IELTS Sample Reading # Vocabulary

The below article has been taken from TIME. Read the article and learn the meaning of the tough vocabulary words used.

GENDER STEREOTYPES

Gender stereotypes start in elementary school, a study published today in Science suggests. Though five-year-olds don’t discriminate between genders when deciding whether or not a person is brilliant, six- and seven-year-olds overwhelmingly think men are inherently smarter than women. At the same time, the children included in the study also believed that girls receive better grades in school.The reinforcement of these ideas could lead women to be less ambitious than men once it’s time to choose a career, the study claims.

In one part of the study, five-year-olds were told a story about “a really, really smart person” and then asked to guess who the person was, based on two photos. One photo showed a woman, and the other showed a man. Aside from the gender, the pictures were nearly identical, and the five-year-olds generally identified their own gender. But six- and seven year-old girls answering the same question were “significantly less likely” to chose the female photo, reports Bloomberg.

Another section of the study introduced children to two board games: one for kids who are “really, really smart” and another for kids who try “really, really hard.” Both five-year-old boys and girls were interested in playing the game for smart kids; but while the older boys continued to want to play that game, older girls preferred the game for people who tried hard.

Rebecca S. Bigler, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, told the Associated Press that one possible reason for this is exposure in early grades to history’s luminaries,who are mostly men. “We need to explain to children that laws were created specifically to prevent women from becoming great scientists, artists, composers, writers, explorers, and leaders,” Bigler said. “Children will then be … more likely to believe in their own intellectual potential.”

WordMeaning
stereotypesa widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.
elementaryrelating to the rudiments of a subject.
discriminatemake an unjust or prejudicial distinction in the treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, sex, or age.
overwhelminglyto a very great degree or with a great majority.
reinforcement the action or process of reinforcing or strengthening.
preferred like (one thing or person) better than another or others; tend to choose.
psychology the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behaviour in a given context.
luminariesa person who inspires or influences others, especially one prominent in a particular sphere.
scientistsa person who is studying or has expert knowledge of one or more of the natural or physical sciences.
composersa person who writes music, especially as a professional occupation.
explorersa person who explores a new or unfamiliar area.
intellectual a person possessing a highly developed intellect.
potentiala person possessing a highly developed intellect.
IELTS BAND 7

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IELTS General Training Band Score Calculation

Here is a table you can use to convert the number of correct answers into an IELTS band score, which will give you the approximate band score in IELTS General Training.

General Training Listening:
Correct Answers IELTS Band Score Skill Level
10-13 4.0 Limited User
13-15 4.5
16-17 5.0 Modest User
18-22 5.5
23-25 6.0 Competent User
26-29 6.5
30-31 7.0 Good User
32-34 7.5
35-36 8.0 Very Good User
37-38 8.5
39-40 9.0 Expert User
General Training Reading:
Correct Answers IELTS Band Score Skill Level
15-19 4.0 Limited User
19-22 4.5
23-26 5.0 Modest User
27-29 5.5
30-31 6.0 Competent User
32-33 6.5
34-35 7.0 Good User
36 7.5
37-38 8.0 Very Good User
39 8.5
40 9.0 Expert User

IELTS Band7

IELTS Practice Reading # Winters

The following passage has been taken from THE TIME magazine.

WHEN DOES WINTER START?

In 2016, the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere is Wednesday. The season will begin at 10:44 UTC or 5:44 a.m. Eastern Time.

That means Wednesday is the day with the fewest hours and minutes of sunlight for the whole year, also known as the winter solstice. The word “solstice,” which means the sun has stopped moving, comes from the Latin solstitium, “from sol meaning ‘sun’ and ‘stit-‘ meaning ‘stopped, stationary’ from the verb sistere” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

But the idea of the first day of winter is more complicated than you may think.

The reason Earth has seasons is because the planet is tilted, which causes the impact of the light from the sun to change throughout the year for different regions. Astronomical seasons are based on the sun’s position relative to the tilted Earth, and the winter solstice on Wednesday is a key part of that astronomical cycle.

“Think of the sun as traveling between what is called the winter solstice and summer solstice,” explains Ken Heideman, the Director of Publications at the American Meteorological Society. “The sun keeps moving northward until [on or around] June 21, when the sun’s rays are directly over the Tropic of Cancer. That’s astronomical summer. That’s as high in the sky as the sun is going to get for us. Then it starts moving towards the equator, and when it reaches the equator, that’s the autumnal equinox. Then it keeps going south until the sun is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, as far south as it’s going to go and as far away from us as its going to be. That’s winter time.”

However, for meteorologists and climatologists, winter already began. By their count, it started on Dec. 1, 2016, in the Northern Hemisphere.

‘The alignment of the Earth’s axis doesn’t line up with traditional weather, or the common-sense idea of weather,” as James R. Fleming, a professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, who specializes in the history of geophysical science and meteorology, puts it. That’s because weather data is usually based on monthly temperatures. Since December, January, and February typically have the coldest temperatures on average in the Northern Hemisphere, these scientists consider that three-month period the winter season.

The winter solstice is also not to be confused with the coldest day of the year. There is about a one month lag (27.5 days to be exact) between the winter solstice and the day predicted to be the coldest the year, because it takes a while for the land to cool down, according to Greg Hammer, a meteorologist at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. “It’s like putting a pot of water on the stove,” says Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist in the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who calculates that the coldest day of winter 2016-2017 in the U.S. is expected to be around January 15th or 16th.

“A lot of warmth has been accumulating over July, August, September, October and November leading up to the winter solstice, so the really cold air hasn’t set in right [at the solstice],” Heideman explains. “It’s really the beginning of it.”

So when did humans start tracking winter and the winter solstice?

The answer is lost in prehistory. As TIME has previously reported, ancient monuments are the only clue as to when humans started tracking solstices. “An ancient person in Africa, England or North America, might have sat cold and shivering in a certain point where they had natural mountains or boundaries, and looked off in the horizon waiting for sunrise,” says astronomer Mary Kay Hemenway, formerly of the University of Texas at Austin. “You do this for a long time, and you’ll be aware of which stars you see in the sky and anticipate where the sun is going to be each day. What they were doing is making a calendar. The solstice is the origin of having a calendar system.”

Real comprehension of the solstices and the astronomical seasons came later, after the heliocentric model of the solar system was introduced by Copernicus in 1543, adds Volker Bromm, professor of astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin.

Who defined meteorological winter may also not be totally clear either, but it may have been devised at some point during the early-to-mid 20th century when climatology became more quantitative, according to Fleming. He argues that “the need for the statisticians to generate seasonal averages” may date back to prominent Austrian meteorologist Julius von Hann, who, in 1897, stated that climate is sum of the average weather conditions.

But, whether or not people understood the reasons why winter had come, its beginning has long been noticed. Many cultures had feast days around the date of the winter solstice—including Christmas and Hanukkah. As Fleming puts it, many consider the winter solstice “a moment for celebration because from that point on, the days keep getting longer until we get back to summer.”

WORDMEANING
complicatedconsisting of many interconnecting parts or elements; intricate.
seasonseach of the four divisions of the year (spring, summer, autumn, and winter) marked by particular weather patterns and daylight hours, resulting from the earth's changing position with regard to the sun.
tiltedmove or cause to move into a sloping position
regionsan area, especially part of a country or the world having definable characteristics but not always fixed boundaries.
Astronomicalrelating to astronomy.
relativeconsidered in relation or in proportion to something else.
equatora line notionally drawn on the earth equidistant from the poles, dividing the earth into northern and southern hemispheres and constituting the parallel of latitude 0°.
equinoxthe time or date (twice each year) at which the sun crosses the celestial equator, when day and night are of equal length (about 22 September and 20 March).
meteorologistsan expert in or student of meteorology
climatologistsThe scientific study of climates, including the causes and long-term effects of variation in regional and global climates. Climatology also studies how climate changes over time and is affected by human actions.
alignmentarrangement in a straight line or in correct relative positions
Atmosphericrelating to the atmosphere of the earth.
researchthe systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.
warmththe quality, state, or sensation of being warm; moderate heat.
accumulatinggather together or acquire an increasing number or quantity of.
trackingthe maintenance of a constant difference in frequency between two or more connected circuits or components.
prehistorythe period of time before written records.
monumentsa statue, building, or other structure erected to commemorate a notable person or event.
anticipateregard as probable; expect or predict
comprehensionthe ability to understand something.
heliocentrichaving or representing the sun as the centre, as in the accepted astronomical model of the solar system.
devisedplan or invent (a complex procedure, system, or mechanism) by careful thought.
quantitiverelating to, measuring, or measured by the quantity of something rather than its quality.
statisticiansan expert in the preparation and analysis of statistics.
prominentimportant
culturesthe arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively
IELTS BAND 7

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IELTS Practice Reading # Christmas Pickle

The below passage has been taken from the below link –

NEW YORK TIMES

A great many people in the American Midwest have family roots in Germany, and a good number of them can tell you all about a beloved old-country holiday tradition: the Weihnachtsgurke, or Christmas Pickle.

They will tell you that an ornament in the shape of a pickle is always the last one hung on the tree on Christmas Eve, camouflaged somewhere among the pine needles. It might be shiny or matte; it might have gold swirls or a little Santa hat. But whatever the style, the story goes that the first child to find the pickle in the morning is assured of good luck in the coming year and a special gift.

It sounds plausible: Germans tend to love traditions, Christmas and pickles. Versions of the story and speculation over its origins proliferate on the internet. There is only one snag: It is all but unknown in Germany.

The Statista polling agency surveyed 2,057 Germans in November and found that 91 percent had never even heard of this holiday legend attributed to their country.

Sascha Müller of the Lauscha glass center, in the eastern German region where the making of glass Christmas ornaments started in the mid-19th century, said he had learned of the Christmas pickle for the first time in the 1990s, on a trip to Frankenmuth, Mich.

He brought the story home with him, and his artisans now churn out 50,000 pickle ornaments a year, making it a best seller behind only Santa Claus and colored glass balls.

Dieter Dressler, a glass artisan in Weimar, also makes glossy green pickle ornaments, slightly curved and as thick as a large man’s thumb. He said there could be something to the idea that people in the Spreewald region, where cucumbers are grown and pickled, might have once been so poor that they had nothing else to hang on their trees, and that émigrés took the memory with them.

Mr. Dressler said that over the past three years he had been selling more and more pickle ornaments to Germans, who laugh when they hear the story of the Weihnachtsgurke.

“Lots of people ask me if I have a smaller one,” Mr. Dressler said. But being German, he knows you cannot go against tradition. “I tell them: ‘No, that wouldn’t be a pickle. It would be a cornichon.’”

Given below are the meaning of the tough words highlighted in the passage above. So, practice reading and increase chances of getting high band.

 

WORDSMEANING
beloveddearly loved.
traditionthe transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way.
ornamenta thing used or serving to make something look more attractive but usually having no practical purpose, especially a small object such as a figurine.
picklea relish consisting of vegetables or fruit preserved in vinegar or brine.
camouflagedthe disguising of military personnel, equipment, and installations by painting or covering them to make them blend in with their surroundings.
matteÊdull and flat; without a shine.
swirlsmove in a twisting or spiralling pattern.
plausible(of an argument or statement) seeming reasonable or probable.
proliferateincrease rapidly in number; multiply.
snagan unexpected or hidden obstacle or drawback.
artisana worker in a skilled trade, especially one that involves making things by hand.
cucumbersa long, green-skinned fruit with watery flesh, usually eaten raw in salads or pickled.
ŽmigrŽsa person who has left their own country in order to settle in another, typically for political reasons.
cornichona sour gherkin usually flavored with tarragon.

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