IELTS Real Reading Test 2026 - Q1 Test 5 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Luyện tập đề IELTS Real Reading Test 2026 - Q1 Test 5 được lấy từ cuốn sách Real Test 2026 - 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 2026 - Q1 Test 5 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 1
Question 1 - 7
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Graphite was found under a
1.
in Borrowdale, and it was dirty to use because it was
2.
.
Ancient people used graphite to sign
3.
. People found graphite
4.
in Britain.
The first pencil was graphite wrapped in
5.
or animal skin.
Since graphite was too smooth,
6.
was added to make it harder.
Russian astronauts preferred
7.
pencils to write in outer space.
Question 8 - 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
8
Italy is probably the first country of the whole world to make pencils.
9
Germany used various kinds of wood to make pencils.
10
Graphite makes a pencil harder and sharper.
11
In Britain, pencils are not produced any more.
12
American astronauts did not use pencils in outer space.
13
Pencils are unlikely to be used in the future.
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 2
Question 14 - 19
Reading Passage has nine paragraphs A-I
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-I
14
A reason the early explorers left some objects behind.
15
An explanation of how to see the huts without travelling to Antarctica.
16
Reference to the fact that Robert Falcon Scott enjoyed the time he spent living in the hut.
17
Reference to how the Ross Island project has received attention from the media.
18
The reason the trust decided to begin conservation work at Ross Island.
19
A description of the process for preserving paper.
Question 20 - 21
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Which TWO research activities were carried out by Scott’s expedition team?
A
collecting samples of sea life
B
monitoring penguin behaviour
C
studying the effects of cold on the human body
D
keeping a record of Antarctic weather patterns
E
drawing pictures of plants and animals
Question 22 - 23
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Which TWO statements are true about the conservation workers on Ross Island?
A
They lived in Scott’s huts while carrying out the work.
B
They were in Antarctica for months at a time.
C
They had previously worked together in New Zealand.
D
They restored the contents as well as the buildings themselves.
E
They had no access to showers at all.
Question 24 - 26
Write ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Cape Adare
Cape Adare is located several hundred kilometres north of Scott’s hut. The huts on Cape as those on Ross Island and the workers have to be careful. Adare are not as as those on Ross Island and the workers have to be careful not to disturb the group of living nearby. Visitors to Antarctica must have a to see the restored huts.
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 3
Question 27 - 33
The Reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-G.
From the list of headings below choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph.
Write the appropriate numbers i-viii
List of Headings
I
A negative reaction to receiving flowers
II
Some surprisingly strong responses to flowers
III
A mutually beneficial relationship?
IV
Becoming more open about personal matters
V
Some common social functions of flowers
VI
Sensory appeal versus practical purpose of flowers
VII
Bridging the gap between strangers in an enclosed space
VIII
An imperfect theory
27
Paragraph A
28
Paragraph B
29
Paragraph C
30
Paragraph D
31
Paragraph E
32
Paragraph F
33
Paragraph G
Question 34 - 37
Classify the following statements as referring to
Choose the correct letter, A, B or C
List of Findings
A
the first study
B
the second study
C
the third study
34
The study focused on participants’ short-term reaction to receiving flowers.
35
Participants were deliberately misled as to the aim of the study.
36
Receiving flowers had a notable effect on participants’ mental capacities.
37
Male and female responses were more uniform than expected.
Question 38 - 40
Complete the summary of paragraph E below.
Write ONE WORD ONLY from paragraph E for each answer.
A possible explanation for the appeal of flowers
It has been suggested that our intense response to flowers originates in prehistoric times. The presence of flowers might indicate a potential source of in a particular location, and primitive humans would search for such signs when looking for a suitable site to raise their . The interpretation of these signs was essential for the survival of our ancestors. However, the problem with this idea is that the plants producing the most attractive flowers do not usually have fruit which is .
DOL IELTS Đình Lực
05/05/2026
📖 Bài đọc passage 1
The history of the pencil
The beginning of the story of pencils started with a lightning. Graphite, the main material for producing pencils, was discovered in 1564 in Borrowdale in England when a lightning struck a local tree during a thunderstorm. Local people found out that the black substance spotted at the root of the unlucky tree was different from burning ash of wood. It was soft, thus leaving marks everywhere. Chemistry was barely out of its infancy at the time, so people mistook it for lead, equally black but much heavier. It was soon put to use by locals in marking their sheep for ownership and calculation.
Britain turns out to be a major country where mines of graphite can be detected and developed. Even so, the first pencil was invented elsewhere. As graphite is soft, it requires some form of encasement. In Italy, graphite sticks were initially wrapped in string or sheepskin for stability, becoming perhaps the very first pencil in the world. Then around 1560, an Italian couple made what are likely the first blueprints for the modern, wood-encased carpentry pencil. Their version was a flat, oval, more compact type of pencil. Their concept involved the hollowing out of a stick of juniper wood. Shortly thereafter in 1662, a superior technique was discovered by German people: two wooden halves were carved, a graphite stick inserted, and the halves then glued together - essentially the same method in use to this day. The news of the usefulness of these early pencils spread far and wide, attracting the attention of artists all over the known world.
Although the graphite core in pencils is still referred to as lead, modern pencils do not contain lead as the “lead” of the pencil is actually a mix of finely ground graphite and clay powders. This mixture is important because the amount of clay content added to the graphite depends on the intended pencil hardness, and the amount of time spent on grinding the mixture determines the quality of the lead. The more clay you put in, the higher hardness the core has. Many pencils across the world, and almost all in Europe, are graded on the European system. This system of naming used B for black and H for hard; a pencil’s grade was described by a sequence of successive Hs or Bs such as BB and BBB for successively softer leads, and HH and HHH for successively harder ones. Then the standard writing pencil is graded HB.
In England, pencils continue to be made from whole sawn graphite. But with the mass production of pencils, they are getting drastically more popular in many countries with each passing decade. As demands rise, appetite for graphite soars.
According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), world production of natural graphite in 2012 was 1,100,000 tonnes, of which the following major exporters are: China, India, Brazil, North Korea and Canada. However, much in contrast with its intellectual application in producing pencils, graphite was also widely used in the military. During the reign of Elizabeth I, Borrowdale graphite was used as a refractory material to line moulds for cannonballs, resulting in rounder, smoother balls that could be fired farther, contributing to the strength of the English navy. This particular deposit of graphite was extremely pure and soft, and could easily be broken into sticks. Because of its military importance, this unique mine and its production were strictly controlled by the Crown.
That the United States did not use pencils in outer space till they spent $1000 to make a pencil to use in zero gravity conditions is in fact a fiction. It is widely known that astronauts in Russia used grease pencils, which don’t have breakage problems. But it is also a fact that their counterparts in the United States used pencils in outer space before real zero gravity pencil was invented. They preferred mechanical pencils, which produced fine lines, much clearer than the smudgy lines left by the grease pencils that Russians favored. But the lead tips of these mechanical pencils broke often. That bit of graphite floating around the space capsule could get into someone’s eye, or even find its way into machinery or electronics, causing an electrical short or other problems. But despite the fact that the Americans did invent zero gravity pencils later, they stuck to mechanical pencils for many years.
Against the backcloth of a digitalized world, the prospect of pencils seems bleak. In reality, it does not. The application of pencils has by now become so widespread that they can be seen everywhere, such as classrooms, meeting rooms and art rooms, etc. A spectrum of users are likely to continue to use it into the future: students to do math works, artists to draw on sketch pads, waiters or waitresses to mark on order boards, make-up professionals to apply to faces, and architects to produce blue prints. The possibilities seem limitless.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 1
1
tree
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: Graphite was found under a ______ in Borrowdale
Prediction: Từ cần điền là danh từ (N) → chỉ một vật thể mà graphite được tìm thấy bên dưới.
-------
Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khoá: “Graphite”, “Borrowdale”, “found/discovered”
=> Dựa vào các từ khoá trên -> Tìm được trích dẫn ở đoạn 1.
-------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand (main + detail)
📌 Trích dẫn: “Graphite … was discovered in 1564 in Borrowdale in England when a lightning struck a local tree during a thunderstorm. Local people found out that the black substance spotted at the root of the unlucky tree was different from burning ash of wood.”
Simplified: in 1564 , graphite was discovered when lightning struck a local tree the black substance was spotted at the root of the tree
Main idea: Graphite được phát hiện ở gốc của một cây bị sét đánh tại Borrowdale.
-------
Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
Trong bài đọc: Graphite được tìm thấy tại gốc của một cái cây.
Trong câu hỏi: Graphite được tìm thấy dưới ______ ở Borrowdale.
A. Few people conjuring up the ‘most comfortable dwelling place imaginable’ are likely to picture a wooden shelter on an island off the coldest continent on Earth. But that’s how Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott described the hut at Cape Evans on Ross Island that was the base for his 1910-13 expedition. The hut is nestled below a small hill on a long stretch of black sand. In 2011, it looked like a building site, but now, seals lie on the ice in front of the newly restored structure and sun reflects off the cliffs of the nearby glacier.
B
The New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust (NZAHT) and its team of conservation workers recently announced the completion of 10 years of intensive work to save three historic buildings on Ross Island. As well as the hut at Cape Evans, it has worked on the Discovery Hut from Scott’s 1901-04 expedition at Hut Point, and the hut at Cape Royds, built for Ernest Shackleton’s 1907-09 expedition. When work began, many of the artefacts were temporarily removed while carpenters from the team of conservation workers repaired the walls, floors and roof. In Scott’s ‘zone of command’ was the table where team member Edward Wilson made his enduring biological and botanical illustrations. In a dark corner nearby, Edward Atkinson had once incubated his molds and parasites. Of particular interest is the small workbench and array of test tubes, sample jars and Bunsen burner stands of biologist Edward Nelson, lit by sunshine through a dusty window. This was where the young scientist preserved marine specimens as part of his search for new species and an understanding of the Antarctic food chain.
C
The NZAHT executive director Nigel Watson describes the three restored huts as ‘fantastic remnants of humans’ first contact with the continent’. The idea for the birth of the conservation project, he says, ‘was the fact that we were in great danger of losing them’. When the on-site work began in 2004, snow and ice were building up around, under and sometimes inside the huts, damaging the structures and threatening their contents. ‘We now have three buildings that are structurally sound and watertight with a very different feel - they are drier and lighter and the humidity is reduced. It’s a much better environment for the collection.’
D
As well as heritage carpenters, the NZAHT team on Ross Island has included experts in textile, paper and metal conservation: in total, 62 experts from 11 countries have visited Antarctica to work on the project, often spending a whole summer on-site, sleeping in tents and popping 25km back to Scott Base for the occasional shower. ‘It became known as the most exciting conservation project in the world,’ says Watson, ‘so it attracted top heritage conservation talent.’
E
Some of the most exciting discoveries were three intact crates of ‘Mackinlay’s Rare Old Highland Malt Whisky’ found encased in ice beneath Shackleton's hut, a paper notebook that belonged to surgeon, zoologist and photographer George Murray Levick found buried in dirt at Cape Evans and a small box of 22 cellulose nitrate negatives waiting to be developed into photographs found in Herbert Ponting’s darkroom. But most of the 18,202 items catalogued and conserved are more mundane: food, tools, clothing and other personal items that were not precious enough to be taken home on the return voyages.
F
The NZAHT team’s conservation treatments involved thorough cleaning, followed by chemical treatment to help slow, or even reverse, the deterioration. Metal items would go through corrosion removal, followed by a chemical stabilisation treatment, then application of an oxygen and moisture barrier to prevent further corrosion. Treatment of paper items often involved washing to remove harmful acids and salts and to help reinforce the fibres so that in some cases the paper was even stronger than before.
G
As a result of the project, the NZAHT has become the world leader in cold-climate heritage conservation and its members have been interviewed for numerous television documentaries and radio reports. The Ross Island huts are ‘the jewels in the crown’, says Watson, but there are other historic buildings needing attention. With logistics support from Antarctica New Zealand, programme managers Al Fastier and Lizzie Meek will be part of a small team heading to Cape Adare, an exposed site more than 700 km north of Scott Base. The two Cape Adare huts, remnants of an 1898-1900 British expedition, ‘are not only the first buildings on the continent’, says Watson, but also ‘the only example of humanity’s first buildings on any continent on Earth.’
H
The three-year restoration effort will involve construction repairs and the removal, conservation and return of about 1100 objects. Compared with the hut sites on Ross Island, which are relatively sheltered, Cape Adare is ‘a very remote and challenging place to work in,’ says Watson. It’s set among the world's biggest colony of Adélie penguins on an exposed spit of land, and it is important that they don’t interrupt the functioning of the colony in any way while they are there. Lizzie Meek looks forward to the challenge. ‘But I’m also looking forward to going back to the Ross Island huts and seeing them with fresh eyes. After so many years of working on them, to be able to step inside and look around to see what we have accomplished will be amazing.’
I
If you can find your way to Antarctica, you’ll need a permit to visit any of these huts, which are each in an Antarctic Specially Protected Area. But there’s an easier way to see them without making the long journey: the trust has partnered with Google to offer Street View walkthroughs of each of the dwellings, available via Google Earth or through the NZAHT’s website.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 2
14
E
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 reason the early explorers left some objects behind
Specify & Predict: Tìm đoạn văn giải thích nguyên nhân tại sao các đồ vật không được mang về, ví dụ: chúng không đủ quý giá, quá nặng để mang theo, hoặc chỉ là đồ dùng sinh hoạt thông thường....
-------
Step 02: Khoanh vùng đoạn văn
🔍 Từ khóa: “A reason", "early explorers", "left some objects behind"
→ Dựa vào các từ khoá trên, có thể khoanh vùng được đoạn E vì có xuất hiện các cụm như:
"food, tools, clothing" (thực phẩm, công cụ, quần áo - liệt kê các "objects");
"not precious enough to be taken home" (không đủ quý giá để mang về nhà - tương ứng với "a reason");
"return voyages" (những chuyến đi trở về - bối cảnh của "explorers").
→ Đây là giải thích cụ thể cho "why the early explorers left some objects behind".
A. Why do we give people flowers? To offer condolence to those who are grieving. To celebrate. To woo. To ask for forgiveness. We all know intuitvely that there is something psychologically powerful about giving flowers; in fact, few objects provoke such a universal emotional response. In the US alone, the flower industry is now worth about $5bn a year - which suggests that, at the very least, they service a compelling human need.
B
Recent studies at the Department of Psychology at Rutgers State University of New Jersey investigated claims that flowers are unique among living organisms in their ability to induce profound changes in our emotional state. As the first part of their research, the Rutgers team visited 150 women in their homes. Each was presented with a variety of gifts such as flowers, fruit or sweets. The women were unaware that the study was about the effect of the flowers on their emotions. They were told that it was a study about their daily moods, and that they would receive a gift in return for taking part. Following the presentation of the gift, those receiving flowers were assessed as displaying a much more positive mood than those who got other gifts, and this effect lasted for several days. After receiving flowers, they were also more willing to answer questions concerning their social circle and intimate conversations with friends and family. The results suggest that flowers influence our secondary socio-emotional behaviours, as well as having a strong effect on our immediate emotional expression.
C
In the second study, the psychologists observed participants being handed single flowers, or alternative gifts, in a constrained and stressful situation - inside an elevator. Contrary to predictions regarding gender differences, both men and women presented with flowers were more likely to smile, to stand closer and to initiate conversation. Several subjects who were given the alternative gift then learnt that flowers were also being handed out, and returned to the elevator and demanded a flower. The scientists used elevators for this study precisely because the most typical behaviour in sparsely occupied elevators is for people to retreat to opposite corners. The subjects who received flowers, however, closed up that space to a considerable extent - indicating that the flowers not only induced a strong positive mood, but brought a significant affiliation among people who had never previously met.
D
The third study involved regularly sending flowers to a selected sample of men and women. The researchers found not only a profound elevation of mood, but also reliable improvements in other measures of cognitive function, like memory. In this series of experiments, some participants produced such extraordinary emotional displays that the psychologists were totally unprepared for them. Subjects gave spontaneous hugs and kisses to the people who delivered the flowers, and sent invitations to the psychologists to come to their homes for refreshments.
E
Various evolutionary hypotheses attempt to explain the remarkably powerful psychological effect of flowers. One is that our aesthetic preferences for fertile locations and growing things stem from prehistory, when these clues in our environment could mean the difference between starvation and survival. We may have become hardwired to respond positively to flowers because for early man, finding them in a particular location predicted future food supplies and possibly a better place to rear children. Yet the flaw in this argument is that the showy flowers which humans seem to find most visually attractive are generally found on those plants which yield no edible products.
F
The Rutgers psychologists’ findings show that the various physical attributes of flowers combine to directly affect our emotions through multi-channel interactions. We have evolved preferences for the particular colours, textures, patterned symmetries and specific floral odours which influence our moods. Indeed, previous research has established that popular perfumes, which often have a floral ‘top-note’, will actually reduce depression. The origins of these inclinations may well be as the evolutionary theories suggest: the patterned symmetries of flowers can be detected easily as a recognisable signal within a wide variety of visual arrays, and a response to certain colour tones is important in finding ripe fruit against a leafy background. But, claim the Rutgers team, these preferences have long been separated from their primary evolutionary use, and become rewarding to us more generally. Thus plants with preferred colours, shapes and odours - despite having no other products - would therefore be protected and dispersed.
G
The Rutgers study suggests that flowers may have actually evolved to exploit their peculiar impact on humans. The team's theory proposes a plant-human co-evolution, or even domestication, based on the intense emotional rewards that flowers provide. The idea that flowering plants, with no known food or other basic survival value to man, have co-evolved with us by exploiting an emotional niche instead, is very much like the scenario presented for the evolution of dogs. Flowers may be the plant equivalent of ‘companion animals’. If this is true, then there is a very real sense in which, when you next give flowers, they are using you just as much as you are using them.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 3
27
V
Giải thích chi tiết
Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Matching Headings
Step 01: Read to understand main idea
Câu (1->5) nêu trực diện: con người tặng hoa để chia buồn, chúc mừng, tán tỉnh, xin lỗi → đây đều là chức năng xã hội (social functions).
Các câu sau (6->7) chỉ củng cố rằng việc tặng hoa đáp ứng một nhu cầu cảm xúc phổ quát, nên càng hợp lý khi hoa xuất hiện trong nhiều tình huống xã hội khác nhau.
⇒ Main idea: Hoa được tặng trong nhiều tình huống đời sống để thực hiện các chức năng xã hội/cảm xúc quen thuộc (condolence, celebration, wooing, apology).
Step 02: Compare meaning with meaning
Đại ý đoạn A: liệt kê những mục đích xã hội phổ biến khi tặng hoa + nhấn mạnh sức mạnh cảm xúc khiến nhu cầu này rất lớn.
Option E: “Some common social functions of flowers” = “Một số chức năng xã hội phổ biến của hoa”.
✅ Khớp trực tiếp với câu đầu đoạn (liệt kê chức năng), nên đáp án đúng là: E. Some common social functions of flowers.
The beginning of the story of pencils started with a lightning. Graphite, the main material for producing pencils, was discovered in 1564 in Borrowdale in England when a lightning struck a local tree during a thunderstorm. Local people found out that the black substance spotted at the root of the unlucky tree was different from burning ash of wood. It was soft, thus leaving marks everywhere. Chemistry was barely out of its infancy at the time, so people mistook it for lead, equally black but much heavier. It was soon put to use by locals in marking their sheep for ownership and calculation.
Britain turns out to be a major country where mines of graphite can be detected and developed. Even so, the first pencil was invented elsewhere. As graphite is soft, it requires some form of encasement. In Italy, graphite sticks were initially wrapped in string or sheepskin for stability, becoming perhaps the very first pencil in the world. Then around 1560, an Italian couple made what are likely the first blueprints for the modern, wood-encased carpentry pencil. Their version was a flat, oval, more compact type of pencil. Their concept involved the hollowing out of a stick of juniper wood. Shortly thereafter in 1662, a superior technique was discovered by German people: two wooden halves were carved, a graphite stick inserted, and the halves then glued together - essentially the same method in use to this day. The news of the usefulness of these early pencils spread far and wide, attracting the attention of artists all over the known world.
Although the graphite core in pencils is still referred to as lead, modern pencils do not contain lead as the “lead” of the pencil is actually a mix of finely ground graphite and clay powders. This mixture is important because the amount of clay content added to the graphite depends on the intended pencil hardness, and the amount of time spent on grinding the mixture determines the quality of the lead. The more clay you put in, the higher hardness the core has. Many pencils across the world, and almost all in Europe, are graded on the European system. This system of naming used B for black and H for hard; a pencil’s grade was described by a sequence of successive Hs or Bs such as BB and BBB for successively softer leads, and HH and HHH for successively harder ones. Then the standard writing pencil is graded HB.
In England, pencils continue to be made from whole sawn graphite. But with the mass production of pencils, they are getting drastically more popular in many countries with each passing decade. As demands rise, appetite for graphite soars.
According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), world production of natural graphite in 2012 was 1,100,000 tonnes, of which the following major exporters are: China, India, Brazil, North Korea and Canada. However, much in contrast with its intellectual application in producing pencils, graphite was also widely used in the military. During the reign of Elizabeth I, Borrowdale graphite was used as a refractory material to line moulds for cannonballs, resulting in rounder, smoother balls that could be fired farther, contributing to the strength of the English navy. This particular deposit of graphite was extremely pure and soft, and could easily be broken into sticks. Because of its military importance, this unique mine and its production were strictly controlled by the Crown.
That the United States did not use pencils in outer space till they spent $1000 to make a pencil to use in zero gravity conditions is in fact a fiction. It is widely known that astronauts in Russia used grease pencils, which don’t have breakage problems. But it is also a fact that their counterparts in the United States used pencils in outer space before real zero gravity pencil was invented. They preferred mechanical pencils, which produced fine lines, much clearer than the smudgy lines left by the grease pencils that Russians favored. But the lead tips of these mechanical pencils broke often. That bit of graphite floating around the space capsule could get into someone’s eye, or even find its way into machinery or electronics, causing an electrical short or other problems. But despite the fact that the Americans did invent zero gravity pencils later, they stuck to mechanical pencils for many years.
Against the backcloth of a digitalized world, the prospect of pencils seems bleak. In reality, it does not. The application of pencils has by now become so widespread that they can be seen everywhere, such as classrooms, meeting rooms and art rooms, etc. A spectrum of users are likely to continue to use it into the future: students to do math works, artists to draw on sketch pads, waiters or waitresses to mark on order boards, make-up professionals to apply to faces, and architects to produce blue prints. The possibilities seem limitless.
was discovered
lightning
struck a local tree
the black substance
was spotted at the root of the tree
B. The New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust (NZAHT) and its team of conservation workers recently announced the completion of 10 years of intensive work to save three historic buildings on Ross Island. As well as the hut at Cape Evans, it has worked on the Discovery Hut from Scott’s 1901-04 expedition at Hut Point, and the hut at Cape Royds, built for Ernest Shackleton’s 1907-09 expedition. When work began, many of the artefacts were temporarily removed while carpenters from the team of conservation workers repaired the walls, floors and roof. In Scott’s ‘zone of command’ was the table where team member Edward Wilson made his enduring biological and botanical illustrations. In a dark corner nearby, Edward Atkinson had once incubated his molds and parasites. Of particular interest is the small workbench and array of test tubes, sample jars and Bunsen burner stands of biologist Edward Nelson, lit by sunshine through a dusty window. This was where the young scientist preserved marine specimens as part of his search for new species and an understanding of the Antarctic food chain.
C. The NZAHT executive director Nigel Watson describes the three restored huts as ‘fantastic remnants of humans’ first contact with the continent’. The idea for the birth of the conservation project, he says, ‘was the fact that we were in great danger of losing them’. When the on-site work began in 2004, snow and ice were building up around, under and sometimes inside the huts, damaging the structures and threatening their contents. ‘We now have three buildings that are structurally sound and watertight with a very different feel - they are drier and lighter and the humidity is reduced. It’s a much better environment for the collection.’
D. As well as heritage carpenters, the NZAHT team on Ross Island has included experts in textile, paper and metal conservation: in total, 62 experts from 11 countries have visited Antarctica to work on the project, often spending a whole summer on-site, sleeping in tents and popping 25km back to Scott Base for the occasional shower. ‘It became known as the most exciting conservation project in the world,’ says Watson, ‘so it attracted top heritage conservation talent.’
E. Some of the most exciting discoveries were three intact crates of ‘Mackinlay’s Rare Old Highland Malt Whisky’ found encased in ice beneath Shackleton's hut, a paper notebook that belonged to surgeon, zoologist and photographer George Murray Levick found buried in dirt at Cape Evans and a small box of 22 cellulose nitrate negatives waiting to be developed into photographs found in Herbert Ponting’s darkroom. But most of the 18,202 items catalogued and conserved are more mundane: food, tools, clothing and other personal items that were not precious enough to be taken home on the return voyages.
F. The NZAHT team’s conservation treatments involved thorough cleaning, followed by chemical treatment to help slow, or even reverse, the deterioration. Metal items would go through corrosion removal, followed by a chemical stabilisation treatment, then application of an oxygen and moisture barrier to prevent further corrosion. Treatment of paper items often involved washing to remove harmful acids and salts and to help reinforce the fibres so that in some cases the paper was even stronger than before.
G. As a result of the project, the NZAHT has become the world leader in cold-climate heritage conservation and its members have been interviewed for numerous television documentaries and radio reports. The Ross Island huts are ‘the jewels in the crown’, says Watson, but there are other historic buildings needing attention. With logistics support from Antarctica New Zealand, programme managers Al Fastier and Lizzie Meek will be part of a small team heading to Cape Adare, an exposed site more than 700 km north of Scott Base. The two Cape Adare huts, remnants of an 1898-1900 British expedition, ‘are not only the first buildings on the continent’, says Watson, but also ‘the only example of humanity’s first buildings on any continent on Earth.’
H. The three-year restoration effort will involve construction repairs and the removal, conservation and return of about 1100 objects. Compared with the hut sites on Ross Island, which are relatively sheltered, Cape Adare is ‘a very remote and challenging place to work in,’ says Watson. It’s set among the world's biggest colony of Adélie penguins on an exposed spit of land, and it is important that they don’t interrupt the functioning of the colony in any way while they are there. Lizzie Meek looks forward to the challenge. ‘But I’m also looking forward to going back to the Ross Island huts and seeing them with fresh eyes. After so many years of working on them, to be able to step inside and look around to see what we have accomplished will be amazing.’
I. If you can find your way to Antarctica, you’ll need a permit to visit any of these huts, which are each in an Antarctic Specially Protected Area. But there’s an easier way to see them without making the long journey: the trust has partnered with Google to offer Street View walkthroughs of each of the dwellings, available via Google Earth or through the NZAHT’s website.
B. Recent studies at the Department of Psychology at Rutgers State University of New Jersey investigated claims that flowers are unique among living organisms in their ability to induce profound changes in our emotional state. As the first part of their research, the Rutgers team visited 150 women in their homes. Each was presented with a variety of gifts such as flowers, fruit or sweets. The women were unaware that the study was about the effect of the flowers on their emotions. They were told that it was a study about their daily moods, and that they would receive a gift in return for taking part. Following the presentation of the gift, those receiving flowers were assessed as displaying a much more positive mood than those who got other gifts, and this effect lasted for several days. After receiving flowers, they were also more willing to answer questions concerning their social circle and intimate conversations with friends and family. The results suggest that flowers influence our secondary socio-emotional behaviours, as well as having a strong effect on our immediate emotional expression.
C. In the second study, the psychologists observed participants being handed single flowers, or alternative gifts, in a constrained and stressful situation - inside an elevator. Contrary to predictions regarding gender differences, both men and women presented with flowers were more likely to smile, to stand closer and to initiate conversation. Several subjects who were given the alternative gift then learnt that flowers were also being handed out, and returned to the elevator and demanded a flower. The scientists used elevators for this study precisely because the most typical behaviour in sparsely occupied elevators is for people to retreat to opposite corners. The subjects who received flowers, however, closed up that space to a considerable extent - indicating that the flowers not only induced a strong positive mood, but brought a significant affiliation among people who had never previously met.
D. The third study involved regularly sending flowers to a selected sample of men and women. The researchers found not only a profound elevation of mood, but also reliable improvements in other measures of cognitive function, like memory. In this series of experiments, some participants produced such extraordinary emotional displays that the psychologists were totally unprepared for them. Subjects gave spontaneous hugs and kisses to the people who delivered the flowers, and sent invitations to the psychologists to come to their homes for refreshments.
E. Various evolutionary hypotheses attempt to explain the remarkably powerful psychological effect of flowers. One is that our aesthetic preferences for fertile locations and growing things stem from prehistory, when these clues in our environment could mean the difference between starvation and survival. We may have become hardwired to respond positively to flowers because for early man, finding them in a particular location predicted future food supplies and possibly a better place to rear children. Yet the flaw in this argument is that the showy flowers which humans seem to find most visually attractive are generally found on those plants which yield no edible products.
F. The Rutgers psychologists’ findings show that the various physical attributes of flowers combine to directly affect our emotions through multi-channel interactions. We have evolved preferences for the particular colours, textures, patterned symmetries and specific floral odours which influence our moods. Indeed, previous research has established that popular perfumes, which often have a floral ‘top-note’, will actually reduce depression. The origins of these inclinations may well be as the evolutionary theories suggest: the patterned symmetries of flowers can be detected easily as a recognisable signal within a wide variety of visual arrays, and a response to certain colour tones is important in finding ripe fruit against a leafy background. But, claim the Rutgers team, these preferences have long been separated from their primary evolutionary use, and become rewarding to us more generally. Thus plants with preferred colours, shapes and odours - despite having no other products - would therefore be protected and dispersed.
G. The Rutgers study suggests that flowers may have actually evolved to exploit their peculiar impact on humans. The team's theory proposes a plant-human co-evolution, or even domestication, based on the intense emotional rewards that flowers provide. The idea that flowering plants, with no known food or other basic survival value to man, have co-evolved with us by exploiting an emotional niche instead, is very much like the scenario presented for the evolution of dogs. Flowers may be the plant equivalent of ‘companion animals’. If this is true, then there is a very real sense in which, when you next give flowers, they are using you just as much as you are using them.
