IELTS Forcast Reading Test 2026 - Q2 Test 1 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Luyện tập đề IELTS Forcast Reading Test 2026 - Q2 Test 1 được lấy từ cuốn sách Forcast Test 2026 - Q2 với trải nghiệm thi IELTS trên máy và giải thích đáp án chi tiết bằng Linearthinking, kèm answer key và list từ vựng IELTS cần học trong bài đọc.
IELTS Forcast Reading Test 2026 - Q2 Test 1 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 1
Question 1 - 6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
1
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the British East India Company faced a lot of competition.
2
Before 1800, cargo size was the most important consideration for the East India Company.
3
At best, voyages of the East Indiamen to China and back took nearly two years to complete.
4
Before 1834, voyages to and from China were considered to be highly dangerous.
5
After 1834, the ships which had served the East India Company stopped being used for commercial purposes.
6
In the nineteen century, British drinkers preferred tea made from mature leaves to that made from younger leaves.
Question 7 - 13
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
CLIPPER RACE
The ships
- Clipper ships were first used for trading by American merchants.
- The ships were remarkable for the number of
7.
they had.
- The performance of British tea clippers was particularly affected when there were
8.
at sea.
The races
- It was in a ship called
9.
that the British first competed successfully against the Americans.
- Richard Green’s ship arrived two days ahead of its competitor.
- Competition increased when additional Chinese trading
10.
were established.
- Merchants were occasionally in such a hurry that they failed to complete the
11.
before leaving China.
- At the end of their journey, the ships needed the help of
12.
.
The rewards
- The crews were motivated by both
13.
and their enthusiasm for the competition.
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 2
Question 14 - 17
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes on your answer sheet.
14
Why does the writer refer to Locke and Newton in the first paragraph?
A
To indicate that his article will cover several scientific fields.
B
To stress how much physics has changed in 400 years.
C
To persuade the reader to take him seriously.
D
To point out that his notions are not new.
15
According to the writer, why was Freud’s theory of the unconscious mocked?
A
It was too complex for his contemporaries to understand.
B
It involved criticism of the way people behaved in society.
C
People felt that it devalued the accepted concept of humanity.
D
People assumed that it was intended as a joke.
16
The writer describes Mr S failing to get up in order to demonstrate:
A
how realistic most people’s memories are.
B
how hard it is to tell dreaming and waking apart.
C
how unusual it is to mistake a perception for a memory.
D
how valuable knowledge of the past can be.
17
What point is the writer making in the text as a whole?
A
Perception involves much more than the data collected by the eyes.
B
Learning to see as an adult can be a time-consuming process.
C
Science is failing to devote enough attention to sight.
D
Human perception is remarkably reliable.
Question 18 - 23
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage?
In following statements below, choose
YES if the statement agrees with the information
NO if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
18
Sydney Bradford relied on recollections of objects he had been told about to help him see after his operation.
19
People who only start to see as adults can learn to see as other people do in time.
20
People who have gained their sight as adults find certain activities harder to do than before.
21
It is evident now that sight involves the eyes and one particular area of the brain.
22
The mask experiment is particularly useful in training people who are regaining their sight.
23
People with perfect vision can fail to interpret objects correctly under certain circumstances.
Question 24 - 27
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-J, below.
Write the correct letter, A-J, in boxes on your answer sheet.
The mask experiment
In this experiment, having looked at the front of a simple face-mask, subjects look at the reverse. However, the subjects are convinced that they are still looking at a mask which is in shape. They believe that the is poking out in the normal manner because that is what they are used to seeing. Attempting to make a of the mask in this orientation leads to the same problem. The subjects fail to see a concave form because of the they have that the features of a face stick out.
A
back
B
brain
C
view
D
convex
E
sight
F
nose
G
round
H
hollow
I
drawing
J
preconception
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 3
Question 28 - 33
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
28
The two living species of tuatara look alike.
29
Many of the tuatara bones that have been found are millions of years old.
30
The tails of male tuatara are a different colour from the tails of female tuatara.
31
The female tuatara lays eggs in a burrow.
32
There are higher numbers of female hatchlings than males.
33
Once they have hatched, young tuatara have to look after themselves.
Question 34 - 40
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.
The tuatara
Lifespan
- Maximum lifespan unknown.
- Many live to at least
34.
years old.
Behaviour
- Attack other creatures with their
35.
.
- Eat young
36.
that live in the same burrows, invertebrates and reptiles.
Population
- Abundant until rats were introduced by
37.
people.
- By the 1840s, hardly any tuatara was found on the
38.
.
- Islands off the north-eastern coast and in Cook Strait now home to the
39.
tuatara.
- Density of tuatara on Stephens Island is up to
40.
tuatara for every hectare.
Protection of the species
- Tuatara population dropped until rats eradicated from islands.
- Eggs were gathered by the Department of Conservation.
DOL IELTS Đình Lực
05/05/2026
📖 Bài đọc passage 1
The Clipper Races: An era of competition between cargo ships
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the British East India Company had the monopoly on trade with China and India. This meant that because no rival could legally import tea or other goods from these countries at this time, the company was rarely in a hurry to transport its merchandise. Instead, its priority was to minimise costs by carrying as much as possible on each ship. This meant that its ships - known as East Indiamen - were enormous, strong and very slow.
By 1800, the average East Indiaman could carry 1,200 tons of merchandise. The trading pattern for China tea usually meant the East Indiamen set sail from Britain in January, sailed round the Cape of Good Hope at the southernmost tip of Africa, and arrived in China in September. There they would load up that year's tea harvest, set off again and, depending on the wind and weather, aim to arrive back by the following September. So even with favourable sailing conditions, the round trip lasted almost two years, and if anything went wrong it could take a lot longer.
However, by 1834 the company had lost its trading monopolies, and tea had become a freely traded item. Having no more use for its great ships, the company sold them off, and many were bought by merchants or their captains, who continued to plough the seas between Britain and China. But now that tea could be traded freely, a few smart sailors began to realise that whoever brought each new harvest of tea to Britain first, stood to make the most money.
This was partly because if you were home first, you could sell your shipment of tea before your competitors even arrived, and partly because consumers in Britain in the nineteenth century believed that the fresher and earlier-picked the tea, the better the resulting drink. Tea traders now needed faster, sleeker ships to bring their precious cargo back. Nevertheless, in Britain this idea only caught on slowly, and white the 1840s saw a few faster ships launched, for the time being many merchants remained satisfied with the slow but reliable East Indiamen.
In fact it was the Americans who pioneered the first clipper ships. These vessels were fast and slender, with a narrow hull that was deeper at the back than at the front and masses of sails on tall masts. They earned their name from the way that they clipped off journey times British merchants resolved to build their own clippers to rival the Americans and the first British tea clipper, Stornaway, was built in Aberdeen in 1850 More tea clippers were designed and built in Britain throughout the 1850s and 1860s, they had a narrower beam than their American equivalents, making them less powerful during storms, but faster in calmer weather.
There was a great spirit of competition between the British and American ships plying the tea trade, but to begin with the Americans had the edge. Then in 1851 a British ship owner, Richard Green, built the aptly named clipper Challenger, with the stated intention of beating the American ships. Loaded with tea, Challenger left China for London in 1852 at the same time as the American clipper Challenge, a much larger, older ship, already greatly admired for its speed. Large sums were bet on which would complete the journey first. In the event, the British ship beat its rival to London by two days, amid much jubilation. From then on, such international races grew in popularity.
After 1855, American participation in the British tea trade gradually stopped. But even without the Anglo-American rivalry, the competitive spirit continued. It was really ignited when new ports were opened up for trade in China. These included Fouchow, which was much closer to the tea-producing areas than Canton, the port used previously. As a result, tea could be loaded onboard earlier and fresher, and the clippers could set off in late May or early June - sometimes not even taking time to fill out the official paperwork - racing back to Britain whatever the difficulties.
They sped down through the South China Sea and into the Indian Ocean, then raced to get round the southernmost tip of Africa at the Cape of Good Hope. Then it was north across the vast Atlantic, past the Azores, through the English Channel and into the estuary of the River Thames. Once there, they would be towed by tugs, up the river and into the docks.
The cargo of the winning ship could earn a premium of up to sixpence per pound-and so the captain and crew were rewarded by the owners of the cargo. But the races were about more than just money the crews, about 40 men on each clipper, were expert sailors, proud of their ships, and they delighted in competing against each other. Without their enthusiasm, the races would never have happened, since getting the ship home as fast as possible required the crew to be totally dedicated and to sacrifice much of their rest for the duration of the race.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 1
1
False
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài True / False / Not Given
Step 01: Read the question to understand (main idea + detail)
Simplified:
The British East India Company faced a lot of competition In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Main idea: Công ty Đông Ấn Anh phải đối mặt với nhiều đối thủ cạnh tranh trong thế kỷ 17–18.
-------
Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khóa: “the British East India Company”, “seventeenth and eighteenth centuries”, “competition”
→ Dựa vào các từ khoá trên → Tìm được trích dẫn ở đoạn đầu tiên.
-------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand (main + detail)
📌 Trích dẫn: “During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the British East India Company had the monopoly on trade with China and India. This meant that because no rival could legally import tea or other goods from these countries at this time…”
Simplified:
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries , The British East India Company had the monopoly on trade with China and India
Main idea: Công ty Đông Ấn Anh có đượcsựđộc quyền trong việc buôn bán với Trung Quốc và Ấn Độ → không có đối thủ cạnh tranh hợp pháp nào khác.
-------
Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
Trong bài đọc: Công ty Đông Ấn Anh có độc quyền → không có đối thủ cạnh tranh.
Trong câu hỏi: Công ty Đông Ấn Anh phải đối mặt với nhiều cạnh tranh.
⇒ ✅ Chọn: FALSE
-------
Giải thích:
Đáp án FALSE vì thông tin trong bài hoàn toàn trái ngược với câu hỏi: công ty không hề có cạnh tranh, mà ngược lại được độc quyền.
Nếu là TRUE, bài phải nói rằng “there were many rivals trading with China and India”.
Nếu là NOT GIVEN, bài sẽ không đề cập đến việc có hay không có cạnh tranh.
Seeing is believing, it is said. But, asks Richard Gregory, could it be the other way round?
Two of the great British men of the 17th century, the philosopher John Locke and the physicist Isaac Newton, were both aware that objects are not coloured, and that against all appearances light is not coloured either. This is still not generally recognised even now, 400 years later, because it seems so implausible. Yet it tells us something very important - that perceptions are not identical with what we perceive, and may be very different.
The most accurate historical account of perception is that of the 19th-century German scientist Hermann von Helmholtz. However, it was ridiculed at the time. Von Helmholtz thought that perceptions are unconscious inferences we make based on a combination of clues provided by the eyes and other senses, and knowledge of the world. This idea of unconscious inference for perception preceded, by several years, the psychoanalyst Freud's notion of the unconscious, which was also initially treated with derision because it undermined the notion of humans are pre-eminently rational beings who could be held responsible for their actions and awarded blame or praise accordingly.
Crucially, perception of the present depends on rich, though of course not always correct or appropriate, knowledge from the past. We interpret sense data (what we hear, touch, taste, see and smell) from the present according to what we already know. This raises the question: if we see the present through memory, why aren't past and present confused?
The pioneering Russian neurologist Alexander Luria described the case of Mr S, who had a remarkable memory, however, he was prone to just such confusions, for example mistaking seeing his clock for remembering it, and so falling to get up in the morning. This suggests that perhaps an important function of perception is to underline the present. Individual perceptions have a vividness that is rare for memories, which might be how we are able to separate them. Try this: look at something for a few seconds, and then shut your eyes and visualise it in memory. You will almost certainly find that the memory is pale by comparison with the perception. Perhaps this is why past and present are not normally confused. Luria's Mr S had exceptionally vivid memories, and rich synaesthesia (experiencing perceptions from another sense as well as the one being stimulated, such as musical notes experienced as colours), which may by why he confused seeing with having seen.
The complexity of processes involved in how we see first impressed itself on me 45 years ago. With my colleagues Jean Wallace, I studied the rare case Sydney Bradford, a man who had been born blind but, through a corneal graft at the age 52, suddenly found himself able to see. Although immediately after the operation he was able to 'see' but he could only see those things that he already knew about, having experienced them through touch. It was his touch memories that enabled him to preserve them with his eyes. When Bradford was first taken to the zoo, he proved utterly unable to see an elephant as he had no knowledge to make sense of his perceptions.
The more recent case in California of Mike May, who was also born blind, is similar. Since his operation, his sight has gradually improved as he learns to see, for example, by understanding how shadows represent depth and tell us about the shape of things. Some of the consequences of May's new-found vision were less happy. He had been a champion blind skier, but following the operation, he would have to shut his eyes while skiing to block out what he now found was a terrifying sight.
But acceptance of this intimate connection between memory and perception, even though it was first noticed in the 17th century, has been slow in brain science. Despite the fact that state-of-the-art brain imaging shows that perception animates parts of the brain associated with both present information and memory, most research on memory and perception is still undertaken as if these were separate processes. Seeing used to be thought of as taking place only in the eyes, and in quite specialised brain region; but now it seems that half the brain is occupied with seeing, requiring a lot of energy. Perhaps this is why we shut our eyes for a rest.
It is not just extreme cases like Mike May, but also much more common errors of seeing - illusions - that can reveal the crucial role of memory in governing what we (think we) see. Perception depends on specific knowledge and probabilities. Our brains calculate the likelihood of what is out there, and when too far-fetched, perceptions are rejected.
A dramatic and discomforting example is looking at the two sides of a face-mask. From the front it is a convex shape with the nose sticking out. Then if the mask is rotated, the back of the mask will be seen as convex, though we know that it must be concave. It is almost, if not quite, impossible to sketch the back of a hollow mask to look as it is - hollow. Science often learns from what does not happen: people not seeing a hollow face as hollow is the most revealing experiment on perception. The unsettling truth from brain science is that even people with no visual impairment see what, at some level, they expect to see, and often miss things as they really are.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 2
14
D
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Multiple Choice
Step 01: Read the question to understand
Simplified: Why does the writer refer to Locke & Newton in the first paragraph?
-------
Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khóa: “Locke”, “Newton”, “first paragraph”
→ Đọc đoạn 1 -> Xem Locke & Newton được nhắc đến trong ngữ cảnh nào.
-------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand
📌 Trích dẫn:“The philosopher John Locke and the physicist Isaac Newton were both aware that objects are not coloured ... This is still not generally recognised even now, 400 years later.” (Đoạn 1)
Simplified: Locke & Newton were aware that objects are not coloured ... This idea is still not recognised now .
Main idea: Locke và Newton đã biết rằng màu sắc không phải là thuộc tính cố định của vật thể, nhưng đến nay – sau 400 năm – điều này vẫn chưa được nhiều người hiểu rõ → cho thấy ý tưởng của tác giả không mới, mà đã được hai nhà tư tưởng cổ điển nêu ra trước đó.
-------
Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
❌ A. To indicate that his article will cover several scientific fields. → Không nhắc đến phạm vi bài viết hay lĩnh vực → Sai.
❌ B. To stress how much physics has changed in 400 years. → Không nói vật lý thay đổi, mà nói ý tưởng này vẫn chưa được công nhận → Sai.
❌ C. To persuade the reader to take him seriously. → Không nhằm mục đích thuyết phục người đọc tin tưởng → Sai.
✅ D. To point out that his notions are not new. → Đúng vì tác giả nhấn mạnh rằng Locke và Newton đã từng biết điều này từ 400 năm trước, nên ý tưởng của ông không phải mới mẻ.
Tuatara are lizard-like reptiles, found only in New Zealand. They are representative of ancient life forms Tuatara are the only living representatives of an ancient lineage of reptiles called Sphenodontia, which is over 250 million years old. Because tuatara still look like fossils of reptiles that lived during the age of dinosaurs, they are often called living fossils. Now just two species of tuatara survive, and only in New Zealand. One is the Brothers Island tuatara which, until recent re-introductions to sanctuaries (safe places for wildlife), only survived on North Brother Island. The other species is the common tuatara, which survives on many other offshore islands. Although the tuatara species appear similar, they have genetic differences. Tuatara bones have been found in many parts of New Zealand. Where dated, they are usually a few hundred to 5,000 years old. It is not known whether these bones are from the two living species or other species that are now extinct.
Many anatomical features distinguish tuatara from other living reptiles - for example, they have a defining pattern of openings in the skull and a unique type of haemoglobin in the blood, and males have no external reproductive organ. Adults are between 30 and 75 centimetres long, and weigh between 250 and 1.200 grams. Males are larger than females, and have more developed spines in the crest along the neck, back and tail.
The male tuatara courts the female by approaching her with a proud walk. Tuatara mate in late summer, and the female usually lays 6-10 eggs the following spring, in a shallow nest at ground level. She may guard the nest for a few nights, then return to her burrow underground. The eggs incubate for about a year, so hatchlings emerge about the time that eggs are being laid the following season. Evidence indicates the gender of tuatara hatchlings is determined by both genetic and environmental factors. It is said that it is more likely for warmer eggs to produce male tuatara, and cooler eggs to produce females. The hatchlings receive no parental care and need to find their own food.
Tuatara live for a relatively long time, reaching reproductive maturity at about 15 years, and may breed for many decades. Their maximum lifespan is not known for certain, but many tuatara have reached 80 years still looking vigorous and healthy. Tuatara live in underground burrows and are more active at night, but will come out during the day to bask in the sun. Both sexes are territorial, and males aggressively defend their territory by posing and fighting if necessary. Teeth are their main weapons, and a bite can cause serious injury. Tuatara are carnivorous, eating invertebrates, lizards and the baby seabirds with which they often share burrows.
Tuatara were once widespread and abundant on the New Zealand mainland, but when Polynesian settlers arrived in New Zealand, in about 1250-1300 AD, they brought with them Pacific rats which killed tuatara. By the time of European settlement, in the 1840s, tuatara were almost extinct on the New Zealand mainland. Some islands provided temporary havens, but soon these too began to be invaded by rats and other mammalian predators.
Gradually tuatara became restricted to 32 nearshore islands. Many of these islands were tiny, some as small as only one hectare. A few, such as the Poor Knights common tuatara lives on islands off the north-eastern coast of New Zealand, and on some islands in Cook Strait. The Brothers Island tuatara survived only on the of the Brothers Island tuatara have been created on Titi Island in the Marlborough Sounds, and on Somes Island in Wellington Harbour.
Tuatara can live in remarkably dense populations. Most tuatara islands have 50- 100 tuatara per square hectare - so an island of only 10 hectares may have a population of hundreds. Larger islands with many seabirds and invertebrates, which tuatara eat, may have greater densities. The largest population is on Stephens Island, where there are estimated to be as many as 2,500 per hectare in some places, and a total of at least 30,000. The total number of tuatara on all the islands is estimated to be between 50,000 and 100,000.
Legal protection, was granted to tuatara and the islands they occupied in 1895, but the reptiles continued to decline. Since then, active conservation management has reversed the decline, and new populations have become established on predator- free islands. In the mid-1980s the New Zealand Wildlife Service and its successor, the Department of Conservation, developed ways to eradicate rats from islands. Rats have now gone from almost all of the tuatara islands, making them safe for many threatened native species. In addition, the collection by conservationists of eggs for incubation in captivity, breeding in captivity, and moving tuatara to rat islands off the Northland coast, or Stephens Island in Cook Strait, were never invaded by rats, and had few of the other mammals that threaten native animals. The tiny, 4 hectare North Brother Island, in Cook Strait. However, two new populations free islands, have increased the number of islands that are inhabited by tuatara to 37. Many new tuatara populations are planned for islands and mainland reserves that have been freed of predators.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 3
28
True
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài True / False / Not Given
Step 01: Read the question to understand (main idea + detail)
Simplified: The two living species of tuatara look alike .
-------
Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khóa: “two living species of tuatara”, “look alike”.
-> Tìm đoạn đề cập tới hai loài tuatara còn sống và so sánh ngoại hình của chúng.
-> Dựa vào các từ khoá ở trên, có thể tìm được trích dẫn ở đoạn 1.
-------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand (main + detail)
📌 Trích dẫn: “Now just two species of tuatara survive, and only in New Zealand. One is the Brothers Island tuatara … The other species is the common tuatara … Although the tuatara species appear similar, they have genetic differences.” (Đoạn 1)
Simplified: Two tuatara species survive only in New Zealand .
They appear similar , although they have genetic differences .
Main idea: Hai loài tuatara hiện nay có vẻ ngoài tương tự nhau nhưng khác biệt về mặt di truyền.
-------
Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
Trong bài đọc: Hai loài tuatara trông giống nhau, dù có khác biệt về gen.
Trong câu hỏi: Hai loài tuatara hiện nay có ngoại hình giống nhau.
⇒ ✅ Chọn: TRUE
-------
Lưu ý:
Nếu đáp án là False: Bài đọc phải nói rằng chúng “look different” hoặc “have distinct appearances”.
Nếu đáp án là Not Given: Bài đọc phải không đề cập đến ngoại hình của hai loài tuatara.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the British East India Company had the monopoly on trade with China and India. This meant that because no rival could legally import tea or other goods from these countries at this time, the company was rarely in a hurry to transport its merchandise. Instead, its priority was to minimise costs by carrying as much as possible on each ship. This meant that its ships - known as East Indiamen - were enormous, strong and very slow.
By 1800, the average East Indiaman could carry 1,200 tons of merchandise. The trading pattern for China tea usually meant the East Indiamen set sail from Britain in January, sailed round the Cape of Good Hope at the southernmost tip of Africa, and arrived in China in September. There they would load up that year's tea harvest, set off again and, depending on the wind and weather, aim to arrive back by the following September. So even with favourable sailing conditions, the round trip lasted almost two years, and if anything went wrong it could take a lot longer.
However, by 1834 the company had lost its trading monopolies, and tea had become a freely traded item. Having no more use for its great ships, the company sold them off, and many were bought by merchants or their captains, who continued to plough the seas between Britain and China. But now that tea could be traded freely, a few smart sailors began to realise that whoever brought each new harvest of tea to Britain first, stood to make the most money.
This was partly because if you were home first, you could sell your shipment of tea before your competitors even arrived, and partly because consumers in Britain in the nineteenth century believed that the fresher and earlier-picked the tea, the better the resulting drink. Tea traders now needed faster, sleeker ships to bring their precious cargo back. Nevertheless, in Britain this idea only caught on slowly, and white the 1840s saw a few faster ships launched, for the time being many merchants remained satisfied with the slow but reliable East Indiamen.
In fact it was the Americans who pioneered the first clipper ships. These vessels were fast and slender, with a narrow hull that was deeper at the back than at the front and masses of sails on tall masts. They earned their name from the way that they clipped off journey times British merchants resolved to build their own clippers to rival the Americans and the first British tea clipper, Stornaway, was built in Aberdeen in 1850 More tea clippers were designed and built in Britain throughout the 1850s and 1860s, they had a narrower beam than their American equivalents, making them less powerful during storms, but faster in calmer weather.
There was a great spirit of competition between the British and American ships plying the tea trade, but to begin with the Americans had the edge. Then in 1851 a British ship owner, Richard Green, built the aptly named clipper Challenger, with the stated intention of beating the American ships. Loaded with tea, Challenger left China for London in 1852 at the same time as the American clipper Challenge, a much larger, older ship, already greatly admired for its speed. Large sums were bet on which would complete the journey first. In the event, the British ship beat its rival to London by two days, amid much jubilation. From then on, such international races grew in popularity.
After 1855, American participation in the British tea trade gradually stopped. But even without the Anglo-American rivalry, the competitive spirit continued. It was really ignited when new ports were opened up for trade in China. These included Fouchow, which was much closer to the tea-producing areas than Canton, the port used previously. As a result, tea could be loaded onboard earlier and fresher, and the clippers could set off in late May or early June - sometimes not even taking time to fill out the official paperwork - racing back to Britain whatever the difficulties.
They sped down through the South China Sea and into the Indian Ocean, then raced to get round the southernmost tip of Africa at the Cape of Good Hope. Then it was north across the vast Atlantic, past the Azores, through the English Channel and into the estuary of the River Thames. Once there, they would be towed by tugs, up the river and into the docks.
The cargo of the winning ship could earn a premium of up to sixpence per pound-and so the captain and crew were rewarded by the owners of the cargo. But the races were about more than just money the crews, about 40 men on each clipper, were expert sailors, proud of their ships, and they delighted in competing against each other. Without their enthusiasm, the races would never have happened, since getting the ship home as fast as possible required the crew to be totally dedicated and to sacrifice much of their rest for the duration of the race.
Trong bài đọc: Công ty Đông Ấn Anh có độc quyền → không có đối thủ cạnh tranh.
Trong câu hỏi: Công ty Đông Ấn Anh phải đối mặt với nhiều cạnh tranh.
Two of the great British men of the 17th century, the philosopher John Locke and the physicist Isaac Newton, were both aware that objects are not coloured, and that against all appearances light is not coloured either. This is still not generally recognised even now, 400 years later, because it seems so implausible. Yet it tells us something very important - that perceptions are not identical with what we perceive, and may be very different.
The most accurate historical account of perception is that of the 19th-century German scientist Hermann von Helmholtz. However, it was ridiculed at the time. Von Helmholtz thought that perceptions are unconscious inferences we make based on a combination of clues provided by the eyes and other senses, and knowledge of the world. This idea of unconscious inference for perception preceded, by several years, the psychoanalyst Freud's notion of the unconscious, which was also initially treated with derision because it undermined the notion of humans are pre-eminently rational beings who could be held responsible for their actions and awarded blame or praise accordingly.
Crucially, perception of the present depends on rich, though of course not always correct or appropriate, knowledge from the past. We interpret sense data (what we hear, touch, taste, see and smell) from the present according to what we already know. This raises the question: if we see the present through memory, why aren't past and present confused?
The pioneering Russian neurologist Alexander Luria described the case of Mr S, who had a remarkable memory, however, he was prone to just such confusions, for example mistaking seeing his clock for remembering it, and so falling to get up in the morning. This suggests that perhaps an important function of perception is to underline the present. Individual perceptions have a vividness that is rare for memories, which might be how we are able to separate them. Try this: look at something for a few seconds, and then shut your eyes and visualise it in memory. You will almost certainly find that the memory is pale by comparison with the perception. Perhaps this is why past and present are not normally confused. Luria's Mr S had exceptionally vivid memories, and rich synaesthesia (experiencing perceptions from another sense as well as the one being stimulated, such as musical notes experienced as colours), which may by why he confused seeing with having seen.
The complexity of processes involved in how we see first impressed itself on me 45 years ago. With my colleagues Jean Wallace, I studied the rare case Sydney Bradford, a man who had been born blind but, through a corneal graft at the age 52, suddenly found himself able to see. Although immediately after the operation he was able to 'see' but he could only see those things that he already knew about, having experienced them through touch. It was his touch memories that enabled him to preserve them with his eyes. When Bradford was first taken to the zoo, he proved utterly unable to see an elephant as he had no knowledge to make sense of his perceptions.
The more recent case in California of Mike May, who was also born blind, is similar. Since his operation, his sight has gradually improved as he learns to see, for example, by understanding how shadows represent depth and tell us about the shape of things. Some of the consequences of May's new-found vision were less happy. He had been a champion blind skier, but following the operation, he would have to shut his eyes while skiing to block out what he now found was a terrifying sight.
But acceptance of this intimate connection between memory and perception, even though it was first noticed in the 17th century, has been slow in brain science. Despite the fact that state-of-the-art brain imaging shows that perception animates parts of the brain associated with both present information and memory, most research on memory and perception is still undertaken as if these were separate processes. Seeing used to be thought of as taking place only in the eyes, and in quite specialised brain region; but now it seems that half the brain is occupied with seeing, requiring a lot of energy. Perhaps this is why we shut our eyes for a rest.
It is not just extreme cases like Mike May, but also much more common errors of seeing - illusions - that can reveal the crucial role of memory in governing what we (think we) see. Perception depends on specific knowledge and probabilities. Our brains calculate the likelihood of what is out there, and when too far-fetched, perceptions are rejected.
A dramatic and discomforting example is looking at the two sides of a face-mask. From the front it is a convex shape with the nose sticking out. Then if the mask is rotated, the back of the mask will be seen as convex, though we know that it must be concave. It is almost, if not quite, impossible to sketch the back of a hollow mask to look as it is - hollow. Science often learns from what does not happen: people not seeing a hollow face as hollow is the most revealing experiment on perception. The unsettling truth from brain science is that even people with no visual impairment see what, at some level, they expect to see, and often miss things as they really are.
This idea
is still not recognised now
Tuatara are lizard-like reptiles, found only in New Zealand. They are representative of ancient life forms Tuatara are the only living representatives of an ancient lineage of reptiles called Sphenodontia, which is over 250 million years old. Because tuatara still look like fossils of reptiles that lived during the age of dinosaurs, they are often called living fossils. Now just two species of tuatara survive, and only in New Zealand. One is the Brothers Island tuatara which, until recent re-introductions to sanctuaries (safe places for wildlife), only survived on North Brother Island. The other species is the common tuatara, which survives on many other offshore islands. Although the tuatara species appear similar, they have genetic differences. Tuatara bones have been found in many parts of New Zealand. Where dated, they are usually a few hundred to 5,000 years old. It is not known whether these bones are from the two living species or other species that are now extinct.
Many anatomical features distinguish tuatara from other living reptiles - for example, they have a defining pattern of openings in the skull and a unique type of haemoglobin in the blood, and males have no external reproductive organ. Adults are between 30 and 75 centimetres long, and weigh between 250 and 1.200 grams. Males are larger than females, and have more developed spines in the crest along the neck, back and tail.
The male tuatara courts the female by approaching her with a proud walk. Tuatara mate in late summer, and the female usually lays 6-10 eggs the following spring, in a shallow nest at ground level. She may guard the nest for a few nights, then return to her burrow underground. The eggs incubate for about a year, so hatchlings emerge about the time that eggs are being laid the following season. Evidence indicates the gender of tuatara hatchlings is determined by both genetic and environmental factors. It is said that it is more likely for warmer eggs to produce male tuatara, and cooler eggs to produce females. The hatchlings receive no parental care and need to find their own food.
Tuatara live for a relatively long time, reaching reproductive maturity at about 15 years, and may breed for many decades. Their maximum lifespan is not known for certain, but many tuatara have reached 80 years still looking vigorous and healthy. Tuatara live in underground burrows and are more active at night, but will come out during the day to bask in the sun. Both sexes are territorial, and males aggressively defend their territory by posing and fighting if necessary. Teeth are their main weapons, and a bite can cause serious injury. Tuatara are carnivorous, eating invertebrates, lizards and the baby seabirds with which they often share burrows.
Tuatara were once widespread and abundant on the New Zealand mainland, but when Polynesian settlers arrived in New Zealand, in about 1250-1300 AD, they brought with them Pacific rats which killed tuatara. By the time of European settlement, in the 1840s, tuatara were almost extinct on the New Zealand mainland. Some islands provided temporary havens, but soon these too began to be invaded by rats and other mammalian predators.
Gradually tuatara became restricted to 32 nearshore islands. Many of these islands were tiny, some as small as only one hectare. A few, such as the Poor Knights common tuatara lives on islands off the north-eastern coast of New Zealand, and on some islands in Cook Strait. The Brothers Island tuatara survived only on the of the Brothers Island tuatara have been created on Titi Island in the Marlborough Sounds, and on Somes Island in Wellington Harbour.
Tuatara can live in remarkably dense populations. Most tuatara islands have 50- 100 tuatara per square hectare - so an island of only 10 hectares may have a population of hundreds. Larger islands with many seabirds and invertebrates, which tuatara eat, may have greater densities. The largest population is on Stephens Island, where there are estimated to be as many as 2,500 per hectare in some places, and a total of at least 30,000. The total number of tuatara on all the islands is estimated to be between 50,000 and 100,000.
Legal protection, was granted to tuatara and the islands they occupied in 1895, but the reptiles continued to decline. Since then, active conservation management has reversed the decline, and new populations have become established on predator- free islands. In the mid-1980s the New Zealand Wildlife Service and its successor, the Department of Conservation, developed ways to eradicate rats from islands. Rats have now gone from almost all of the tuatara islands, making them safe for many threatened native species. In addition, the collection by conservationists of eggs for incubation in captivity, breeding in captivity, and moving tuatara to rat islands off the Northland coast, or Stephens Island in Cook Strait, were never invaded by rats, and had few of the other mammals that threaten native animals. The tiny, 4 hectare North Brother Island, in Cook Strait. However, two new populations free islands, have increased the number of islands that are inhabited by tuatara to 37. Many new tuatara populations are planned for islands and mainland reserves that have been freed of predators.
