The Globemakers: The Curious Story of an Ancient Craft IELTS Reading Answers with Explanation

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IELTS Reading Practice Test - The Globemakers: The Curious Story of an Ancient Craft

The Globemakers: The Curious Story of an Ancient Craft

A review of Peter Belferby's book The Globemakers

In 2008, Peter Bellerby, who lived in London, wanted to give his father a model globe for his eightieth birthday. What seemed simple enough to start with triggered an almost obsessive, decade-long journey, marked by a series of obstacles that would have deterred anyone less determined. It ended with his establishing the world's only bespoke globemaking company.
The first surprise in The Globemakers, Bellerby's account of this impulsive enterprise, is that obtaining such a globe was not simply a matter of a quick online order and a repressed sigh at the shipping costs. After all, contrary to stubbornly held popular views of our ancestors' geographical ignorance, we have known that the world is spherical since at least the 6th century BCE. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato in his work Phaedo likened it to a leather ball, while the accolade of producing the first recorded globe goes to the ancient Greek philosopher Crates of Mallus, who is said to have made one in around 150 BCE. Surely, Bellerby reasoned, a good-quality globe wouldn't be difficult to find.
Nearly two millennia later, however, it seemed that the art of globemaking had been largely forgotten. Bellerby came across shoddy commercial versions designed for school classrooms and genuine antiques in auction houses that would have bust his budget. Even his trips to Morocco and India, where surely the knowledge of artisan cartographers* had been preserved, drew a blank.
Not one to be easily thwarted, Bellerby decided to make his own good-quality globe. In the process, almost everything that could possibly go wrong did so. Even the shape of the Earth posed a problem, as it is not quite a perfect sphere, but oblate (slightly flattened at the poles). Having decided to compromise and opt for two half-spherical pieces that could be fitted together, he was unable to discover anyone capable of casting moulds with sufficient accuracy to ensure that he would not be left with two half-spheres that were not quite the same circumference. Even after he eventually resolved this issue, extracting these from the moulds resulted in piles of cracked plaster of Paris** and clouds of choking dust in the workshop he had set up at the rear of his house.
* cartographer: someone involved in the science or practice of drawing maps
** plaster of Paris: a quick-setting plaster consisting of a fine white powder that hardens when moistened and allowed to dry
This series of abortive experiments taught Bellerby a lot about the challenges of making globes, which he communicates here to the reader. Finding just the right way to prise the globes from the mould - a high-end air compressor finally did the trick - and locating the right paper and inks with which to make the gores (the sections of flat sheet mapping that are pasted onto the spherical globe) without the ink seeping out to create a mushy, unreadable mess took months and an alarming chunk out of his bank balance. Bellerby's frustration at the painstaking process of attaching the gores to the globe surface - after having found a glue with precisely the right adhesive qualities - is palpable. Right at the end of the process, he learnt that the paper had stretched slightly and so the final one overlapped the first by a centimetre (which may not seem a great deal, but when that represents 2 per cent of the Earth's diameter, it's equivalent to obliterating the Himalayas or wiping out Chile).
Bellerby's account of the technical challenges of globe production is interspersed with a series of interludes on great globemakers of the past and cartographic history in general. Purists might wish for more map-making details, but Bellerby clearly found a kindred spirit in Martin Behaim. He was the Nuremberg entrepreneur who in 1492 created the Erdapfel, the world's oldest surviving globe, beautifully finished by a workshop of painters and other craftsmen, only to find that the explorer Christopher Columbus had stumbled upon the Americas the very same year, rendering his masterpiece instantly out of date. Something of Bellerby's unflinching ambition is reflected in the even more heroic efforts of the Italian cartographer Vincenzo Coronel Ii, who, in the seventeenth century, created two globes for Louis XIV of France. It took him twenty years to complete the monstrous pair, whose vast bulk - each with a diameter of around four metres - can still be admired in the National Library of France in Paris.
Although a celebration of the revival of an ancient craft, Bellerby's book is also a lament for the fading away of centuries-old traditions. When he embarked on his globemaking odyssey, he struggled to find artisans with the skills to make the right moulds for the globes or foundries that could shape the meridians (the metal frames which girdle globes) in just the right way. Although he finally located the right craftsmen, some simply dropping in, serendipitously, to his workshop (by now in more suitable premises than his back room), many of these have now retired or passed away.
Bellerby's father finally did receive his eightieth birthday present, albeit two years late. Bellerby went on to found a company which now turns out over six hundred globes a year for customers who can have their own tiny village marked or more unusual requests fulfilled. His book, beautifully illustrated with photographs of the various stages of his venture and a few illustrations of historic globes and maps, is hardly a blueprint for commercial success. But it is more than enough to stir up admiration for the craftsmanship of the great mapmakers of the past and the obsessive determination of a modern successor who revived their almost moribund art.

A birthday gift

Peter Bellerby's plan to give his father a globe for his birthday was an unexpectedly ﻿ for which he had to overcome ﻿ .
He soon learnt that a straightforward ﻿ would not be possible. Some ﻿ that had been intended for ﻿ were available, as were some expensive antique globes, but these were beyond his budget. He even travelled to places where people might still have the ﻿, but Bellerby could not find what he wanted.

GIẢI THÍCH CÂU 1

Định vị

Paraphrasing

Câu hỏi: Peter Bellerby's plan to give his father a globe for his birthday was an unexpectedly ______. → G. challenging task

So với nội dung bài đọc:

Peter Bellerby's plan to give his father a globe for his birthday = Peter Bellerby... wanted to give his father a model globe for his eightieth birthday

unexpectedly = What seemed simple enough to start with

challenging task = decade-long journey, marked by a series of obstacles

Giải thích chi tiết

✅ Step 1: Phân tích câu hỏi

Peter Bellerby's plan to give his father a globe for his birthday was an unexpectedly ____ .

Ý câu hỏi: Kế hoạch mua một quả địa cầu làm quà sinh nhật cho bố của Peter Bellerby thực ra lại là một việc gì đó không ngờ.

Dự đoán ô trống:

Loại từ: noun số ít, vì đứng sau “was an unexpectedly …”
Nghĩa/loại thông tin: một việc / hành trình / nhiệm vụ mang nét nghĩa khó, phức tạp, vì câu sau có ý phải vượt qua nhiều trở ngại

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✅ Step 2: Locate bằng chứng

Vì câu hỏi này có từ khoá đặc biệt kiểu tên riêng Peter Bellerby và từ khoá khó paraphrase như his father, ta tìm được câu liên quan là: “Peter Bellerby, who lived in London, wanted to give his father a model globe for his eightieth birthday. What seemed simple enough to start with triggered an almost obsessive, decade-long journey, marked by a series of obstacles that would have deterred anyone less determined”.

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✅ Step 3: Đọc câu bằng chứng theo Linearthinking

Simplified:

Peter Bellerby (...) wanted to give his father a model globe for his eightieth birthday What seemed simple enough to start with triggered an (...) decade-long journey , marked by a series of obstacles .

Lưu ý từ khó:

triggered = gây ra / dẫn đến
decade-long journey: hành trình kéo dài cả chục năm
obstacles = trở ngại

Ý của câu: Điều tưởng như đơn giản lúc đầu lại biến thành một hành trình rất dài, với hàng loạt trở ngại.

=> Chốt ý nghĩa cần điền vào ô trống: Ô trống cần một cụm nghĩa là một việc khó khăn / thử thách, không phải một món đồ hay một hành động mua bán cụ thể.

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✅ Step 4: Compare with options

Đáp án đúng: G. challenging task

❌ Những đáp án “bẫy” dễ dính nếu skim/scan:

H. memorable object: nghe có vẻ hợp vì đang nói về quà sinh nhật, nhưng câu bằng chứng không nói món quà “đáng nhớ”, mà nói quá trình tìm/make globe rất gian nan.
I. internet purchase: xuất hiện ở phần sau của bài (“not simply a matter of a quick online order”), nhưng đó là ý cho ô khác, không phải ô này. Nếu chỉ scan thấy từ liên quan đến chuyện mua globe thì rất dễ gán nhầm.
J. numerous problems: nghĩa cũng gần, nhưng trong câu hỏi, ô này đứng sau “was an unexpectedly…”, nên cần một cụm số ít. "Problems" số nhiều sai ngữ pháp.

Lưu ý

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