IELTS Real Reading Test Pre 2025 - Vol 1 Test 4 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Luyện tập đề IELTS Real Reading Test Pre 2025 - Vol 1 Test 4 được lấy từ cuốn sách Real Test Pre 2025 - Vol 1 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 Pre 2025 - Vol 1 Test 4 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 1
Question 1 - 8
Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed A-G) with opinions or deeds below.
NB you may use any letter more than once
List of Findings
A
Tony Brown
B
Patrick Leahy
C
Bill Bowler
D
Paul Jepson
E
Art Pimms
F
Steve Black
G
Rick Hilton
1
There is a double advantage to the new techniques.
2
The work on developing these alternative techniques is not finished.
3
Eating food that has had chemicals used in its production is dangerous to our health.
4
Changing current farming methods into a new one is not a cheap process.
5
Results have exceeded the anticipated goal.
6
The research done should be translated into practical projects.
7
The U.S. produces the best food in the world nowadays.
8
Expectations of end users of agricultural products affect the products.
Question 9 - 13
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
9
Integrated Pest Management has generally been regarded as a success across the US.
10
Oregon farmers of apples and pears have been promoted as successful examples of Integrated Pest Management.
11
The IPPC uses scientists from different organisations globally
12
Straw mulch experiments produced unplanned benefits.
13
The apple industry is now facing a lot of competition from abroad.
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 2
Question 14 - 20
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-ix
List of Headings
I
Requesting help from professionals
II
Types of meals and beverages that help
III
What not to do on a flight
IV
Symptoms of jet lag
V
Altering your sleep schedules
VI
Types of exercise to do
VII
A problem of the modem age
VIII
A remedy available from ordinary shops
IX
Timing exposure to sunshine
14
Paragraph A
15
Paragraph B
16
Paragraph C
17
Paragraph D
18
Paragraph E
19
Paragraph F
20
Paragraph G
Question 21 - 23
Look at the following statements and the list of experts below.
Match each statement with the correct expert, A-F.
Write the correct letter, A-F.
List of Findings
A
John Caldwell
B
Ranit Mishori
C
Pradeep Bollu
D
Kern Singh
E
Quay Snyder
F
Bruce Stephen Rashbaum
21
Using strong medicine is the most efficient way to get over jet lag.
22
Using natural supplements to reset biological processes can help travelers.
23
Having certain types of drinks lessens the quality of sleep.
Question 24 - 26
Choose ONE WORD ONL Y from the passage for each answer.
Why we experience jet lag
John Caldwell has studied sleep issues among personnel. He explains that jet lag is an issue because the human body can only naturally adapt to one change in time zones per day; traveling over more than that causes for our bodies. Unlike when traveling by , flying has resulted in us being able to change many time zones quickly. As this is a fairly new form of travel, the human body hasn't yet evolved to be able to cope with this.
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
It is useful to equate the discovery of fire with the invention of language.
28
The greatest pleasure people have is their ability to think clearly and rationally.
29
Tom Wolfe uses an expression that is copied by other authors.
30
Language allows human brains to do things that would be impossible without it.
Question 31 - 34
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes on your answer sheet.
31
What is the writer doing in the 2nd paragraph?
A
Highlighting his own language abilities.
B
Outlining his personal fascination with language.
C
Proposing his own theory about language development.
D
Describing the best way to learn a new language.
32
The writer refers to Thomas Edison in order to
A
compare older and more modern languages
B
highlight a misconception about language
C
contrast the study of language and science
D
illustrate the role of language over time
33
What does the writer suggest about human reasoning in the 4th paragraph?
A
It is oversimplified by some academics
B
It cannot be compared to language
C
It has been shaped by two factors
D
It gives humans two distinct skills
34
What is the writer’s main point in the 5th paragraph?
A
Academics should not pay attention to criticism.
B
Scientific knowledge is advanced by balanced debate.
C
Researchers should not be influenced by public opinion.
D
Rarely leads to a scientific breakthrough.
Question 35 - 40
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-H, below.
Write the correct letter, A-H, in boxes on your answer sheet.
Language: The cultural tool
To understand language, it is necessary to learn about its original birthplace in Africa and also to study its use in since then. The debate about genetic influence on language causes , because some academics believe that all languages are equal. But this is wrong: language speakers are equal, but some languages have and others do not. This is because each language has developed in order to meet the of the people who use it. What researchers need now is of more languages. This requires fieldwork, because we cannot learn about language by . It's true that language is partly the product of human genetics, but our languages have developed more from cultural experience.
A
similar structures
B
evolving needs
C
complicated grammar
D
strong emotions
E
intellectual abilities
F
mathematical analysis
G
numerous communities
H
useful descriptions
DOL IELTS Đình Lực
05/05/2026
📖 Bài đọc passage 1
New Agriculture in Oregon, US
A
A. Onion growers in eastern Oregon are adopting a system that saves water and keeps topsoil in place while producing the highest quality “super-colossal” onions. Pear growers in southern Oregon have reduced their use of some of the most toxic pesticides by up to two-thirds, and are still producing top-quality pear. Range managers throughout the state have controlled the poisonous weed tansy ragwort with insect predators and saved the Oregon livestock industry up to $4.8 million a year.
B
These are some of the results Oregon growers have achieved in collaboration with Oregon State University (OSU) researchers as they test new farming methods including integrated pest management (IPM). Nationwide, however, IPM has not delivered results comparable to those in Oregon. A recent U.S General Accounting Office (GAO) report indicates that while integrated pest management can result in dramatically reduced pesticide use, the federal government has been lacking in effectively promoting that goal and implementing IPM. Farmers also blame the government for, not making the new options of pest management attractive. "Wholesale changes in the way that farmers control the pests on their farms is an expensive business." Tony Brown, of the National Farmers Association says. "If the farmers are given tax breaks to offset the expenditure, then they would willingly accept the new practices." The report goes on to note that even though the use of the riskiest pesticides has declined nationwide, they still make up more than 40 percent of all pesticides used today; and national pesticide use has risen by 40 million kilograms since 1992. "Our food supply remains the safest and highest quality on Earth but we continue to overdose our farmland with powerful and toxic pesticides and to under-use the safe and effective alternatives," charged Patrick Leahy, who commissioned the report. Green action groups disagree about the safety issue. "There is no way that habitual consumption of foodstuffs grown using toxic chemicals of the nature found on today's farms can be healthy for consumers," noted Bill Bowler, spokesman for Green Action, one of many lobbyists interested in this issue.
C
The GAO report singles out Oregon's apple and pear producers who have used the new IPM techniques with growing success. Although Oregon is clearly ahead of the nation, scientists at OSU are taking the Government Accounting Office's criticisms seriously. "We must continue to develop effective alternative practices that will reduce environmental hazards and produce high-quality products," said Paul Jepson, a professor of entomology at OSU and new director of
D
OSU's Integrated Plant Protection Centre (IPPC). The IPPC brings together scientists from OSU's Agricultural Experiment Station, OSU Extension service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Oregon farmers to help develop agricultural systems that will save water and soil, and reduce pesticides. In response to the GAO report, the Centre is putting even more emphasis on integrating research and farming practices to improve Oregon agriculture environmentally and economically.
E
"The GAO report criticizes agencies for not clearly communicating the goals of IPM," said Jepson. "Our challenge is to greatly improve the Communication to and from growers, to learn what works and what doesn't. The work coming from OSU researchers must be adopted in the field and not simply languish in scientific journals."
F
In Oregon, growers and scientists are working together to instigate new practices. For example, a few years ago scientists at OSU's Malheur Experiment Station began testing a new drip irrigation system to replace old ditches (4) that wasted water and washed soil and fertilizer into streams. The new system cut water and fertilizer
use by half, kept topsoil in place and protected water quality.
G
In addition, the new system produced crops of very large onions, rated "super colossal" and highly valued by the restaurant industry and food processors. Art Pimms, one of the researchers at Malheur comments: "Growers are finding that when they adopt more environmentally benign practices, they can have excellent results. The new practices benefit the environment and give the growers their success."
H
OSU researchers in Malheur next tested straw mulch () and found that it successfully held soil in place and kept the ground moist with less irrigation. In addition, and unexpectedly, the scientists found that the mulched soil created a home for beneficial beetles and spiders that prey on onion thrips - a notorious pest in commercial onion fields - a discovery that could reduce the need for pesticides. "I would never have believed that we could replace the artificial pest controls that we had before and still keep our good results," commented Steve Black, a commercial onion farmer in Oregon, "but instead we have actually surpassed expectations."
I
OSU researchers throughout the state have been working to reduce dependence on broad-spectrum chemical spays that are toxic to many kinds of organisms, including humans. “Consumers are rightly putting more and more pressure on the industry to change its reliance on chemical pesticides, but they still want a picture-perfect product,” said Rick Hilton, an entomologist at OSU’s Southern Oregon Research and Extension Centre, where researches help pear growers reduce the need for highly toxic pesticides. Picture perfect pears are an important product in Oregon and traditionally they have required lots of chemicals. In recent years, the industry has faced stiff competition from overseas producers, so any new methods that growers adopt must make sense economically as well as environmentally. Hilton is testing a growth regulator that interferes with the molting of codling moth larvae. Another study used pheromone dispensers to disrupt codling moth mating. These and other methods of integrated pest management have allowed pear growers to reduce their use of organophosphates by two-thirds and reduce all other synthetic pesticides by even more and still produce top-quality pears. These and other studies around the state are part of the effort of the IPPC to find alternative farming practices that benefit both the economy and the environment.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 1
1
E
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Matching Names
Step 01: Read the question to understand main idea
Simplified: There is a double advantage to the new techniques
Main idea: Các kỹ thuật mới → mang lại lợi ích kép.
-------
Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khoá: new techniques; double advantage; benefit; success
→ Dựa vào các từ khoá trên → Tìm được trích dẫn ở đoạn G
-------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand (main + detail)
📌Trích dẫn đoạn văn liên quan: "Art Pimms, one of the researchers at Malheur comments: 'Growers are finding that when they adopt more environmentally benign practices, they can have excellent results. The new practices benefit the environment and give the growers their success.'" (Đoạn G)
Simplified: The new practices benefit the environment and give the growers their success
Main idea: Kỹ thuật mới → tốt cho môi trường = giúp người trồng thành công → lợi ích kép (environment + success).
-------
Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
Nội dung tìm được trong bài: Kỹ thuật mới vừa có lợi cho môi trường vừa giúp người trồng thành công → lợi ích kép.
Nội dung câu hỏi: Các kỹ thuật mới mang lại lợi ích kép.
A. We like to think we have control over our bodies, but the opposite is often true. Such is the case with 'circadian desynchrony', a condition more commonly known as jet lag. Exhaustion, headaches, difficulty concentrating, light-headedness, trouble falling asleep or staying asleep; these are common effects of jet lag. They have the power to ruin a vacation or business trip unless you learn how to trick your own body.
B
B.
Experimental psychologist John Caldwell has spent most of his career researching the effects of sleep deprivation and sleep restriction, while also studying countermeasures that sleep-deprived people can use to function better. Much of his research was conducted within the military community. Caldwell explains that while our bodies are able to adjust to about one time zone change per day, jet lag sets in when we cross three or more of them because it creates chaos in circadian rhythms (otherwise known as our body clock). That's a fairly new phenomenon, historically speaking. 'People now can fly from New York to Paris in nine, ten hours, whereas in 1923 you did it on a ship and it took you six days to get over to Europe,' Caldwell says. 'We just haven't evolved to the point where we can rapidly change those rhythms, because it's a relatively recent thing.'
C
Because of the problems your body has naturally adapting to time-zone changes, you need to manually adjust your body clock, and that means changing your bedtime to be better matched with the destination to which you re traveling. Ranit Mishori, a professor of family medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine, travels frequently to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. To be ready to work when she arrives, she starts adjusting her bedtime two to five days in advance to match the local time at her destination. That means going to bed earlier when going east and waking up much earlier,' she says. When she returns to the US, she does the same but in reverse.
John Caldwell creates a timetable that includes meetings, bedtimes, and social activities so that he can easily see what time it is at home and at his destination and plan accordingly. 'A lot of times, when you look at that table, right away you're going to see where you're going to have your biggest problems,' he says. If he's just traveling for a quick business trip and will only be gone a couple of days, he avoids gradual adjustment. Instead, he tries to schedule any meetings at a time when he would be awake and focused back home.
D
Circadian rhythms are influenced by natural light. While travel may disrupt those rhythms, you can help get them on track by regulating the amount of light that your body encounters, says Pradeep Bollu, associate director of the University of Missouri Health Care Sleep Disorders Center. When traveling east, your biological clock will be behind: ' ... avoiding bright light in the evening can help with advancing our biological clock,' he says. 'Similarly, bright light ... after waking up also will help advance our biological clock to suit the new time zone. When traveling westward, he adds, the biological clock is ahead of the latest time zone. He suggests gravitating toward bright light in the evening, if possible, and exercising to stay awake later and sleep longer.
E
One suggestion that is sometimes made is taking the hormone melatonin, which is a substance that is produced every night by the human body and helps you sleep. 'Taking a very small dose helps to recalibrate its release so that it is in sync with the time zone of your destination,' says Kern Singh, a spine surgeon in Chicago with Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush. Singh says he takes five milligrams of melatonin - which you can buy in pill form in supermarkets and many main street stores in the US - on the plane and then again when he lands.
F
Having a glass of wine on the plane may sound tempting, but it could negatively impact your sleep, which could worsen jet lag, says Quay Snyder, president and CEO of Aviation Medicine Advisory Service of Centennial, who advises pilots on staying in top condition while in the air. 'It definitely has a sedating effect as far as getting someone to sleep, but it destroys their rapid eye movement (REM) sleep so their actual mental recovery is reduced,' he says. Instead, he says, be sure and have plenty of water so that you stay hydrated while traveling.
G
Bruce Stephen Rashbaum, owner and medical director of Capital Center for Travel and Tropical Medicine in the District of Columbia, regularly advises patients on jet lag. He considers prednisone, which is a powerful prescription medication, to be the most effective tool for jet lag recovery. He instructs patients to take the medication when they land, which is typically early in the morning, and again in the late afternoon and the next day. 'It is this simple ritual that works nearly every time,' he says. So if in doubt, you can always ask your doctor for some assistance.
Everyone responds to jet lag differently. For those who suffer, the first week will be the most challenging, but after that, your body should start to recover.
🔥 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. Symptoms of jet lag
-------
Giải thích chi tiết
Step 01: Read to understand main idea
Dựa vào phần Simplify & Connection ở trên, ta có thể rút ra main idea như sau:
Tác giả nêu ví dụ về “circadian desynchrony” (jet lag) → mô tả hàng loạt triệu chứng (exhaustion, headache, trouble sleeping…) → kết luận rằng các triệu chứng này có thể phá hỏng chuyến đi.
⇒ Main idea: Miêu tả các triệu chứng và tác động của jet lag.
-------
Step 02: Compare meaning with meaning
Đại ý của đoạn: Jet lag khiến người ta mệt mỏi, mất tập trung và khó ngủ, gây ảnh hưởng tiêu cực tới công việc hoặc du lịch.
Đối chiếu với tiêu đề: D. Symptoms of jet lag = mô tả chính xác nội dung đoạn A.
Daniel Everett has devoted his career to understanding a uniquely human attribute.
A research question of continuing interest to modern academics concerns the origins of nouns, verbs, adjectives and so on - in other words, all the separate components that make up human language. Did they come about suddenly, or did they emerge gradually, adapted over time? Unlike fire, the use of language did not exist before humans first created it, so we must look elsewhere for any beneficial comparison. What is more, every culture in the history of the human race places its own mark on language. It is an invention that embraces all humans and provides us with our most intense source of happiness - focused and ordered thoughts. Homo sapiens has become Homo loquax, as well-known author Tom Wolfe puts it, or in other words 'speaking man'. I would argue that our minds are enabled by language to accomplish tasks that we could otherwise never hope to complete, such as debating philosophy, following recipes and thinking about where our children are going after school.
From each of the twenty or more languages I have studied in the Amazon, Mexico and United States over the past decades, I have learned things about our species and our ability to communicate. These are things I would never have learned by living a different life. I have learned about humans' relation to nature, and about living and speaking among ancient cultures living in remote forests. I have learned how words reach into my heart and change my life.
Language gives humans their humanity. The human species has the extraordinary ability to express thoughts and feelings with visual symbols and spoken sounds. So it is only natural that scholars should want to learn more about this communicative technology, for nothing has more to tell us about what it means to be human than the forms and uses to which we put language. Indeed, language is the foundation of every human advance, from prehistoric cave paintings, to Thomas Edison's light bulb, to today's digital revolution.
No linguist or anthropologist would disagree that language is useful. But there is enormous division about where it came from. Some of these experts say that language was discovered by chance. Others believe that one brilliant Homo sapiens might have invented it about 75,000 years or so ago, as the Native American chief Sequoya invented writing for his people. Still others claim that language is genetically encoded in the human mind. What does seem clear is that all human abilities, including language, derive from identifiable sources - genes and environment. The idea that language is exclusively a product of our environment is as simplistic and wrong as the opposite idea that language grows like hair, shaped by our genes with no learning involved. Language, like human reasoning, is surely the result of both of these sources working together, although the relative proportions of each are more difficult to determine.
My own views about human language are sometimes disputed, but this does not make them less worthy of consideration. One of my goals is to give alternatives a fair hearing, even if I ultimately reject them. In the process, it is sometimes necessary to make an argument opposing one particular view; this is standard scientific discourse and vital for progress. So long as we are polite and our evidence is valid, it is a healthy practice.
I would define language as a 'cultural tool'. And in order to understand this cultural tool properly, we need to understand something about its original birthplace on the African plains. In addition, we must examine the relationship between language and culture in as many different linguistic groups as possible over the course of history. Then there is the issue of genetic influence on language. Those who support the influence of genes often ask, if language is not genetic, why is it such a universal human characteristic? This is an area that many people feel passionately about. Even among scientists it is sometimes supposed that all languages are 'equal in some way, and any suggestion to the contrary is not popular.
However, as I have gone further into the issues, it has become clear that there is limited evidence that language is genetic. This does not mean that language speakers are not equal, but some languages are remarkably complex in terms of their form and framework - the tense systems, the parts of speech - and this is not true of some other languages. It is just not necessary for all languages to have the same form. Languages have developed over time to meet the requirements of their own cultural situation. And the beauty of each one lies in the fact that it is so well suited to its own purposes.
So what do researchers need now? Much of the heated opinion in the debate about relative language complexity is actually irrelevant, for the simple reason that we do not have enough practical information about the languages in use today. And in order to gather such details, it is necessary for researchers to do fieldwork. Increasingly, the evidence points away from the idea that languages can be understood by sitting at a desk studying formulas and equations. And while it is beyond doubt that genetics are partly responsible for human languages, we will learn most about those languages by studying how different cultures have adapted them.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 3
27
No
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: It is useful to equate the discovery of fire with the invention of language .
Main idea: Câu hỏi khẳng định rằngviệc so sánh phát minh ra lửa với phát minh ra ngôn ngữ là hữu ích.
-------
Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khóa: “fire”, “language”, “comparison”, "equate", "useful"
→ Dựa vào các từ khoá trên -> Tìm được trích dẫn ở đoạn 1.
-------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand (main + detail)
📌 Trích dẫn:“Unlike fire, the use of language did not exist before humans first created it, so we must look elsewhere for any beneficial comparison.”
Simplified: the use of language did not existbefore humans created it
-> wemust look elsewhere for any beneficial comparison.
Main idea: Ngôn ngữ khác với lửa → Nó không tồn tại trước khi loài người sáng tạo ra nó→ Nếu muốn so sánh thực sự hữu ích thì cần so với thứ khác.
-------
Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
Trong bài đọc: Ngôn ngữ khác với lửa → Nếu muốn so sánh thực sự hữu ích thì cần so với thứ khác.
Trong câu hỏi:Việc so sánh lửa và ngôn ngữ là hữu ích.
⇒ Hai ý trái ngược nhau -> ✅ Chọn: NO
-------
Lưu ý chung:
Nếu đáp án là YES: Bài đọc phải nói rằng việc so sánh ngôn ngữ và lửa là hợp lý và hữu ích → nhưng thực tế bài lại phủ định điều đó.
Nếu đáp án là NOT GIVEN: Bài đọc sẽ không hề đề cập đến so sánh giữa ngôn ngữ và lửa → nhưng ở đây có nhắc và khẳng định rõ là “must look elsewhere” → tức là phủ định trực tiếp.
B. These are some of the results Oregon growers have achieved in collaboration with Oregon State University (OSU) researchers as they test new farming methods including integrated pest management (IPM). Nationwide, however, IPM has not delivered results comparable to those in Oregon. A recent U.S General Accounting Office (GAO) report indicates that while integrated pest management can result in dramatically reduced pesticide use, the federal government has been lacking in effectively promoting that goal and implementing IPM. Farmers also blame the government for, not making the new options of pest management attractive. "Wholesale changes in the way that farmers control the pests on their farms is an expensive business." Tony Brown, of the National Farmers Association says. "If the farmers are given tax breaks to offset the expenditure, then they would willingly accept the new practices." The report goes on to note that even though the use of the riskiest pesticides has declined nationwide, they still make up more than 40 percent of all pesticides used today; and national pesticide use has risen by 40 million kilograms since 1992. "Our food supply remains the safest and highest quality on Earth but we continue to overdose our farmland with powerful and toxic pesticides and to under-use the safe and effective alternatives," charged Patrick Leahy, who commissioned the report. Green action groups disagree about the safety issue. "There is no way that habitual consumption of foodstuffs grown using toxic chemicals of the nature found on today's farms can be healthy for consumers," noted Bill Bowler, spokesman for Green Action, one of many lobbyists interested in this issue.
C. The GAO report singles out Oregon's apple and pear producers who have used the new IPM techniques with growing success. Although Oregon is clearly ahead of the nation, scientists at OSU are taking the Government Accounting Office's criticisms seriously. "We must continue to develop effective alternative practices that will reduce environmental hazards and produce high-quality products," said Paul Jepson, a professor of entomology at OSU and new director of
D. OSU's Integrated Plant Protection Centre (IPPC). The IPPC brings together scientists from OSU's Agricultural Experiment Station, OSU Extension service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Oregon farmers to help develop agricultural systems that will save water and soil, and reduce pesticides. In response to the GAO report, the Centre is putting even more emphasis on integrating research and farming practices to improve Oregon agriculture environmentally and economically.
E. "The GAO report criticizes agencies for not clearly communicating the goals of IPM," said Jepson. "Our challenge is to greatly improve the Communication to and from growers, to learn what works and what doesn't. The work coming from OSU researchers must be adopted in the field and not simply languish in scientific journals."
F. In Oregon, growers and scientists are working together to instigate new practices. For example, a few years ago scientists at OSU's Malheur Experiment Station began testing a new drip irrigation system to replace old ditches (4) that wasted water and washed soil and fertilizer into streams. The new system cut water and fertilizer
use by half, kept topsoil in place and protected water quality.
G. In addition, the new system produced crops of very large onions, rated "super colossal" and highly valued by the restaurant industry and food processors. Art Pimms, one of the researchers at Malheur comments: "Growers are finding that when they adopt more environmentally benign practices, they can have excellent results. The new practices benefit the environment and give the growers their success."
H. OSU researchers in Malheur next tested straw mulch () and found that it successfully held soil in place and kept the ground moist with less irrigation. In addition, and unexpectedly, the scientists found that the mulched soil created a home for beneficial beetles and spiders that prey on onion thrips - a notorious pest in commercial onion fields - a discovery that could reduce the need for pesticides. "I would never have believed that we could replace the artificial pest controls that we had before and still keep our good results," commented Steve Black, a commercial onion farmer in Oregon, "but instead we have actually surpassed expectations."
I. OSU researchers throughout the state have been working to reduce dependence on broad-spectrum chemical spays that are toxic to many kinds of organisms, including humans. “Consumers are rightly putting more and more pressure on the industry to change its reliance on chemical pesticides, but they still want a picture-perfect product,” said Rick Hilton, an entomologist at OSU’s Southern Oregon Research and Extension Centre, where researches help pear growers reduce the need for highly toxic pesticides. Picture perfect pears are an important product in Oregon and traditionally they have required lots of chemicals. In recent years, the industry has faced stiff competition from overseas producers, so any new methods that growers adopt must make sense economically as well as environmentally. Hilton is testing a growth regulator that interferes with the molting of codling moth larvae. Another study used pheromone dispensers to disrupt codling moth mating. These and other methods of integrated pest management have allowed pear growers to reduce their use of organophosphates by two-thirds and reduce all other synthetic pesticides by even more and still produce top-quality pears. These and other studies around the state are part of the effort of the IPPC to find alternative farming practices that benefit both the economy and the environment.
the growers their success
Experimental psychologist John Caldwell has spent most of his career researching the effects of sleep deprivation and sleep restriction, while also studying countermeasures that sleep-deprived people can use to function better. Much of his research was conducted within the military community. Caldwell explains that while our bodies are able to adjust to about one time zone change per day, jet lag sets in when we cross three or more of them because it creates chaos in circadian rhythms (otherwise known as our body clock). That's a fairly new phenomenon, historically speaking. 'People now can fly from New York to Paris in nine, ten hours, whereas in 1923 you did it on a ship and it took you six days to get over to Europe,' Caldwell says. 'We just haven't evolved to the point where we can rapidly change those rhythms, because it's a relatively recent thing.'
C. Because of the problems your body has naturally adapting to time-zone changes, you need to manually adjust your body clock, and that means changing your bedtime to be better matched with the destination to which you re traveling. Ranit Mishori, a professor of family medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine, travels frequently to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. To be ready to work when she arrives, she starts adjusting her bedtime two to five days in advance to match the local time at her destination. That means going to bed earlier when going east and waking up much earlier,' she says. When she returns to the US, she does the same but in reverse.
John Caldwell creates a timetable that includes meetings, bedtimes, and social activities so that he can easily see what time it is at home and at his destination and plan accordingly. 'A lot of times, when you look at that table, right away you're going to see where you're going to have your biggest problems,' he says. If he's just traveling for a quick business trip and will only be gone a couple of days, he avoids gradual adjustment. Instead, he tries to schedule any meetings at a time when he would be awake and focused back home.
D. Circadian rhythms are influenced by natural light. While travel may disrupt those rhythms, you can help get them on track by regulating the amount of light that your body encounters, says Pradeep Bollu, associate director of the University of Missouri Health Care Sleep Disorders Center. When traveling east, your biological clock will be behind: ' ... avoiding bright light in the evening can help with advancing our biological clock,' he says. 'Similarly, bright light ... after waking up also will help advance our biological clock to suit the new time zone. When traveling westward, he adds, the biological clock is ahead of the latest time zone. He suggests gravitating toward bright light in the evening, if possible, and exercising to stay awake later and sleep longer.
E. One suggestion that is sometimes made is taking the hormone melatonin, which is a substance that is produced every night by the human body and helps you sleep. 'Taking a very small dose helps to recalibrate its release so that it is in sync with the time zone of your destination,' says Kern Singh, a spine surgeon in Chicago with Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush. Singh says he takes five milligrams of melatonin - which you can buy in pill form in supermarkets and many main street stores in the US - on the plane and then again when he lands.
F. Having a glass of wine on the plane may sound tempting, but it could negatively impact your sleep, which could worsen jet lag, says Quay Snyder, president and CEO of Aviation Medicine Advisory Service of Centennial, who advises pilots on staying in top condition while in the air. 'It definitely has a sedating effect as far as getting someone to sleep, but it destroys their rapid eye movement (REM) sleep so their actual mental recovery is reduced,' he says. Instead, he says, be sure and have plenty of water so that you stay hydrated while traveling.
G. Bruce Stephen Rashbaum, owner and medical director of Capital Center for Travel and Tropical Medicine in the District of Columbia, regularly advises patients on jet lag. He considers prednisone, which is a powerful prescription medication, to be the most effective tool for jet lag recovery. He instructs patients to take the medication when they land, which is typically early in the morning, and again in the late afternoon and the next day. 'It is this simple ritual that works nearly every time,' he says. So if in doubt, you can always ask your doctor for some assistance.
Everyone responds to jet lag differently. For those who suffer, the first week will be the most challenging, but after that, your body should start to recover.
A research question of continuing interest to modern academics concerns the origins of nouns, verbs, adjectives and so on - in other words, all the separate components that make up human language. Did they come about suddenly, or did they emerge gradually, adapted over time? Unlike fire, the use of language did not exist before humans first created it, so we must look elsewhere for any beneficial comparison. What is more, every culture in the history of the human race places its own mark on language. It is an invention that embraces all humans and provides us with our most intense source of happiness - focused and ordered thoughts. Homo sapiens has become Homo loquax, as well-known author Tom Wolfe puts it, or in other words 'speaking man'. I would argue that our minds are enabled by language to accomplish tasks that we could otherwise never hope to complete, such as debating philosophy, following recipes and thinking about where our children are going after school.
From each of the twenty or more languages I have studied in the Amazon, Mexico and United States over the past decades, I have learned things about our species and our ability to communicate. These are things I would never have learned by living a different life. I have learned about humans' relation to nature, and about living and speaking among ancient cultures living in remote forests. I have learned how words reach into my heart and change my life.
Language gives humans their humanity. The human species has the extraordinary ability to express thoughts and feelings with visual symbols and spoken sounds. So it is only natural that scholars should want to learn more about this communicative technology, for nothing has more to tell us about what it means to be human than the forms and uses to which we put language. Indeed, language is the foundation of every human advance, from prehistoric cave paintings, to Thomas Edison's light bulb, to today's digital revolution.
No linguist or anthropologist would disagree that language is useful. But there is enormous division about where it came from. Some of these experts say that language was discovered by chance. Others believe that one brilliant Homo sapiens might have invented it about 75,000 years or so ago, as the Native American chief Sequoya invented writing for his people. Still others claim that language is genetically encoded in the human mind. What does seem clear is that all human abilities, including language, derive from identifiable sources - genes and environment. The idea that language is exclusively a product of our environment is as simplistic and wrong as the opposite idea that language grows like hair, shaped by our genes with no learning involved. Language, like human reasoning, is surely the result of both of these sources working together, although the relative proportions of each are more difficult to determine.
My own views about human language are sometimes disputed, but this does not make them less worthy of consideration. One of my goals is to give alternatives a fair hearing, even if I ultimately reject them. In the process, it is sometimes necessary to make an argument opposing one particular view; this is standard scientific discourse and vital for progress. So long as we are polite and our evidence is valid, it is a healthy practice.
I would define language as a 'cultural tool'. And in order to understand this cultural tool properly, we need to understand something about its original birthplace on the African plains. In addition, we must examine the relationship between language and culture in as many different linguistic groups as possible over the course of history. Then there is the issue of genetic influence on language. Those who support the influence of genes often ask, if language is not genetic, why is it such a universal human characteristic? This is an area that many people feel passionately about. Even among scientists it is sometimes supposed that all languages are 'equal in some way, and any suggestion to the contrary is not popular.
However, as I have gone further into the issues, it has become clear that there is limited evidence that language is genetic. This does not mean that language speakers are not equal, but some languages are remarkably complex in terms of their form and framework - the tense systems, the parts of speech - and this is not true of some other languages. It is just not necessary for all languages to have the same form. Languages have developed over time to meet the requirements of their own cultural situation. And the beauty of each one lies in the fact that it is so well suited to its own purposes.
So what do researchers need now? Much of the heated opinion in the debate about relative language complexity is actually irrelevant, for the simple reason that we do not have enough practical information about the languages in use today. And in order to gather such details, it is necessary for researchers to do fieldwork. Increasingly, the evidence points away from the idea that languages can be understood by sitting at a desk studying formulas and equations. And while it is beyond doubt that genetics are partly responsible for human languages, we will learn most about those languages by studying how different cultures have adapted them.
the discovery of fire
with
the invention of language
Main idea: Câu hỏi khẳng định rằngviệc so sánh phát minh ra lửa với phát minh ra ngôn ngữ là hữu ích.
Simplified: the use of language did not existbefore humans created it
-> wemust look elsewhere for any beneficial comparison.
Main idea: Ngôn ngữ khác với lửa → Nó không tồn tại trước khi loài người sáng tạo ra nó→ Nếu muốn so sánh thực sự hữu ích thì cần so với thứ khác.
Trong bài đọc: Ngôn ngữ khác với lửa → Nếu muốn so sánh thực sự hữu ích thì cần so với thứ khác.
