Các bước làm bài IELTS Reading dạng True/False/Not Given

Alexander Henderson

Alexander Henderson was born in Scotland in 1831 and was the son of a successful merchant. His grandfather, also called Alexander, had founded the family business, and later became the first chairman of the National Bank of Scotland. The family had extensive landholdings in Scotland. Besides its residence in Edinburgh, it owned Press Estate, 650 acres of farmland about 35 miles southeast of the city. The family often stayed at Press Castle, the large mansion on the northern edge of the property, and Alexander spent much of his childhood in the area, playing on the beach near Eyemouth or fishing in the streams nearby.

Even after he went to school at Murcheston Academy on the outskirts of Edinburgh, Henderson returned to Press at weekends. In 1849 he began a three-year apprenticeship to become an accountant. Although he never liked the prospect of a business career, he stayed with it to please his family. In October 1855, however, he emigrated to Canada with his wife Agnes Elder Robertson and they settled in Montreal.

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Question: Henderson rarely visited the area around Press estate when he was younger . (Khi còn nhỏ Henderson hiếm khi đi thăm khu vực Henderson.)

→ Cấu trúc câu: S + V when S + V

→ Từ khóa: "Henderson", "Henderson"

Besides its residence in Edinburgh, it owned Press Estate, 650 acres of farmland about 35 miles southeast of the city. The family often stayed at Press Castle, the large mansion on the northern edge of the property, and Alexander spent much of his childhood in the area, playing on the beach near Eyemouth or fishing in the streams nearby.

Passage: Besides its residence in Edinburgh , it owned Press Estate . The family often stayed at Press Castle , the large mansion the property , and Alexander spent much of his childhood in the area .

Question: Examples of ancient stepwells can be found all over the world .

Passage: Unique to the region, stepwells are often architecturally complex and vary widely in size and shape. During their heyday, they were places of gathering, of leisure, of relaxation and of worship for villagers of all but the lowest castes. Most stepwells are found dotted around the desert areas of Gujarat (where they are called vav) and Rajasthan (where they are known as baori), while a few also survive in Delhi. Some were located in or near villages as public spaces for the community; others were positioned beside roads as resting places for travellers.

Giải thích.

Nếu đi skim/scan keywords như “examples", “ancient stepwells" hay “found", “all over the world" thì sẽ chẳng thấy được thông tin nằm ở đâu cả → Chọn Not Given

Tuy nhiên, nếu nhìn kỹ hơn thì thông tin cần tìm nằm ở câu “Unique to the region, stepwells are often architecturally complex and vary widely in size and shape.”

→ Unique to the region nghĩa là chỉ vùng này có, không phải là có khắp nơi trên thế giới.

→ Chọn FALSE

Question: Individual cork oak trees must be left for 25 years between the first and second harvest.

Passage: From the planting of a cork sapling to the first harvest takes 25 years, and a gap of approximately a decade must separate harvests from an individual tree.

Giải thích.

Nếu chỉ so sánh keywords thì sẽ thấy tất cả keywords trong câu hỏi đều tìm thấy được trong bài → TRUE

Tuy nhiên, nếu đọc kĩ về nghĩa thì hai thông tin trên lại khác nhau hoàn toàn: Câu hỏi nói hai mùa vụ cách nhau 25 năm, còn bài đọc nói “a gap of a decade separate harvests": Hai mùa vụ cách nhau một thập niên - 10 năm

→ FALSE

Question: Tigers in the Bandhavgarh National Park are a protected species.

Passage: 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 o humans are not more frequent.

Giải thích.

Bài đọc không hề đề cập gì tới việc loài hổ này được bảo vệ (protected species) cả. Tuy nhiên, nhiều học viên vẫn chọn “TRUE" câu này vi liên tưởng tới kiến thức xã hội bên ngoài: Công viên thường dùng để bảo vệ loài quý hiếm.

→ Đáp án đúng phải là NOT GIVEN

An ideal city

Leonardo da Vinci's ideal city was centuries ahead of its time

The word ‘genius’ is universally associated with the name of Leonardo da Vinci. A true Renaissance man, he embodied scientific spirit, artistic talent and humanist sensibilities. Five hundred years have passed since Leonardo died in his home at Chateau du Clos Lucé, outside Tours, France. Yet far from fading into insignificance, his thinking has carried down the centuries and still surprises today.

The Renaissance marked the transition from the 15th century to modernity and took place after the spread of the plague in the 14th century, which caused a global crisis resulting in some 200 million deaths across Europe and Asia. Today, the world is on the cusp of a climate crisis, which is predicted to cause widespread displacement, extinctions and death, if left unaddressed. Then, as now, radical solutions were called for to revolutionise the way people lived and safeguard humanity against catastrophe.

Around 1486 — after a pestilence that killed half the population in Milan, Italy — Leonardo turned his thoughts to urban planning problems. Following a typical Renaissance trend, he began to work on an ‘ideal city’ project, which — due to its excessive costs — would remain unfulfilled. Yet given that unsustainable urban models are a key cause of global climate change today, it’s only natural to wonder how Leonardo might have changed the shape of modern cities.

Although the Renaissance is renowned as an era of incredible progress in art and architecture, it is rarely noted that the 15th century also marked the birth of urbanism as a true academic discipline. The rigour and method behind the conscious conception of a city had been largelymissing in Western thought until the moment when prominent Renaissance men pushed forward large-scale urban projects in Italy, such as the reconfiguration of the town of Pienza and the expansion of the city of Ferrara. These works surely inspired Leonardo’s decision to rethink the design of medieval cities; with their winding and overcrowded streets and with houses piled against one another.

It is not easy to identify a coordinated vision of Leonardo’s ideal city because of his disordered way of working with notes and sketches. But from the largest collection of Leonardo’s papers ever assembled, a series of innovative thoughts can be reconstructed regarding the foundation of a new city along the Ticino River, which runs from Switzerland into Italy and is 248 kilometres long. He designed the city for the easy transport of goods and clean urban spaces, and he wanted a comfortable and spacious city, with well-ordered streets and architecture. He recommended ‘high, strong walls’, with ‘towers and battlements of all necessary and pleasant beauty”.

His plans for a modern and ‘rational’ city were consistent with Renaissance ideals. But, in keeping with his personality, Leonardo included several innovations in his urban design. Leonardo wanted the city to be built on several levels, linked with vertical outdoor staircases. This design can be seen in some of today’s high-rise buildings but was unconventional at the time. Indeed, this idea of taking full advantage of the interior spaces wasn’t implemented until the 1920s and 1930s, with the birth of the Modernist movement.

While in the upper layers of the city, people could walk undisturbed between elegant palaces and streets, the lower layer was the place for services, trade, transport and industry. But the true originality of Leonardo’s vision was its fusion of architecture and engineering. Leonardo designed extensive hydraulic plants to create artificial canals throughout the city. The canals, regulated by clocks and basins, were supposed to make it easier for boats to navigate inland. Leonardo also thought that the width of the streets ought to match the average height of the adjacent houses: a rule still followed in many contemporary cities across Italy, to allow access to sun and reduce the risk of damage from earthquakes.

Although some of these features existed in Roman cities, before Leonardo’s drawings there had never been a multi-level, compact modern city which was thoroughly technically conceived. Indeed, it wasn’t until the 19th century that some of his ideas were applied. For example, the subdivision of the city by function — with services and infrastructures located in the lower levels and wide and well-ventilated boulevards and walkways above for residents — is an idea that can be found in Georges-Eugéne Haussmann’s renovation of Paris under Emperor Napoleon III between 1853 and 1870.

Today, Leonardo’s ideas are not simply valid, they actually suggest a way forward for urban planning. Many scholars think that the compact city, built upwards instead of outwards, integrated with nature (especially water systems), with efficient transport infrastructure, could help modern cities become more efficient and sustainable. This is yet another reason why Leonardo was aligned so closely with modern urban planning and centuries ahead of his time.

Located Paragraph với từ khóa Leonardo da Vinci

The word ‘genius’ is universally associated with the name of Leonardo da Vinci.A true Renaissance man, he embodied scientific spirit, artistic talent and humanist sensibilities.Five hundred years have passed since Leonardo died in his home at Chateau du Clos Lucé, outside Tours, France.Yet far from fading into insignificance, his thinking has carried down the centuries and still surprises today.

Với LINEARTHINKING

1 The word ‘genius’ is universally associated with the name of Leonardo da Vinci .

2 A true Renaissance man , he embodied scientific spirit, artistic talent and humanist sensibilities .

3 Five hundred years have passed since Leonardo died in his home at [...] .

4 Yet far from fading into insignificance , his thinking has carried down the centuries and still surprises today .

Câu 1 và 2 đề cập đến việc thế giới coi Leonardo da Vinci là thiên tài.

Câu 3 và 4 đề cập đến việc dù đã mất từ lâu, nhưng các ý tưởng của Leonardo da Vinci vẫn rất quan trọng.



So sánh thông tin trong bài đọc với câu hỏi QUESTION: People first referred to Leonardo da Vinci as a genius 500 years ago .

→ Không hề có thông tin nào nói về thời điểm mà mọi người lần đầu coi Leonardo da Vinci là thiên tài.

→ Đáp án NOT GIVEN