IELTS Real Reading Test 2025 - Q3 Test 1 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Luyện tập đề IELTS Real Reading Test 2025 - Q3 Test 1 được lấy từ cuốn sách Real Test 2025 - Q3 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 - Q3 Test 1 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 1
Question 1 - 6
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
A HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMES
1960s
- Spacewar was first played on a computer and special screen.
1970s
- Advances in technology led to cheaper
1.
and the possibility of coin-operated video games.
- The first successful coin-operated video game was
2.
.
-
3.
was bought from its original owners.
- Space Invaders was successful because of its colourful
4.
.
1980s
- Pac-Man was the first game to attract
5.
.
1990s
- At first one company dominated the market.
- By the end of the decade,
6.
had become the biggest selling home entertainment product.
Question 7 - 13
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
7
Spacewar was unpopular at first.
8
Bushnell and his team failed to create a coin-operated version of Spacewar.
9
From the beginning the home video game market has been commercially successful.
10
Atari was successful for the first time in 1979.
11
Video arcade game usage continued strongly in the 1980s.
12
The time taken to produce a video game can be compared to producing a book.
13
The qualities needed for a video game to become successful have been researched thoroughly.
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 2
Question 14 - 19
The Reading Passage has six paragraphs A-F.
From the list of headings below choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph.
List of Headings
I
Different areas of professional expertise
II
Reasons why it is unfair to criticise lawyers
III
The disadvantages of the legal system
IV
The law applies throughout our lives
V
The law has affected historical events
VI
A negative regard for lawyers
VII
Public's increasing ability to influence the law
VIII
Growth in laws
14
Paragraph A
15
Paragraph B
16
Paragraph C
17
Paragraph D
18
Paragraph E
19
Paragraph F
Question 20 - 21
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Which TWO of the following statements does the writer make about legal skills in today’s world?
A
There should be a person with legal training in every hospital.
B
Lawyers with experience in commercial law are the most in demand.
C
Knowledge of the law is as important as having computer skills.
D
Society could not function effectively without legal experts.
E
Schools should teach students about the law.
Question 22 - 26
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
LAWYERS AS PROFESSIONALS
People sometimes say that is of little interest to lawyers, who are more concerned with making money. This may well be the case with some individuals, in the same way that some or scientific experts may also be driven purely by financial greed. However, criticizing lawyers because their work is concerned with people’s problems would be similar to attacking IT staff or for the same reason. In fact, many lawyers focus on questions relating, for example, to housing or civil liberties, which requires them to have to their work. What’s more, a lot of lawyers’ time is spent writing rather than dealing with people’s misfortunes.
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 3
Question 27 - 30
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
Field and Wroe argue that findings at the Cuddie Springs site show that people lived in this area at the same time as megafauna.
28
Field and Wroe believe it is likely that smaller megafauna species survived the last Ice Age.
29
The writers believe that the dating of earth up to 1.7m below the present surface at Cuddie Springs is unreliable.
30
Some artefacts found at Cuddie Springs were preserved well enough to reveal their function.
Question 31 - 35
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-I, below.
Write the correct letter, A-I, in boxes on your answer sheet.
The writers’ arguments against Field and Wroe’s analysis of the scientific data from Cuddie Springs
One objection to Field and Wroe’s interpretation is the large quantity of charcoal, and artefacts found at Cuddie Springs. Such large numbers of artefacts would be impossible if the area had been covered with for a period. There is also a complete lack of man-made structures, for instance, those used for .
Other evidence that doubt on Field and Wroe’s claim is the fact that while some material in the highest levels of sediment is 36,000 years old, the in the same levels is much more recent. The tools used to process plants and animals may also be newer than Field and Wroe believe. Further evidence against human occupation of the area is the absence of tools and a short distance away.
A
seeds
B
stone
C
sand
D
cooking
E
deep drill core
F
water
G
fossil bones
H
sediment
I
storage
Question 36 - 40
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes on your answer sheet.
36
What conclusions did the writers reach about the inconsistencies in the data from Cuddie Springs?
A
The different layers of sediment have been mixed over time.
B
The sand evidence is unhelpful and should be disregarded.
C
The area needs to be re-examined when technology improves.
D
The charcoal found in the area cannot be dated.
37
According to the writers, what impact could a natural phenomenon have had on this site?
A
Floods could have caused the death of the megafauna.
B
Floods could have disturbed the archaeological evidence.
C
Bushfires could have prevented humans from settling in the area for any length of time.
D
Bushfires could have destroyed much of the evidence left by megafauna and humans.
38
What did the writers speculate about the people who lived at this site in 1876?
A
They bred cattle whose bones could have been confused with megafauna.
B
They found that the soil was too waterlogged for farming.
C
They allowed cattle to move around freely at the site.
D
They brought stones there from another area.
39
In the final paragraph, what suggestion do the writers hide about Australia’s megafauna?
A
A rapid change in climate may have been responsible for the extinction of the megafauna.
B
Megafauna could have died out as a result of small numbers being killed year after year.
C
The population of humans at that time was probably insufficient to cause the extinction of the megafauna.
D
The extinction of ancient animals should not be compared to that of modern-day species.
40
Which of the following best represents the writers' criticism of Field and Wroe?
A
Their methods were not well thought out.
B
Their excavations did not go deep enough.
C
Their technology failed to obtain precise data.
D
Their conclusions were based on inconsistent data
DOL IELTS Đình Lực
05/05/2026
📖 Bài đọc passage 1
Computer games
The early days of the video game business
It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. In the age of computers, that statement takes on new meanings: video game cannot ever really be defeated because, no matter how high the score. It is always the human who tires first or makes the fatal error.
But millions of people continue to play, because microelectronic technology has enabled game designers to conveniently and inexpensively transform plain screens into playfields of extraordinary capability. At the same time, a multi billion dollar industry has grown from very humble beginnings in just a few decades.
The technological roots of video game can be traced back to 1962, when an MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) graduate student demonstrated Spacewar, a science-fiction fantasy game played on a mainframe computer and a large screen. That game immediately attracted a wide cult following among computer buffs. The next important step came in 1968, when a console was developed that could be used to play game on ordinary televisions. But it was not until the early 1970s that a young University of Utah engine to the point that adaptation of Spacewar from a large computer into coin operated format, for use in video game arcades, was becoming economically feasible. Bushnell and his associates began working on such a machine in a converted bedroom workshop, but were unsuccessful. What they ultimately developed instead was a simple tennis-like game that they named Pong.
Pong took the industry by storm and quickly became the first coin-operated video-game hit. And soon thereafter commercial Pong - style home video games also appeared. Yet despite early enthusiasm, consumer interest in this area proved less sustained than had been anticipated and, as prices started to drop and losses mounted, most of the early manufacturers withdrew from the field. Profits proved to be just as elusive at Bushnell's company, Atari, where a rapidly growing market presence in coin operated machine and home video required greater injections of capital and more professional management than the company was able to provide. In 1976, the founders of Atari sold their share of the company for a sum that was only equivalent to their sales in that year.
At that point, coin-operated video games seemed just another passing fad. But the introduction of Space Invaders - an arcade model produced by Japanese manufacture Taito - proved otherwise. With its vibrant graphics it was so different from the previous black and white games that Space Invaders immediately captured public interest. There soon followed a rush of popular video that employed the same or better hardware and even more imaginative software. Of these, Рас Man (in 1980) was especially significant, because now females began to take an interest.
By this time, the same software improvement and technological advances (faster microprocessors and larger memories) that permitted designers to produce spectacular audio and visual effects for coin-operated machines were also being applied to home video units. It was thus only a short while before the programmable consoles that had been unpopular for lack of software suddenly began to sell in large numbers: consumers had discovered that they could finally play a reasonable version of their favorite arcade games in the comfort of their own home. The impact on Atari was astounding. Unprofitable for the first three years, Atari had by the end of 1979, become a success. By either self-designing or licensing the most popular arcade concepts for cartridge format for use at home, the company had captured some 80 percent of the worldwide market for home video games.
All of this, however, was too good to last. By late 1982, the public’s fascination with arcade games had begun to low down, and fewer potential best-sellers were becoming available for conversion to cartridges that could be used on an Atari machine. At the same time, the market was flooded with illegal software of all types. It was thus not until the late 1980s that the unstructured nature of the industry, at least on the software side, had stabilized and become restructured in a manner similar, in many respects, to the book publishing business.
Until 1986, when Japan-based Nintendo introduced a more technologically sophisticated and user-friendly game console, the hardware side was also in disarray. But with tight control of software development and marketing, Nintendo was able to revive and then capture up to 80 percent of a once-again booming market in which no significant competition appeared until the early 1990s. By that point, the annual operating profits of Nintendo had already grown to over $1 billion - an amount exceeding the 1991 profits of all the major Hollywood film studios combined. In 1999, sales of game hardware and software, led by Playstation, were equal in size (around $7 billion) to US domestic box-office revenues.
With change the only constant, the game industry has moved on to become what it is today. However, no matter what the technology or the format, the essence of a successful game will always be the same: it is simple to understand and to play on an elementary level, but it is compulsive and maddeningly difficult – in fact, forever impossible – to master fully.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 1
1
adaptation
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Gap Fill
Step 01: Read the question to understand (main idea + detail) + Predict Word Form + Meaning
Simplified: Advances in technology led to cheaper ______ and the possibility of coin-operated video games
Prediction: Từ cần điền là danh từ (N) → chỉ thứ giúp trò chơi có thể vận hành với chi phí thấp.
-------
Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khoá: “ 1970s”, “technology”, “coin-operated”, “cheaper”.
=> Dựa vào các từ khoá trên -> Tìm được trích dẫn ở đoạn 3.
-------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand (main + detail)
📌 Trích dẫn: “But it was not until the early 1970s that … adaptation of Spacewar from a large computer into coin operated format … was becoming economically feasible.”
Simplified: a young University of Utah engine -> adaptation of Spacewar into coin-operated format was becoming economically feasible
Main idea: Tiến bộ kỹ thuật ⇒ việc chuyển đổi trò chơi sang định dạng dùng xu trở nên rẻ/khả thi.
-------
Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
Trong bài đọc: Bản chuyển thể của Spacewar… đã trở nên khả thi về mặt kinh tế.
A. The law influences all of us virtually all the time. It governs almost all aspects of our behavior, and even what happens to us when we are no longer alive. It affects us from the embryo onwards. It governs the air we breathe, the food and drink we consume, our travel, family relationships, and our property. It applies at the bottom of the ocean and in space. Each time we examine a label on a food product, engage in work as an employee or employer, travel on the roads, go to school to learn or to teach, stay in a hotel, borrow a library book, create or dissolve a commercial company, play sports, or engage the services of someone for anything from plumbing a sink to planning a city, we are in the world of law.
B
B.
Law has also become much more widely recognised as the standard by which behaviour needs to be judged. A very telling development in recent history is the way in which the idea of law has permeated all parts of social life. The universal standard of whether something is socially tolerated is progressively becoming whether it is legal, rather than something that has always been considered acceptable. In earlier times, most people were illiterate. Today, by contrast, a vast number of people can read, and it is becoming easier for people to take an interest in law, and for the general population to help actually shape the law in many countries. However, law is a versatile instrument that can be used equally well for the improvement or the degradation of humanity.
C
This, of course, puts law in a very significant position. In our rapidly developing world, all sorts of skills and knowledge are valuable. Those people, for example, with knowledge of computers, the internet, and communications technology are relied upon by the rest of us. There is now someone with IT skills or an IT help desk in every UK school, every company, every hospital, every local and central government office. Without their knowledge, many parts of commercial and social life today would seize up in minutes. But legal understanding is just as vital and as universally needed. The American comedian Jerry Seinfeld put it like this, ‘We are all throwing the dice, playing the game, moving our pieces around the board, but if there is a problem, the lawyer is the only person who has read the inside of the top of the box.’ In other words, the lawyer is the only person who has read and made sense of the rules.
D
The number of laws has never been greater. In the UK alone, about 35 new Acts of Parliament are produced every year, thereby delivering thousands of new rules. The legislative output of the British Parliament has more than doubled in recent times from 1,100 pages a year in the early 1970s, to over 2,500 pages a year today. Between 1997 and 2006, the legislature passed 365 Acts of Parliament and more than 32,000 legally binding statutory instruments. In a system with so much law, lawyers do a great deal not just to vindicate the rights of citizens and organizations but also to help develop the law through legal arguments, some of which are adapted by judges to become laws. Law courts can and do produce new law and revise old law, but they do so having heard the arguments of lawyers.
E
However, despite their important role in developing the rules, lawyers are not universally admired. Anti-lawyer jokes have a long history going back to the ancient Greeks. More recently the son of a famous Hollywood actor was asked at his junior school what his father did for a living, to which he replied, ‘My daddy is a movie actor, and sometimes he plays the good guy, and sometimes, he plays the lawyer.’ For balance, though, it is worth remembering that there are and have been many heroic and revered lawyers such as the Roman philosopher and politician Cicero, and Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian campaigner for Independence.
F
People sometimes make comments that characterise lawyers as professionals whose concerns put personal reward above truth, or who gain financially from misfortune. There are undoubtedly lawyers that would fit that bill, just as there are some scientists, journalists and others in that category. But, in general, it is no more just to say that lawyers are bad because they make a living from people’s problems than it is to make the same accusation in respect of nurses or IT consultants. A great many lawyers are involved in public law work, such as that involving civil liberties, housing and other issues. Such work is not lavishly remunerated and the quality of the service provided by these lawyers relies on considerable professional dedication. Moreover, much legal work has nothing to do with conflict or misfortune, but is primarily concerned with drafting documents. Another source of social disaffection for lawyers, and disaffection for the law, is a limited public understanding of how law works and how it could be changed. Greater clarity about these issues, maybe as a result of better public relations, would reduce many aspects of public dissatisfaction with the law.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 2
14
IV
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Matching Headings
✅ Paragraph A → Đáp án đúng:D. The law applies throughout our lives
-------
Giải thích chi tiết
Step 01: Read to understand main idea
Từ phần simplify, đoạn A lặp lại liên tục idea:
Luật tác động từ khi còn là phôi thai → “from the embryo onwards”
Luật vẫn chi phối sau khi chết → “when we are no longer alive”
Luật có mặt trong mọi hoạt động thường nhật (ăn uống, đi lại, học tập, làm việc, dịch vụ, công ty…)
⇒ Main idea: Luật hiện diện và tác động đến con người trong suốt cuộc đời (thậm chí cả sau đó).
-------
Step 02: Compare meaning with meaning
Đại ý của đoạn: Luật điều chỉnh gần như mọi khía cạnh cuộc sống con người, từ lúc bắt đầu sự sống cho đến sau khi qua đời, và xuất hiện trong vô số hoạt động hàng ngày.
So sánh với các headings, ý này khớp trực tiếp với: Luật áp dụng trong suốt cuộc đời chúng ta.
✅ Đáp án đúng:D. The law applies throughout our lives
Just how long did humans live side by side with megafauna in Australia? Barry Brook, Richard Gillespie and Paul Martin dispute previous claims of a lengthy coexistence.
Over the past 50 millennia, Australia has witnessed the extinction of many species of large animals, including a rhinoceros-sized wombat and goannas the size of crocodiles Debate about the possible cause of these extinctions has continued for more than 150 years and one the crucial questions raised is how long humans and megafauna coexisted in Australia. We need to know the overlap of time to make an informed choice between the two main theories regarding the causes of these extinctions. If humans and megafauna coexisted for a protracted period then climate change is the more likely cause. However, if the megafauna became extinct shortly after the arrival of humans, then humans are the likely culprits.
The archaeological site at Cuddie Springs in eastern Australia appears to be well preserved. This dusty claypan holds within its sediments a rich cache of flaked stone and seed-grinding tools, and side by side with these clear signals of human culture are the bones of a dozen or more species of megafauna. Drs Judith Field and Stephen Wroe of the University of Sydney, who excavated the site, claim that it provides unequivocal evidence of a long overlap of humans and megafauna, and conclude that aridity leading up to the last Ice Age brought about their eventual demise. In the long-standing explanation of this site, artefacts such as stone tools and extinct animals remain were deposited over many thousands of years in an ephemeral lake - a body of water existing for a relatively short time - and remained in place and undisturbed until the present day.
There is no disputing the close association of bones and stones at Cuddie Springs, as both are found 1 to 1.7 metres below the modern surface. The dating of these layers is accurate: ages for the sediments were obtained through radiocarbon dating of charcoal fragments and luminescence dating of sand grains from the same levels (revealing when a sample was last exposed to sunlight). Intriguingly, some of the stone show surface features indicating their use for processing plants, and a few even have well-preserved blood and hair residues suggesting they were used in butchering animals.
But is the case proposed by Field aside Wroe clear-cut? We carried out a reanalyse of the scientific data from Cuddie Springs that brings into question their conclusions. The amount of anthropological evidence found at the site is remarkable: we estimate there are more than 3 tonnes of charcoal and more than 300 tonnes of stone buried there. Field and Wroe estimate that there are approximately 20 million artefacts. This plethora of tools is hard to reconcile with a site that was only available for occupation when the lake was dry. Furthermore, no cultural features such as oven pits have been discovered. If the sediment layers have remained undisturbed since being laid down, as Field and Wroe contend, then the ages of those sediments should increase with depth. However, our analysis revealed a number of inconsistencies.
First, the charcoal samples are all roughly 36,000 years old. Second, sand in the two upper levels is considerably younger than charcoal from the same levels. Third, Field and Wroe say that the tools and seed-grinding stones used for plant and animal processing are ancient, yet they are very similar to implements found elsewhere that were in use only a few thousand years ago. Also interest is the fact that a deep drill core made a mere 60 metres from the site recovered no stone artefact or fossil bones whatsoever. These points suggest strongly that the sediments have been moved about and some of the old charcoal has been re-deposited in younger layers. Indeed, one sample of cow bone found 1 metre below the surface came from sediments where charcoal dated at 6,000 and 23,000 years old is mixed with 17,000-year-old sand. The megafauna bones themselves have not yet dated, although new technological developments make this a possibility in the near future.
We propose that the archaeologists have actually been sampling the debris carried by ancient flood channels beneath the site, including charcoal transported from bushfires that intermittently occurred within the catchment. Flood events more likely explain the accumulation of megafauna remains, and could have mixed old bones with fresh deposits. European graziers also disturbed the site in 1876 by constructing a well to provide water their cattle. Given the expense of well-digging, we speculate that the graziers made sure it was protected from the damage caused by cattle hooves by lining the surface with small stones collected from further afield, including prehistoric quarries. This idea is consistent with the thin layer of stones spread over a large area, with cattle occasionally breaking through the gravel surface and forcing the stone and even cattle bones deeper into the waterlogged soil.
The lack of conclusive evidence that humans and megafauna coexisted for a lengthy period casts doubt on Field and Wroe’s assertion that climate change was responsible for the extinction of Australia’s megafauna. However, we do not suggest that newly arrived, well-armed hunters systematically slaughtered all the large beasts they encountered. Recent studies based on the biology of modern-day large.
Mammals, combined with observations of people who still practise a traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle, reveal an unexpected paradox and suggest a further possible explanation as to what happened. Using a mathematical model, it was found that a group of 10 people killing only one juvenile Diprotodon each year would be sufficient to bring about the extinction of that spaces within 1,000 years. This suggests that here, as in other parts of the word, the arrival of humans in lands previously inhabited only by animals created a volatile combination in which large animals fared badly.
🔥 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: Field and Wroe argue people lived at the same time as megafauna at the Cuddie Springs site
-------
Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khoá: “Field”, “Wroe”, “Cuddie Springs”, “humans”, “megafauna”
→ Dựa vào các từ khoá trên, ta tìm được đoạn 2 – đoạn trình bày trực tiếp quan điểm của Field và Wroe về phát hiện tại Cuddie Springs.
-------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand (main + detail)
📌 Trích dẫn: "Drs Judith Field and Stephen Wroe of the University of Sydney, who excavated the site, claim that it provides unequivocal evidence of a long overlap of humans and megafauna."
Simplified:
The site provides unequivocal evidence of a long overlap between humans and megafauna
-------
Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
Trong bài đọc: Field và Wroe khẳng định có bằng chứng rõ ràng cho thấy con người và megafauna sống cùng thời tại địa điểm này.
Trong câu hỏi: Field và Wroe cho rằng các phát hiện cho thấy con người sống cùng thời với megafauna ở khu vực này.
⇒ Hai ý trùng khớp -> ✅ Chọn: YES
-------
Giải thích vì sao các đáp án còn lại sai:
NO ❌: Chỉ đúng nếu bài đọc phủ nhận sự tồn tại cùng thời → bài đọc khẳng định rất rõ (“unequivocal evidence”).
NOT GIVEN ❌: Chỉ đúng nếu bài đọc không nêu quan điểm của Field và Wroe → đoạn 1 nêu trực tiếp lập luận của họ.
It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. In the age of computers, that statement takes on new meanings: video game cannot ever really be defeated because, no matter how high the score. It is always the human who tires first or makes the fatal error.
But millions of people continue to play, because microelectronic technology has enabled game designers to conveniently and inexpensively transform plain screens into playfields of extraordinary capability. At the same time, a multi billion dollar industry has grown from very humble beginnings in just a few decades.
The technological roots of video game can be traced back to 1962, when an MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) graduate student demonstrated Spacewar, a science-fiction fantasy game played on a mainframe computer and a large screen. That game immediately attracted a wide cult following among computer buffs. The next important step came in 1968, when a console was developed that could be used to play game on ordinary televisions. But it was not until the early 1970s that a young University of Utah engine to the point that adaptation of Spacewar from a large computer into coin operated format, for use in video game arcades, was becoming economically feasible. Bushnell and his associates began working on such a machine in a converted bedroom workshop, but were unsuccessful. What they ultimately developed instead was a simple tennis-like game that they named Pong.
Pong took the industry by storm and quickly became the first coin-operated video-game hit. And soon thereafter commercial Pong - style home video games also appeared. Yet despite early enthusiasm, consumer interest in this area proved less sustained than had been anticipated and, as prices started to drop and losses mounted, most of the early manufacturers withdrew from the field. Profits proved to be just as elusive at Bushnell's company, Atari, where a rapidly growing market presence in coin operated machine and home video required greater injections of capital and more professional management than the company was able to provide. In 1976, the founders of Atari sold their share of the company for a sum that was only equivalent to their sales in that year.
At that point, coin-operated video games seemed just another passing fad. But the introduction of Space Invaders - an arcade model produced by Japanese manufacture Taito - proved otherwise. With its vibrant graphics it was so different from the previous black and white games that Space Invaders immediately captured public interest. There soon followed a rush of popular video that employed the same or better hardware and even more imaginative software. Of these, Рас Man (in 1980) was especially significant, because now females began to take an interest.
By this time, the same software improvement and technological advances (faster microprocessors and larger memories) that permitted designers to produce spectacular audio and visual effects for coin-operated machines were also being applied to home video units. It was thus only a short while before the programmable consoles that had been unpopular for lack of software suddenly began to sell in large numbers: consumers had discovered that they could finally play a reasonable version of their favorite arcade games in the comfort of their own home. The impact on Atari was astounding. Unprofitable for the first three years, Atari had by the end of 1979, become a success. By either self-designing or licensing the most popular arcade concepts for cartridge format for use at home, the company had captured some 80 percent of the worldwide market for home video games.
All of this, however, was too good to last. By late 1982, the public’s fascination with arcade games had begun to low down, and fewer potential best-sellers were becoming available for conversion to cartridges that could be used on an Atari machine. At the same time, the market was flooded with illegal software of all types. It was thus not until the late 1980s that the unstructured nature of the industry, at least on the software side, had stabilized and become restructured in a manner similar, in many respects, to the book publishing business.
Until 1986, when Japan-based Nintendo introduced a more technologically sophisticated and user-friendly game console, the hardware side was also in disarray. But with tight control of software development and marketing, Nintendo was able to revive and then capture up to 80 percent of a once-again booming market in which no significant competition appeared until the early 1990s. By that point, the annual operating profits of Nintendo had already grown to over $1 billion - an amount exceeding the 1991 profits of all the major Hollywood film studios combined. In 1999, sales of game hardware and software, led by Playstation, were equal in size (around $7 billion) to US domestic box-office revenues.
With change the only constant, the game industry has moved on to become what it is today. However, no matter what the technology or the format, the essence of a successful game will always be the same: it is simple to understand and to play on an elementary level, but it is compulsive and maddeningly difficult – in fact, forever impossible – to master fully.
Simplified: a young University of Utah engine -> adaptation of Spacewar into coin-operated format was becoming economically feasible
Main idea: Tiến bộ kỹ thuật ⇒ việc chuyển đổi trò chơi sang định dạng dùng xu trở nên rẻ/khả thi.
Law has also become much more widely recognised as the standard by which behaviour needs to be judged. A very telling development in recent history is the way in which the idea of law has permeated all parts of social life. The universal standard of whether something is socially tolerated is progressively becoming whether it is legal, rather than something that has always been considered acceptable. In earlier times, most people were illiterate. Today, by contrast, a vast number of people can read, and it is becoming easier for people to take an interest in law, and for the general population to help actually shape the law in many countries. However, law is a versatile instrument that can be used equally well for the improvement or the degradation of humanity.
C. This, of course, puts law in a very significant position. In our rapidly developing world, all sorts of skills and knowledge are valuable. Those people, for example, with knowledge of computers, the internet, and communications technology are relied upon by the rest of us. There is now someone with IT skills or an IT help desk in every UK school, every company, every hospital, every local and central government office. Without their knowledge, many parts of commercial and social life today would seize up in minutes. But legal understanding is just as vital and as universally needed. The American comedian Jerry Seinfeld put it like this, ‘We are all throwing the dice, playing the game, moving our pieces around the board, but if there is a problem, the lawyer is the only person who has read the inside of the top of the box.’ In other words, the lawyer is the only person who has read and made sense of the rules.
D. The number of laws has never been greater. In the UK alone, about 35 new Acts of Parliament are produced every year, thereby delivering thousands of new rules. The legislative output of the British Parliament has more than doubled in recent times from 1,100 pages a year in the early 1970s, to over 2,500 pages a year today. Between 1997 and 2006, the legislature passed 365 Acts of Parliament and more than 32,000 legally binding statutory instruments. In a system with so much law, lawyers do a great deal not just to vindicate the rights of citizens and organizations but also to help develop the law through legal arguments, some of which are adapted by judges to become laws. Law courts can and do produce new law and revise old law, but they do so having heard the arguments of lawyers.
E. However, despite their important role in developing the rules, lawyers are not universally admired. Anti-lawyer jokes have a long history going back to the ancient Greeks. More recently the son of a famous Hollywood actor was asked at his junior school what his father did for a living, to which he replied, ‘My daddy is a movie actor, and sometimes he plays the good guy, and sometimes, he plays the lawyer.’ For balance, though, it is worth remembering that there are and have been many heroic and revered lawyers such as the Roman philosopher and politician Cicero, and Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian campaigner for Independence.
F. People sometimes make comments that characterise lawyers as professionals whose concerns put personal reward above truth, or who gain financially from misfortune. There are undoubtedly lawyers that would fit that bill, just as there are some scientists, journalists and others in that category. But, in general, it is no more just to say that lawyers are bad because they make a living from people’s problems than it is to make the same accusation in respect of nurses or IT consultants. A great many lawyers are involved in public law work, such as that involving civil liberties, housing and other issues. Such work is not lavishly remunerated and the quality of the service provided by these lawyers relies on considerable professional dedication. Moreover, much legal work has nothing to do with conflict or misfortune, but is primarily concerned with drafting documents. Another source of social disaffection for lawyers, and disaffection for the law, is a limited public understanding of how law works and how it could be changed. Greater clarity about these issues, maybe as a result of better public relations, would reduce many aspects of public dissatisfaction with the law.
Over the past 50 millennia, Australia has witnessed the extinction of many species of large animals, including a rhinoceros-sized wombat and goannas the size of crocodiles Debate about the possible cause of these extinctions has continued for more than 150 years and one the crucial questions raised is how long humans and megafauna coexisted in Australia. We need to know the overlap of time to make an informed choice between the two main theories regarding the causes of these extinctions. If humans and megafauna coexisted for a protracted period then climate change is the more likely cause. However, if the megafauna became extinct shortly after the arrival of humans, then humans are the likely culprits.
The archaeological site at Cuddie Springs in eastern Australia appears to be well preserved. This dusty claypan holds within its sediments a rich cache of flaked stone and seed-grinding tools, and side by side with these clear signals of human culture are the bones of a dozen or more species of megafauna. Drs Judith Field and Stephen Wroe of the University of Sydney, who excavated the site, claim that it provides unequivocal evidence of a long overlap of humans and megafauna, and conclude that aridity leading up to the last Ice Age brought about their eventual demise. In the long-standing explanation of this site, artefacts such as stone tools and extinct animals remain were deposited over many thousands of years in an ephemeral lake - a body of water existing for a relatively short time - and remained in place and undisturbed until the present day.
There is no disputing the close association of bones and stones at Cuddie Springs, as both are found 1 to 1.7 metres below the modern surface. The dating of these layers is accurate: ages for the sediments were obtained through radiocarbon dating of charcoal fragments and luminescence dating of sand grains from the same levels (revealing when a sample was last exposed to sunlight). Intriguingly, some of the stone show surface features indicating their use for processing plants, and a few even have well-preserved blood and hair residues suggesting they were used in butchering animals.
But is the case proposed by Field aside Wroe clear-cut? We carried out a reanalyse of the scientific data from Cuddie Springs that brings into question their conclusions. The amount of anthropological evidence found at the site is remarkable: we estimate there are more than 3 tonnes of charcoal and more than 300 tonnes of stone buried there. Field and Wroe estimate that there are approximately 20 million artefacts. This plethora of tools is hard to reconcile with a site that was only available for occupation when the lake was dry. Furthermore, no cultural features such as oven pits have been discovered. If the sediment layers have remained undisturbed since being laid down, as Field and Wroe contend, then the ages of those sediments should increase with depth. However, our analysis revealed a number of inconsistencies.
First, the charcoal samples are all roughly 36,000 years old. Second, sand in the two upper levels is considerably younger than charcoal from the same levels. Third, Field and Wroe say that the tools and seed-grinding stones used for plant and animal processing are ancient, yet they are very similar to implements found elsewhere that were in use only a few thousand years ago. Also interest is the fact that a deep drill core made a mere 60 metres from the site recovered no stone artefact or fossil bones whatsoever. These points suggest strongly that the sediments have been moved about and some of the old charcoal has been re-deposited in younger layers. Indeed, one sample of cow bone found 1 metre below the surface came from sediments where charcoal dated at 6,000 and 23,000 years old is mixed with 17,000-year-old sand. The megafauna bones themselves have not yet dated, although new technological developments make this a possibility in the near future.
We propose that the archaeologists have actually been sampling the debris carried by ancient flood channels beneath the site, including charcoal transported from bushfires that intermittently occurred within the catchment. Flood events more likely explain the accumulation of megafauna remains, and could have mixed old bones with fresh deposits. European graziers also disturbed the site in 1876 by constructing a well to provide water their cattle. Given the expense of well-digging, we speculate that the graziers made sure it was protected from the damage caused by cattle hooves by lining the surface with small stones collected from further afield, including prehistoric quarries. This idea is consistent with the thin layer of stones spread over a large area, with cattle occasionally breaking through the gravel surface and forcing the stone and even cattle bones deeper into the waterlogged soil.
The lack of conclusive evidence that humans and megafauna coexisted for a lengthy period casts doubt on Field and Wroe’s assertion that climate change was responsible for the extinction of Australia’s megafauna. However, we do not suggest that newly arrived, well-armed hunters systematically slaughtered all the large beasts they encountered. Recent studies based on the biology of modern-day large.
Mammals, combined with observations of people who still practise a traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle, reveal an unexpected paradox and suggest a further possible explanation as to what happened. Using a mathematical model, it was found that a group of 10 people killing only one juvenile Diprotodon each year would be sufficient to bring about the extinction of that spaces within 1,000 years. This suggests that here, as in other parts of the word, the arrival of humans in lands previously inhabited only by animals created a volatile combination in which large animals fared badly.
