IELTS Real Reading Test 2025 - Q1 Test 2 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Luyện tập đề IELTS Real Reading Test 2025 - Q1 Test 2 được lấy từ cuốn sách Real Test 2025 - Q1 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 Real Reading Test 2025 - Q1 Test 2 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
Archaeological evidence from pots has helped determine when people first began to grow chilies.
2
Linda Perry thinks mankind began using chilies in cooking largely because they kept food from spoiling.
3
Christopher Columbus is said to have enjoyed the new experience of eating food spiced with chilies.
4
Explorers from Portugal were introduced to chilies in Africa.
5
The feeling of heat while eating chilies is a purely psychological effect rather than a physical one.
6
A chemist called Scoville created a heat scale based on the collective judgement of a group of individuals.
Question 7 - 13
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
The role of capsaicin
Chili seeds and capsaicin
- Certain birds and other animals eat chili fruit and spread the seeds.
- Some animals destroy the seeds, preventing
7.
.
- Unlike many other plants, chilies contain an unpleasant chemical only in their
8.
.
- The
9.
of the chili causes an increase in the capsaicin.
Tewksbury’s experiments to test effects of capsaicin
- Chilies offered to rodents and birds in laboratory conditions.
- Rodents avoided chilies with a high
10.
of capsaicin.
- Birds do not mind eating capsaicin:
Capsaicin slows the digestion in birds.
This may make the
11.
of the seed softer.
- Another role of capsaicin is in reducing infection caused by a
12.
.
- Tewksbury considers the role of capsaicin in chilies to be an example in nature of the beauty of
13.
.
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 2
Question 14 - 19
Reading Passage has eight paragraphs A-H
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Choose the correct letter, A-H
NB You may use any letter more than once.
14
A description of how rapid change has a negative effect on people.
15
A reference to an architect whose designs were uncharacteristic of biophilia.
16
A definition of the two main aims of biophilia.
17
A positive claim about early forms of architecture.
18
A reference to the fact that many architects are too focused on innovation.
19
A description of features which conserve energy in a biophilic design.
Question 20 - 24
Complete the sentences below.
Write ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
20
In the modern world,
advancements are happening so quickly that humans are unable to adjust to them.
21
Biophilia can help us deal with the
caused by the difficulties of our current lifestyles.
22
People instinctively feel more comfortable in places which have plenty of
.
23
An experiment designed to test the effect of nature on patient recovery times found that those who could see a
made a faster recovery.
24
There is a biophilic design feature in the University of Guelph-Humber building which improves the quality of the
.
Question 25 - 26
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Which TWO of the following statements does the writer make about the Adam Joseph Lewis Center at Oberlin College?
A
It was the first educational establishment designed with biophilic principles.
B
It is beneficial for both students and the environment.
C
It has established new concepts for classroom design.
D
It aims to inspire new ways of thinking about the environment.
E
It provides solar power to other buildings in the surrounding area.
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 3
Question 27 - 31
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
27
The delay in the process used by the Kellogg brothers affected the final product.
28
Sir Alan Hodgkin is an example of someone whose work proceeded in a logical and systematic way.
29
Daguerre is an exception to the general rule of innovation.
30
The discovery of saccharin occurred by accident during drug research.
31
The company 3M should have supported Art Fry by funding his idea of Post-It Notes.
Question 32 - 35
Complete each of the following statements with the best ending A-H from the box below.
List of Endings
A
can be found in unusual thoughts and chance events.
B
can be taught in business schools.
C
has made a success from someone else’s invention.
D
is designed to nurture differences.
E
is unlikely to lead to creative innovation.
F
says that all mistakes are the same.
G
shows that businesses are good at either inventing or selling.
H
suggests ways of increasing the number of mistakes.
The usual business environment
32
Geroski and Markides’s book
33
Microsoft is an example of a company which
34
The origin of useful accidents
35
Question 36 - 40
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes on your answer sheet.
36
How do Austin and Devin advise companies to get out of the "cone of expectation"?
A
By decreasing the number of company systems.
B
By forming teams of different types of people.
C
By hiring new and creative people.
D
By holding regular brainstorming meetings.
37
In recommending ‘counter-intuitive’ thinking, what do Austin and Devin imply?
A
That failing at business is bad for staff morale.
B
That innovation cannot be planned for.
C
That most businesses should be devoted to avoiding mistakes.
D
That the cost of mistakes is an important consideration.
38
The writer describes the Empire Lager disaster in order to show that
A
success can come out of a business failure.
B
the majority of companies now value risk-taking.
C
TV advertising works better on older people.
D
young beer drinkers do not like a sweet taste.
39
Pure Blonde has been more successful than Empire Lager because
A
digital media other than TV were used.
B
it was advertised under a different brand name.
C
it was launched with very little advertising.
D
it appealed to a specific consumer group.
40
The writer concludes that creating a culture that learns from mistakes
A
brings short-term financial gains.
B
can be very difficult for some companies.
C
holds no risk for workers.
D
is a popular move with shareholders
DOL IELTS Đình Lực
05/05/2026
📖 Bài đọc passage 1
Chilii peppers
Chili peppers, the fruit of the capsicum plant, are believed to have originated in what is now Bolivia in South America, home to dozens of wild species that are probably the ancestors of each and every chili variety today, from mild green peppers to fiery hot naga jolokia peppers.
The chili pepper contains a heat-generating ingredient known as capsaicin, which has long been known to affect human taste buds, nerve cells and nasal membranes. People have been spicing their food with chilies for at least 8,000 years. At first they used wild chilies, adding them to potatoes, grain and corn, says Linda Perry, archaeobalanids at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC in the US. She has found traces of chilies on ancient stones used to grind grains, and in vessels used in food preparation from the Bahamas to southern Peru.
Based on her examination of ancient pieces of pottery, Ms. Perry concludes that people in the Americas began cultivating chilies more than 6,000 years ago. 'Chilies were domesticated early and spread very quickly, just because people liked them,' she says. The chilies, it would seem, made otherwise quite bland food more enjoyable to eat. Other researchers, such as Jennifer Billing and Paul Sherman of Cornell University in the US, argue that people learned early on that chilies could reduce food spoilage. And some scholars point to medical uses: ancient Mayan Indians in Central America incorporated chilies into medicinal preparations for treating wounds, stomach problems and earaches.
Whatever the benefits, chilies spread around the world at astonishing speed, thanks in part to Christopher Columbus, who is credited with being the first European to reach America in 1492, and claiming the new' land for Spain. When Columbus took chilies back to Spain, they were initially not popular, but soon became widely accepted throughout Europe. The Portuguese first encountered chilies in Brazil and carried them, along with tobacco and cotton, to Africa. By 1550, chilies were being cultivated all over the world, including in India, Japan and China.
When people call chilies hot, they are not just speaking metaphorically.Capsaicin stimulates the neural sensors in the tongue and skin that also detect rising temperatures. As far as these neurons and the brain are concerned, when someone eats a hot chili, the effect is the same as exposure to fire. With enough heat, adrenaline flows and the heart pumps faster. This reaction, according to some physiologists, is part of what makes peppers so stimulating and enjoyable to eat. The scale that scientists use to describe a chili's heat was developed in 1912 by Wilbur Scoville, a chemist from Detroit in the US. He diluted a chili extract in sugar water until the heat was no longer detectable to a panel of trained tasters; that threshold is the basis of the Scoville rating. A sweet bell pepper, for instance, measures zero on the Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) scale, while a typical hot jalapeno chili pepper from Mexico falls between 2,500 and 8,000 SHUs. Last year, the naga jolokia chili, grown in India, was rated at one million SHUs.
But why would chilies have evolved to produce the varying degrees of heat of capsaicin? Chili peppers, like other fruit, lure birds and other animals to eat them and disperse their seeds. But chilies also attract predators, largely rodents like packrats and cactus mice, that crush seeds and make germination impossible. In order to deter animals from eating their seeds, many plants produce toxic or foul-tasting chemicals, but these are usually found in the plant's leaves and roots as well as its fruit. In chilies, however, capsaicin is found just in the fruit, and becomes much stronger with ripening. Joshua Tewksbury, an ecologist at the University of Washington in the US, suspected that at least one role that capsaicin performs is to protect the chili seeds from rodents.
To test his theory, Tewksbury grew plants that produced hot, spicy chilies as well as plants that yielded mild chilies (though both were from the same species). When he offered the fruits of those plants to laboratory rats and mice, they ate the mild chilies but avoided the ones with a strong concentration of capsaicin. He later found that birds do not seem to mind eating even the hottest chilies and, in fact, that the capsaicin had the strange effect of retarding birds digestion, which helps some seeds germinate, possibly by softening the seed coat. Even so, Tewksbury didn't believe that deterring rodents and slowing bird digestion were enough to explain why the spicy heat of chilies evolved. Instead, he thinks that a chili's heat protects it from disease that a certain fungus can trigger, the primary reason chili seeds die prior to being dispersed. In looking at chili populations that contain both hot, spicy, and mild plants, Tewksbury has found that the more capsaicin, the less fungal infection. 'Capsaicin demonstrates the incredible elegance of evolution,' says Tewksbury. The capsaicin discourages rodents and deters microbes - and humans harness this ability when they use chilies to preserve food - but capsaicin doesn't prevent birds from eating chili fruit and spreading seeds. Once in a while, the complex, often conflicting demands that nature places on complex traits result in a truly elegant solution. This is one of those times.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 1
1
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: Archaeological evidence from potshas helped determinewhenpeople first began to grow chilies
Main idea: Bằng chứng khảo cổ từ đồ gốm → giúp xác định thời điểm con người bắt đầu trồng ớt.
-------
Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khóa: “pottery”, "pots", "grow", “cultivating chilies”
→ Dựa vào các từ khoá trên -> Tìm được trích dẫn ở đoạn 3.
-------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand (main + detail)
📌 Trích dẫn: “Based on her examination of ancient pieces of pottery, Ms. Perry concludes that people in the Americas began cultivating chilies more than 6,000 years ago.”
Simplified: Based on pottery evidence , Ms. Perryconcludes → people in the Americas began cultivating chilies more than 6,000 years ago
Main idea: Dựa trên đồ gốm cổ → Perry kết luận con người bắt đầu trồng ớt hơn 6.000 năm trước.
-------
Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
Trong bài đọc: Bằng chứng khảo cổ từ gốm (pottery) → xác định thời điểm trồng ớt.
Trong câu hỏi: Bằng chứng khảo cổ từ chậu gốm/đồ gốm giúp xác định khi nào con người bắt đầu trồng ớt.
⇒ Hai ý trùng khớp -> ✅ Chọn: TRUE
-------
Lí do các đáp án còn lại sai:
Nếu là FALSE: Bài phải nói rằng pottery evidence KHÔNG cho biết thời điểm trồng ớt. Nhưng thực tế Perry dựa vào pottery để kết luận.
Nếu là NOT GIVEN: Bài phải không hề nhắc đến pottery và thời điểm trồng ớt. Nhưng bài đã nói rất rõ.
A. Biophilic design, a movement related to green architecture, has gained much momentum within the building community in recent years. The premise of biophilic design seeks both to avoid or minimize harmful impacts on the natural environment, and equally importantly, to provide and restore beneficial contacts between people and nature in the built environment.
B
B.
People have a psychologically developed need to commune with nature but this has frequently been neglected. All too often, architects have put creative originality before the needs of the people who have to live and work in their futuristic constructions, with scant regard for emotional, as well as practical, considerations. Biophilic design does not advocate tree houses or cave-dwelling, but it does provide the nature-based features that maximize human functioning and health. Though not technically a biophilic design, Fallingwater – the stunning house in rural Pennsylvania designed in the 1930s by Frank Lloyd Wright – arguably speaks to the human soul much more than the box-like blocks of flats designed by his contemporary Le Corbusier.
C
In the modern world, much of our built environment is obstructing the age-old connection between humans and nature. The rates of technological progress are far exceeding rates of psychological evolution, leaving us ill-equipped to cope with our lifestyle, which in turn leads to increased stress. Because biophilia attempts to integrate basic and current needs, it can alleviate the difficulties caused by the brain's constant attempts to function in a modern environment it has not yet evolved to handle. For example, one crucial element of the natural landscape to human health is sunlight. We are evolutionarily programmed to respond positively to sunny areas over dark or overcast ones, and sense that they will foster restoration, improve emotional well-being and promote health.
D
Because of its tremendous impact, biophilic design plays a vital role in healthcare and healthcare delivery. The current healthcare system contains many flaws, especially in its physical clinics, and offices are high-stress environments for patients, visitors and healthcare professionals alike. One well-known study looked at the impact of nature on patients after surgery. One group had a view of tree; the others had a window looking onto a brick wall. The first group had shorter hospital stays, received fewer negative comments from the nurses, required fewer analgesics, and had slightly fewer post-operative complications.
E
As a consequence of this and other studies, nature and nature-based design have been integrated into the physical design of many hospitals. For example, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in New Hampshire boasts an atrium design, illuminating the entire facility. Natural elements also permeate the building, including wood, stone, and numerous live plants. While DHMC was built to incorporate these qualities, other hospitals have had biophilic features added to existing structures. The application of biophilia’s concepts to interior design in hospitals has increased substantially as administrators have witnessed patients' positive responses to nature.
F
Many existing buildings contain biophilic elements, but only a few have been built with the specific idea of biophilic design in mind. One such building is the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies at Oberlin College, in Ohio. The director of Oberlin’s Environmental Studies at Oberlin Studies Program, David Orr, explained the building’s goals were ‘to create not just a place for classes but rather a building that would help to redefine the relationship between humankind and the environment – one that would expand our sense of ecological possibilities’. The Lewis Center is sustainable in a broader sense than in the typical application of the word. It harnesses solar power, utilizes both active and passive air systems, and monitors the weather to adapt to conditions. The Center's ‘Living Machine’ treats wastewater by combining traditional wastewater technology with wetland ecosystems’ purification processes, producing water that can be used in the toilets and for irrigation. In their design, Orr and his team of architects engineered a healthy and comfortable space for students, while ensuring the surrounding environment was undamaged.
G
Another example is the University of Guelph-Humber building in Ontario, Canada. It contains a centrally located bio-wall, vertically spanning the building. The wall is covered in dense foliage which not only connects people to nature on the inside of the building, but also functions as a new filtration system prototype. The wall purifies the air and has the potential to fulfill the building's fresh air intake requirements. This is another example of how biophilic design principles can be applied in a variety of contexts. These examples prove that the built environment need does not interfere with biological human needs to commune with nature, nor with existing ecological systems.
H
Ancient architects built for their cultures, which were almost always more in touch with the earth than western society of the present. They mimicked nature’s forms, producing magnificent structures with which we are still awed – though biophilic design is a novel concept, they certainly employed some of its recommendations. Today, we can add another layer to this tradition and ensure maximal benefit for our planet and ourselves.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 2
14
C
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Matching Information
📌 Dạng Matching Information chúng ta nên làm cuối cùng, sau khi đã làm các dạng câu hỏi khác nhé DOLBIES, bởi vì lúc này mình đã đọc và hiểu nội dung của bài rồi, cộng thêm nghệ thuật Specify của Linearthinking → sẽ nhanh chóng tìm được vị trí đáp án hơn!!
-------
Step 01: Read the question to predict
Hiểu câu hỏi: A description of how rapid change has a negative effect on people
Specify & Predict: Tìm đoạn văn mô tả hệ quả không tốt khi nhịp độ cuộc sống hoặc công nghệ thay đổi quá nhanh so với khả năng thích nghi của con người, ví dụ: gây ra căng thẳng, không kịp thích nghi, áp lực tinh thần...
-------
Step 02: Khoanh vùng đoạn văn
🔍 Từ khóa: “description", "rapid change", "negative effect", "people"
-> Dựa vào các từ khoá trên, có thể khoanh vùng được đoạn C vì có xuất hiện các cụm như "technological progress far exceeding rates of psychological evolution" (tiến bộ công nghệ vượt xa tốc độ tiến hóa tâm lý - tương đương với "rapid change"); "ill-equipped to cope" (không đủ khả năng đối phó); và "increased stress" (gia tăng căng thẳng - tương đương "negative effect").
-> Đây là mô tả cụ thể cho "rapid change has a negative effect on people".
In 1894 Dr John Kellogg and his brother. Will, were supervising a hospital and health spa in Michigan. The patients were on a restricted diet. One day, the brothers left cooked wheat untended for more than 24 hours. When they returned, they saw what they had done. It was no good to eat, but they decided to run the stale wheat through rollers, just to see how it would turn out. Normally, the process produced long sheets, but they were surprised to discover that this time the rollers created flat flakes. They baked them, and then tried the same thing with corn. From this accidental discovery came the cornflakes that generations have now been eating for breakfast.
Accidents happen; there is nothing predictable and orderly about innovation. Nobel laureate Sir Alan Hodgkin, who discovered how nerve cells transmit electrical impulses between the skin and the brain, commented: 'I believe that the record of my published papers conveys an impression of directedness and planning which does not at all coincide with the actual sequence of events.’
The same rule applies in business. The mistake that gave US cornflakes keeps repeating itself in the history of disruptive innovation, the kind that transforms markets. Louis Daguerre, for, instance, discovered the technique that gave US photography in the 1830s, when drops of mercury from a shattered thermometer produced a photographic image. The microwave was discovered when Peroy Spender, a scientist with Raytheon, was testing a new vacuum tube and discovered that the sweet in his pocket had melted. The artificial sweetener, saccharin, was the unintentional result of a medical scientist’s work on a chemical treatment for gastric ulcers. While working for the firm 3M, researcher Art Fry had no idea he was taking the first steps towards Post- It Notes when he used bits of adhesive office paper that could be easily lifted off the page to replace the scrap paper bookmarks that kept falling out of his hymn book.
Breakthrough and disruptive innovation are rarely driven by orderly process. Usually they come out of a chaotic, haphazard mess, which is why big companies, full of managers schooled in business programmes designed to eliminate random variation and mistakes, struggle with them. In these sorts of environments, accidents are called failures and are discouraged.
It is no surprise then that research from the late British economist Paul Geroski and London Business School’s Constantinos Markides found that companies that were skilled at innovation were usually not that skilled when it came to commercialisation, and vice versa. Their book, Fast Second, divides businesses into 'colonists’ and 'consolidators’. Small and nimble, colonists are adept at creating market niches but are terrible institution builders. Consolidators, with their strong cultures of discipline and cost control, know how to take clever ideas from other firms and turn them into mass market items. Microsoft is a prime instance of this.
With companies spending hundreds of billions of dollars on research and development, US academics Robert Austin and Lee Devin examined how managers can encourage productive slip-ups. In their article Accident, Intention and Expectation in the Innovation Process, they argue that business processes actually prevent helpful mis-steps from occurring. According to their catalogue of accidents, not all false steps and mishaps are equal. Accidents, they say, come from unlikely mental associations such as memories and vague connections, looking for something and finding it in an unexpected way, looking for one thing and finding something else, and not looking for anything but finding something valuable.
Accident-prone innovation, they say, requires companies to get outside the ‘cone of expectation’. It means throwing together groups from diverse backgrounds, and combining ideas in unpredictable ways, other strategies also include having systems that watch out for accidents and examine them for value, generating them when they do not happen often enough, seizing oil the useful ones, capturing their valuable features, and building on them to add value and give potential for useful accidents.
All this, however, requires thinking that is often counter-intuitive to the way businesses operate. In other words, it is the kind of thinking that goes against the beliefs of most business managers. It runs counter to the notion frequently pushes by consultants that you can ‘harness’ creativity and direct it to line up with intention. ‘The cost of accidents, business people tend to call such efforts failure.’
There are tentative signs that more companies are starting to realise that failure can lead to commercial gain, and that this is part or the risk-talking that underpins innovation. Australia’s largest brewing company, for example, made a bad error when it launched a new beer called Empire Lager, pitched at younger consumers. Having spent a fortune creating a beer with a sweeter taste, designing a great-looking bottle and a television campaign, Foster’s was left with a drink that no-one wanted to buy. The target market was more interested in brands built up by word of mouth.
Instead of wiping the unsuccessful product launch, Fosters used this lesson learned to go on and develop other brands instead. One of them, Pure Blonde, is now ranked as Australia’s fifth-largest beer brand. Unlike Empire Lager, there has been almost no promotion and its sales are generated more by word of mouth.
Other companies are taking similar steps to study their own slip-ups. Intuit, the company behind financial tools such as Quicken, holds regular ‘When Learning Hurts’ sessions. But this sort of transformation is never easy. In a market that focuses on the short-term, convincing employees and shareholders to tolerate failure and not play it safe is a big thing to ask.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 3
27
Yes
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Yes / No / Not Given
Step 01: Read the question to understand (main idea + detail)
Simplified: The delay in the process affected the final product of the Kellogg brothers
Main idea: Việc chậm trễ trong quy trình đã ảnh hưởng đến sản phẩm cuối cùng mà anh em Kellogg tạo ra.
-------
Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khóa: “Kellogg brothers”, “process“, “delay”, "affected", “the final product"
=> Dựa vào các từ khoá trên -> Tìm được trích dẫn ở đoạn 1.
-------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand (main + detail)
📌 Trích dẫn: “One day, the brothers left cooked wheat untended for more than 24 hours. When they returned, they saw what they had done. It was no good to eat, but they decided to run the stale wheat through rollers, just to see how it would turn out. Normally, the process produced long sheets, but they were surprised to discover that this time the rollers created flat flakes.”
Simplified: The brothers left cooked wheat for 24+ hours
The stale wheat producedflat flakes instead of long sheets.
Main idea: Do sự chậm trễ (bỏ quên lúa mì hơn 24h), sản phẩm tạo ra thay đổi → thay vì tấm dài thì thành các mảnh vụn (flakes).
-------
Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
Trong bài đọc: Việc để lúa mì quá lâu đã khiến quy trình thay đổi → tạo ra flakes thay vì sheets.
Trong câu hỏi: Việc chậm trễ trong quá trình của anh em Kellogg đã ảnh hưởng đến sản phẩm cuối cùng.
⇒ Hai ý trùng khớp -> ✅ Chọn: YES
-------
Lưu ý chung:
Nếu đáp án là NO: Văn bản phải nói rằng sự chậm trễ không ảnh hưởng gì đến sản phẩm cuối cùng. Nhưng thực tế ngược lại.
Nếu đáp án là NOT GIVEN: Văn bản phải không đề cập đến tác động của sự chậm trễ. Nhưng bài nêu rõ nguyên nhân và kết quả → loại bỏ NOT GIVEN.
Chili peppers, the fruit of the capsicum plant, are believed to have originated in what is now Bolivia in South America, home to dozens of wild species that are probably the ancestors of each and every chili variety today, from mild green peppers to fiery hot naga jolokia peppers.
The chili pepper contains a heat-generating ingredient known as capsaicin, which has long been known to affect human taste buds, nerve cells and nasal membranes. People have been spicing their food with chilies for at least 8,000 years. At first they used wild chilies, adding them to potatoes, grain and corn, says Linda Perry, archaeobalanids at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC in the US. She has found traces of chilies on ancient stones used to grind grains, and in vessels used in food preparation from the Bahamas to southern Peru.
Based on her examination of ancient pieces of pottery, Ms. Perry concludes that people in the Americas began cultivating chilies more than 6,000 years ago. 'Chilies were domesticated early and spread very quickly, just because people liked them,' she says. The chilies, it would seem, made otherwise quite bland food more enjoyable to eat. Other researchers, such as Jennifer Billing and Paul Sherman of Cornell University in the US, argue that people learned early on that chilies could reduce food spoilage. And some scholars point to medical uses: ancient Mayan Indians in Central America incorporated chilies into medicinal preparations for treating wounds, stomach problems and earaches.
Whatever the benefits, chilies spread around the world at astonishing speed, thanks in part to Christopher Columbus, who is credited with being the first European to reach America in 1492, and claiming the new' land for Spain. When Columbus took chilies back to Spain, they were initially not popular, but soon became widely accepted throughout Europe. The Portuguese first encountered chilies in Brazil and carried them, along with tobacco and cotton, to Africa. By 1550, chilies were being cultivated all over the world, including in India, Japan and China.
When people call chilies hot, they are not just speaking metaphorically.Capsaicin stimulates the neural sensors in the tongue and skin that also detect rising temperatures. As far as these neurons and the brain are concerned, when someone eats a hot chili, the effect is the same as exposure to fire. With enough heat, adrenaline flows and the heart pumps faster. This reaction, according to some physiologists, is part of what makes peppers so stimulating and enjoyable to eat. The scale that scientists use to describe a chili's heat was developed in 1912 by Wilbur Scoville, a chemist from Detroit in the US. He diluted a chili extract in sugar water until the heat was no longer detectable to a panel of trained tasters; that threshold is the basis of the Scoville rating. A sweet bell pepper, for instance, measures zero on the Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) scale, while a typical hot jalapeno chili pepper from Mexico falls between 2,500 and 8,000 SHUs. Last year, the naga jolokia chili, grown in India, was rated at one million SHUs.
But why would chilies have evolved to produce the varying degrees of heat of capsaicin? Chili peppers, like other fruit, lure birds and other animals to eat them and disperse their seeds. But chilies also attract predators, largely rodents like packrats and cactus mice, that crush seeds and make germination impossible. In order to deter animals from eating their seeds, many plants produce toxic or foul-tasting chemicals, but these are usually found in the plant's leaves and roots as well as its fruit. In chilies, however, capsaicin is found just in the fruit, and becomes much stronger with ripening. Joshua Tewksbury, an ecologist at the University of Washington in the US, suspected that at least one role that capsaicin performs is to protect the chili seeds from rodents.
To test his theory, Tewksbury grew plants that produced hot, spicy chilies as well as plants that yielded mild chilies (though both were from the same species). When he offered the fruits of those plants to laboratory rats and mice, they ate the mild chilies but avoided the ones with a strong concentration of capsaicin. He later found that birds do not seem to mind eating even the hottest chilies and, in fact, that the capsaicin had the strange effect of retarding birds digestion, which helps some seeds germinate, possibly by softening the seed coat. Even so, Tewksbury didn't believe that deterring rodents and slowing bird digestion were enough to explain why the spicy heat of chilies evolved. Instead, he thinks that a chili's heat protects it from disease that a certain fungus can trigger, the primary reason chili seeds die prior to being dispersed. In looking at chili populations that contain both hot, spicy, and mild plants, Tewksbury has found that the more capsaicin, the less fungal infection. 'Capsaicin demonstrates the incredible elegance of evolution,' says Tewksbury. The capsaicin discourages rodents and deters microbes - and humans harness this ability when they use chilies to preserve food - but capsaicin doesn't prevent birds from eating chili fruit and spreading seeds. Once in a while, the complex, often conflicting demands that nature places on complex traits result in a truly elegant solution. This is one of those times.
Simplified: Archaeological evidence from potshas helped determinewhenpeople first began to grow chilies
Main idea: Bằng chứng khảo cổ từ đồ gốm → giúp xác định thời điểm con người bắt đầu trồng ớt.
Simplified: Based on pottery evidence , Ms. Perryconcludes → people in the Americas began cultivating chilies more than 6,000 years ago
Main idea: Dựa trên đồ gốm cổ → Perry kết luận con người bắt đầu trồng ớt hơn 6.000 năm trước.
Trong bài đọc: Bằng chứng khảo cổ từ gốm (pottery) → xác định thời điểm trồng ớt.
Trong câu hỏi: Bằng chứng khảo cổ từ chậu gốm/đồ gốm giúp xác định khi nào con người bắt đầu trồng ớt.
Nếu là FALSE: Bài phải nói rằng pottery evidence KHÔNG cho biết thời điểm trồng ớt. Nhưng thực tế Perry dựa vào pottery để kết luận.
Nếu là NOT GIVEN: Bài phải không hề nhắc đến pottery và thời điểm trồng ớt. Nhưng bài đã nói rất rõ.
People have a psychologically developed need to commune with nature but this has frequently been neglected. All too often, architects have put creative originality before the needs of the people who have to live and work in their futuristic constructions, with scant regard for emotional, as well as practical, considerations. Biophilic design does not advocate tree houses or cave-dwelling, but it does provide the nature-based features that maximize human functioning and health. Though not technically a biophilic design, Fallingwater – the stunning house in rural Pennsylvania designed in the 1930s by Frank Lloyd Wright – arguably speaks to the human soul much more than the box-like blocks of flats designed by his contemporary Le Corbusier.
C. In the modern world, much of our built environment is obstructing the age-old connection between humans and nature. The rates of technological progress are far exceeding rates of psychological evolution, leaving us ill-equipped to cope with our lifestyle, which in turn leads to increased stress. Because biophilia attempts to integrate basic and current needs, it can alleviate the difficulties caused by the brain's constant attempts to function in a modern environment it has not yet evolved to handle. For example, one crucial element of the natural landscape to human health is sunlight. We are evolutionarily programmed to respond positively to sunny areas over dark or overcast ones, and sense that they will foster restoration, improve emotional well-being and promote health.
D. Because of its tremendous impact, biophilic design plays a vital role in healthcare and healthcare delivery. The current healthcare system contains many flaws, especially in its physical clinics, and offices are high-stress environments for patients, visitors and healthcare professionals alike. One well-known study looked at the impact of nature on patients after surgery. One group had a view of tree; the others had a window looking onto a brick wall. The first group had shorter hospital stays, received fewer negative comments from the nurses, required fewer analgesics, and had slightly fewer post-operative complications.
E. As a consequence of this and other studies, nature and nature-based design have been integrated into the physical design of many hospitals. For example, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in New Hampshire boasts an atrium design, illuminating the entire facility. Natural elements also permeate the building, including wood, stone, and numerous live plants. While DHMC was built to incorporate these qualities, other hospitals have had biophilic features added to existing structures. The application of biophilia’s concepts to interior design in hospitals has increased substantially as administrators have witnessed patients' positive responses to nature.
F. Many existing buildings contain biophilic elements, but only a few have been built with the specific idea of biophilic design in mind. One such building is the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies at Oberlin College, in Ohio. The director of Oberlin’s Environmental Studies at Oberlin Studies Program, David Orr, explained the building’s goals were ‘to create not just a place for classes but rather a building that would help to redefine the relationship between humankind and the environment – one that would expand our sense of ecological possibilities’. The Lewis Center is sustainable in a broader sense than in the typical application of the word. It harnesses solar power, utilizes both active and passive air systems, and monitors the weather to adapt to conditions. The Center's ‘Living Machine’ treats wastewater by combining traditional wastewater technology with wetland ecosystems’ purification processes, producing water that can be used in the toilets and for irrigation. In their design, Orr and his team of architects engineered a healthy and comfortable space for students, while ensuring the surrounding environment was undamaged.
G. Another example is the University of Guelph-Humber building in Ontario, Canada. It contains a centrally located bio-wall, vertically spanning the building. The wall is covered in dense foliage which not only connects people to nature on the inside of the building, but also functions as a new filtration system prototype. The wall purifies the air and has the potential to fulfill the building's fresh air intake requirements. This is another example of how biophilic design principles can be applied in a variety of contexts. These examples prove that the built environment need does not interfere with biological human needs to commune with nature, nor with existing ecological systems.
H. Ancient architects built for their cultures, which were almost always more in touch with the earth than western society of the present. They mimicked nature’s forms, producing magnificent structures with which we are still awed – though biophilic design is a novel concept, they certainly employed some of its recommendations. Today, we can add another layer to this tradition and ensure maximal benefit for our planet and ourselves.
In 1894 Dr John Kellogg and his brother. Will, were supervising a hospital and health spa in Michigan. The patients were on a restricted diet. One day, the brothers left cooked wheat untended for more than 24 hours. When they returned, they saw what they had done. It was no good to eat, but they decided to run the stale wheat through rollers, just to see how it would turn out. Normally, the process produced long sheets, but they were surprised to discover that this time the rollers created flat flakes. They baked them, and then tried the same thing with corn. From this accidental discovery came the cornflakes that generations have now been eating for breakfast.
Accidents happen; there is nothing predictable and orderly about innovation. Nobel laureate Sir Alan Hodgkin, who discovered how nerve cells transmit electrical impulses between the skin and the brain, commented: 'I believe that the record of my published papers conveys an impression of directedness and planning which does not at all coincide with the actual sequence of events.’
The same rule applies in business. The mistake that gave US cornflakes keeps repeating itself in the history of disruptive innovation, the kind that transforms markets. Louis Daguerre, for, instance, discovered the technique that gave US photography in the 1830s, when drops of mercury from a shattered thermometer produced a photographic image. The microwave was discovered when Peroy Spender, a scientist with Raytheon, was testing a new vacuum tube and discovered that the sweet in his pocket had melted. The artificial sweetener, saccharin, was the unintentional result of a medical scientist’s work on a chemical treatment for gastric ulcers. While working for the firm 3M, researcher Art Fry had no idea he was taking the first steps towards Post- It Notes when he used bits of adhesive office paper that could be easily lifted off the page to replace the scrap paper bookmarks that kept falling out of his hymn book.
Breakthrough and disruptive innovation are rarely driven by orderly process. Usually they come out of a chaotic, haphazard mess, which is why big companies, full of managers schooled in business programmes designed to eliminate random variation and mistakes, struggle with them. In these sorts of environments, accidents are called failures and are discouraged.
It is no surprise then that research from the late British economist Paul Geroski and London Business School’s Constantinos Markides found that companies that were skilled at innovation were usually not that skilled when it came to commercialisation, and vice versa. Their book, Fast Second, divides businesses into 'colonists’ and 'consolidators’. Small and nimble, colonists are adept at creating market niches but are terrible institution builders. Consolidators, with their strong cultures of discipline and cost control, know how to take clever ideas from other firms and turn them into mass market items. Microsoft is a prime instance of this.
With companies spending hundreds of billions of dollars on research and development, US academics Robert Austin and Lee Devin examined how managers can encourage productive slip-ups. In their article Accident, Intention and Expectation in the Innovation Process, they argue that business processes actually prevent helpful mis-steps from occurring. According to their catalogue of accidents, not all false steps and mishaps are equal. Accidents, they say, come from unlikely mental associations such as memories and vague connections, looking for something and finding it in an unexpected way, looking for one thing and finding something else, and not looking for anything but finding something valuable.
Accident-prone innovation, they say, requires companies to get outside the ‘cone of expectation’. It means throwing together groups from diverse backgrounds, and combining ideas in unpredictable ways, other strategies also include having systems that watch out for accidents and examine them for value, generating them when they do not happen often enough, seizing oil the useful ones, capturing their valuable features, and building on them to add value and give potential for useful accidents.
All this, however, requires thinking that is often counter-intuitive to the way businesses operate. In other words, it is the kind of thinking that goes against the beliefs of most business managers. It runs counter to the notion frequently pushes by consultants that you can ‘harness’ creativity and direct it to line up with intention. ‘The cost of accidents, business people tend to call such efforts failure.’
There are tentative signs that more companies are starting to realise that failure can lead to commercial gain, and that this is part or the risk-talking that underpins innovation. Australia’s largest brewing company, for example, made a bad error when it launched a new beer called Empire Lager, pitched at younger consumers. Having spent a fortune creating a beer with a sweeter taste, designing a great-looking bottle and a television campaign, Foster’s was left with a drink that no-one wanted to buy. The target market was more interested in brands built up by word of mouth.
Instead of wiping the unsuccessful product launch, Fosters used this lesson learned to go on and develop other brands instead. One of them, Pure Blonde, is now ranked as Australia’s fifth-largest beer brand. Unlike Empire Lager, there has been almost no promotion and its sales are generated more by word of mouth.
Other companies are taking similar steps to study their own slip-ups. Intuit, the company behind financial tools such as Quicken, holds regular ‘When Learning Hurts’ sessions. But this sort of transformation is never easy. In a market that focuses on the short-term, convincing employees and shareholders to tolerate failure and not play it safe is a big thing to ask.
produced
flat flakes instead of long sheets
people
first began to grow chilies
concludes
people in the Americas
began cultivating chilies
more than 6,000 years ago
Main idea: Dựa trên đồ gốm cổ → Perry kết luận con người bắt đầu trồng ớt hơn 6.000 năm trước.
