Lecture #5 27/03

IELTS Practice Batch Study Notes

Task Types

1.Multiple choice
2.True /False/NG (identifying information/ Identifying the writer's views/claims)
3.Matching information/ Matching headings
4.Matching features
6.Matching sentence endings Sentence completion
7.Summary completion/ Note completion/ table completion/ flow-chart completion &
8.Diagram label completion
9.Short-answer questions.

STRATEGIES

1. Read the instructions VERY carefully

Pay attention to the word limit The instructions might state write two words and/or a number
This could mean:
Two words/ Two words and a number
Even if the number is written as a word it counts as a number e.g. is Thirty-two is counted
as 32.Thirty-two cars’ one word and a number.

2. Check for spelling and grammar.

3. Answers are mostly in sequence, i.e. the questions follow the order of the text in most
cases So the answer to questions will come after the answer to the question and so on.

4. Underline keywords and look for synonyms or antonyms in the text. Easy keywords can
be proper nouns (capital letters) and numbers.

5. Leave pre-existing knowledge behind the reading passage that always contains the
answer.

6. Read the questions first and then read the passage.

IELTS Reading Skills

2 SCANNING
● Reading a text with the specific purpose of extracting information such as
numbers, facts, words, etc.

3 INTENSIVE READING
● Reading the text in order to understand the detailed meaning

4 DEDUCING MEANING
● Reading a text and working out the meaning of vocabulary from the surrounding
context and information given.

5 PREDICTION
● Thinking in detail about what might be included in a text before you read it, either
from the headline, or a picture or by guessing what part of speech might the answer
be.

Scanning

Look at a test but don't read it completely and answer the given question.
Question: How far offshore was the wreck that Captain Bill Nagle explored?

The Wreck

The decade began with serious plans to explore the German Battleship Ostfriesland, a
wreck lying a long way offshore in 380ft of water. During a milestone wreck diving operation
Gentile, Pete Manchee, and Ken Clayton made a single Heliox dive each to the wreck using
a custom decompression table designed by Dr. Bill Hamilton. The way now had been set
Gentile had shown that these previously inaccessible sites were now slowly becoming a
possibility. In 1991 the late Captain Nagle and John Chatterton led a team of experienced
amateur shipwreck divers on an expedition to explore an unknown wreck at a site
approximately 60 kilometers east of Point Pleasant, New Jersey. Upon descending to the
wreck,, the divers discovered what appeared to be the remains of a submarine in
approximately 77 meters of water The general appearance was that of a World War II-era
submarine wreck. On subsequent dives, it was discovered that there were human remains
aboard the wreck, but the identity of the mysterious “U- Who” would not be confirmed as that
of U-869 until nearly six years later.

KEYWORDS
Any word that you choose from a question sentence to help you find the answer can be
called a keyword (Especially proper nouns and numbers)
Underline what you think is the best keyword for each question. Then write down what type
of answer you expect to find.

Questions 1 - 8

Answer the questions below.

1 How old is the Armenian shoe?

2 What was found on the shoe?

3 What environmental factors protected the shoe?

4 What was the shoe covered with?

5 How old was the shoe originally thought to be?

6 What two things were tested to determine the age of the shoe?

7 Who found the shoe?

8 When did Irish people wear similar shoes?

World's oldest leather shoe found in Armenia

A perfectly preserved shoe, 1000 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt and
400 years older than Stonehenge in the UK, has been found in a cave In Armenia. The
5500-year-old shoe, the oldest leather shoe in the world, was discovered by a team of
international archaeologists.
The cow-hide shoe dates back to 3.500 BC (the Chalcolithic period) and is in perfect
condition. It was made of a single piece of leather and was shaped to fit the wearer's foot. It
contained grass although the archaeologists were uncertain this was to keep the foot warm
or to maintain the shape of the shoe, a precursor to the modern shoe tree perhaps? It is not
known whether the shoe belonged to a man or woman said lead author of the research Dr.
Ron Pinhas, University College Cork, Ireland as while small, (European size 37; US size 7
women), the shoe could well have fitted a man from that era" The cave is situated in the
Vayotz Dzor province of Armenia, on the Armenian Iranian Nakhichevanian and Turkish
borders, and was known to regional archaeologists due to its visibility from the highway
below The stable, cool and dry conditions in the cave resulted in exceptional preservation of
the various objects that were found, which included large containers, many of which held
well-preserved wheat and barley, apricots and other edible plants. The preservation was also
helped by the fact that the Hoor of the cave was covered by a thick layer of sheep dung
which acted as a solid seal over the object preserving it beautifully over the millennia!
We thought initially that the shoe and other objects were about 600-700 years old because
they were in such good condition,” said Dr. Pinhasi. It was only when the material was dated
by the two radiocarbon laboratories in Oxford.
Three samples were taken in order to determine the absolute age of the shoe and all three
tests produced the same results. The archaeologists cut two small strips of leather off the
shoe and sent one strip to the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at the University of
Oxford and another to the University of California - Irvine Accelerator Mass Spectrometry
Facility. A piece of grass from the shoe was also sent to Oxford to be dated and both shoe
and grass were shown to be the same age.
The shoe was discovered by Armenian Ph.D. student Ms. Diana Zardaryan, of the Institute
of
Archaeology, Armenia, in a pit that also included a broken pot and wild goat horns. "I was
amazed to find that even the shoe-laces were preserved,” she recalled. "We couldn't believe
the discovery,” said Dr. Gregory Areshian, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, US,
co-director who was at the site with Mr. Boris Gasparyan, co-director of Institute of
Archaeology, Armenia when the shoe was found. “The crust had sealed the artifacts and
archaeological deposits and artifacts remained fresh dried, just like they were put in a can,”
he said.
The oldest known footwear in the world, to the present time, are sandals made of plant
material that was found in a cave in the Arnold Research Cave in Missouri in the US.
Other contemporaneous sandals were found in the Cave of the Warrior, Judean Desert,
Israel but these were not directly dated so that their age is based on various other
associated artifacts found in the cave.
Interestingly, the shoe is very similar to the 'pampooties worn on the Aran Islands (in the
West of Ireland) up to the 1950s. “In fact, enormous similarities exist between the
manufacturing technique and style of this shoe and those found across Europe at later
periods, suggesting that this type of shoe was worn for thousands of years across a large
and environmentally diverse region,” salad Dr. Pinhasi.
“We do not know what the shoe or other objects were doing in the cave or what the purpose
of the cave was,” said Dr. Pinhasi. "We know that there are children’s graves at the back of
the cave but so little known about this period that we cannot say with any certainty why all
these different objects were found together.” The team will continue to excavate the many
chambers of the cave.