another forgotten drug that
people hadn't bothered to explore.
None of the recent discoveries of aspirin's benefits were made by the big pharmaceutical companies; they
were made by scientists working in the public sector. 'The reason for that is very simple and
straightforward,' Jeffreys says in his book. 'Drug companies will only pursue research that is going to
deliver financial benefits. There's no profit in aspirin any more. It is incredibly inexpensive with tiny
profit margins and it has no patent any more, so anyone can produce it.' In fact, there's almost a
disincentive for drug companies to further boost the drug, he argues, as it could possibly put them out of
business by stopping them from selling their more expensive brands.
So what is the solution to a lack of commercial interest in further exploring the therapeutic benefits of
aspirin? More public money going into clinical trials, says Jeffreys. ‘If I were the Department of Health. I
would say “this is a very inexpensive drug. There may be a lot of other things we could do with it." We
should put a lot more money into trying to find out.'
Jeffreys' book which not only tells the tale of a 'wonder drug' but also explores the nature of innovation
and the role of big business, public money and regulation reminds us why such research is so important.




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Questions 27 – 32
Complete each sentence with the correct ending A – H from the box below.
Write the correct letter A – H in boxes 27 – 32 on your answer sheet.
 27. Ancient Egyptian and Greek doctors were aware of
 28. Frederick Bayer & Co were able to reproduce
 29. The development of aspirin was partly due to the effect of
 30. The creation of a market for aspirin as a painkiller was achieved through
 31. Aspirin might have become unavailable without
 32. The way in which aspirin actually worked was not investigated by
                     A.       The discovery of new medical applications
                     B.       The negative effects of publicity
                     C.       The large pharmaceutical companies
                     D.       The industrial revolution
                     E.       The medical uses of a particular tree
                     F.       The limited availability of new drugs
                     G.       The chemical found in the willow tree.
                     H.       Commercial advertising campaigns.


Questions 33 – 37
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3? Write
       YES                 if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
       NO                  if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
       NOT GIVEN           if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this statement
33. For nineteenth – century scientists, small – scale research was enough to make important
discoveries.
34 The nineteenth – century industrial revolution caused a change in the focus of scientific research
35 The development of aspirin in the nineteenth century followed a structured pattern of
development
36 In the 1970s sales of new analgesic drugs overtook sales of aspirin
37 Commercial companies may have both good and bad effects on the availability of
pharmaceutical products.




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Questions 38-40
Complete the summary below using the list of words A-l below.
Write the correct letter A – I in boxes 38 – 40 on your answer sheet


                                   Research into aspirin
Jeffreys argues that the reason why 38________________did not find out about new uses of aspirin
is that aspirin is no longer a 39________________drug. He therefore suggests that there should be
40________________support for further research into the possible applications of the drug.


                                        A.      useful
                                        B.      cheap
                                        C.      state
                                        D.      international
                                        E.      major drug companies
                                        F.      profitable
                                        G.      commercial
                                        H.      public sector scientists
                                        I.      health officials




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IELTS Reading
CODE 26

READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1
below.

                           Why Risks can go wrong




                           Human intuition is a bad guide to handling risk


A. People make terrible decisions about the future. The evidence is all around, from their
investments in the