IELTS Real Reading Test Pre 2025 - Vol 2 Test 1 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Luyện tập đề IELTS Real Reading Test Pre 2025 - Vol 2 Test 1 được lấy từ cuốn sách Real Test Pre 2025 - Vol 2 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 2 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.
Experiment with artificial light at Lindeborg school
Aims of the experiment
- To find out if students’
1.
can be improved.
- In the long term, to adapt lighting in
2.
so that employees feel better.
Details about the artificial lighting system
- The artificial lights are designed to reproduce the natural daytime light of
3.
in Sweden.
- The lights turn a shade of
4.
towards the end of a school day.
- The brightness of the lights in the morning helps regulate the amount of
5.
the body makes.
Students who are involved in the experiment
- Students in two different classes used technology as well as a diary to record the amount of sleep they got.
- The quality of sleep amongst students in Anna’s class improved and they woke up later.
- The influence of the lighting system on performance during
6.
is unknown.
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
Sweden was the first Scandinavian country to use light therapy.
8
Light therapy continues to enjoy great popularity in Sweden.
9
The Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care has found proof that light therapy is effective.
10
Martin Andersen based his mirror design on an earlier idea.
11
Martin Andersen's mirrors can provide a full day of light during January.
12
In TromsO, people experience some similar moods during both summer and winter.
13
Culture is more likely than genetics to help people cope with winter in TromsO.
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 2
Question 14 - 17
Reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-G
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-G
14
A mention of the limitations of using sleep to help solve problems.
15
A reference to how an activity before sleep can help with information recall.
16
A contrast between what the brain wants to do and what we actually do.
17
An explanation of why we have dreams.
Question 18 - 22
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Sleep and memory
A study at Northwestern University was conducted in which participants had to solve puzzles that were accompanied by a . Following this first phase, they went home with equipment that monitored their sleep and played sounds that they had heard in the lab, and the following morning, their improved, especially for puzzles cued with sounds that they had heard in their sleep. A study by Sara Mednick showed that REM sleep was beneficial for creative , and that REM sleep allows the brain to create associations between previously or ideas.
Professor Robert Stickgold mentions that the brain selects that are connected to an event and uses these memory signals to decide if something was important.
Question 23 - 26
Look at the following statements and the list of researchers below.
Match each statement with the correct researcher, A-E.
Write the correct letter, A-E.
List of Findings
A
Sara Mednick
B
Robert Stickgold
C
Mark Beeman
D
Kristin Sanders
E
Deirdre Barrett
23
Going over memories helps differentiate between useful and trivial information.
24
Staying up late is not effective for trying to solve problems.
25
Information related to a problem can be restructured during sleep.
26
All the functions of the brain must have evolved to serve a particular purpose.
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 3
Question 27 - 28
Choose the correct letterA, B, C or D.
27
What were most people travelling for in the early days?
A
Studying their own cultures.
B
Business.
C
Knowing other people and places better.
D
Writing travel books.
28
Why did the author say writing travel books is also “a mirror” for travellers themselves?
A
Because travellers record their own experiences.
B
Because travellers reflect upon their own society and life.
C
Because it increases knowledge of foreign cultures.
D
Because it is related to the development of human society.
Question 29 - 36
Complete the table.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the Reading Passage.
TIME
TRAVELLER
DESTINATION
PURPOSE OF TRAVEL
Classical Greece
Herodotus
Egypt and Anatolia
To gather information for the study of
29
Han Dynasty
Zhang Qian
Central Asia
To seek
30
Roman Empire
Ptolemy, Strabo, Pliny the Elder
The Mediterranean world
To acquire
31
Post-classical era (about 500 to 1500 CE)
Muslims
From East Africa to Indonesia, Mecca
For trading and
32
5th - 9th Centuries CE
Chinese Buddhists
33
To collect Buddhist texts and for spiritual enlightenment
Early modern era (about 1500 to 1800 CE)
European explorers
The New World
To satisfy public curiosity for the New World
During 19th century
Colonial administrators
Asia, Africa
To provide information for the
34
By mid-century of the 1800s
Sun Yat-sen, FukuzawaYukichi
Europe and the United States
To study the
35
of their societies
20th century
People from
36
countries
Mass tourism
For entertainment and pleasure
Question 37 - 40
Choose the correct letterA, B, C or D.
37
Why were the imperial rulers especially interested in these travel stories?
A
Reading travel stories was a popular pastime.
B
The accounts are often truthful rather than fictional.
C
Travel books played an important role in literature.
D
They desired knowledge of their empire.
38
Who were the largest group to record their spiritual trips during the post-classical era?
A
Muslim traders.
B
Muslim pilgrims.
C
Chinese Buddhists.
D
Indian Buddhist teachers.
39
During the early modern era, a large number of travel books were published to
A
meet the public’s interest.
B
explore new business opportunities.
C
encourage trips to the new world.
D
record the larger world.
40
What’s the main theme of the passage?
A
The production of travel books
B
The literary status of travel books
C
The historical significance of travel books
D
The development of travel books
DOL IELTS Đình Lực
05/05/2026
📖 Bài đọc passage 1
The link between low light and mood
As far back as the 6th century, historians were describing seasonal peaks of joy and sorrow among the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Norway and Finland. Because these countries are so far north, there is continuous daylight in summer, and an almost complete absence of it in winter. Today researchers recognise that a lack of light can cause some people to experience a range of negative consequences, from low energy to more serious depression.
At Lindeberg School, in southern Sweden, teacher Anna Odder Milstam arrives at work before dawn for several months of the year. 'During the winter, we just feel so tired,' she says. Anna teaches a class of 14-year-olds, who are now part of an experiment investigating whether artificial lighting might possibly aid their concentration. A few years ago, Anna's classroom was fitted with ceiling lights that change in colour and intensity. The lights were developed by researchers at a company called BrainLit. The ultimate goal of the experiment is to create a system designed to suit individual workers by adjusting the lighting already installed within their offices to optimise physical wellbeing.
BrainLit's artificial lighting system simulates the experience of being outside on a typical day during spring, rather than any other season so, when Anna's pupils arrive at 8.10am, the lights are a bluish-white to wake them up. The lights grow gradually more intense through to lunch time. But then the lights gradually dim and become more yellow as the afternoon progresses. Bright light in the morning quickly stops further production of melatonin. This is the hormone naturally released by the human body that plays a vital role in the sleep-wake cycle. Shutting this off early in the day helps people to feel sleepy at the correct time when night comes around again.
Already, there's some evidence that the artificial lighting system is affecting the pupils' sleep. In a study, in order to monitor sleep cycles, 14 pupils from Anna's class and 14 from a neighbouring class without sleep lighting system were each given a sleep tracking app and their own diary for making notes. During the second week of the study, significant differences started to emerge between the two groups; in terms of quality, Anna's pupils woke up fewer times during the night and slept for longer. As yet, no one has identified whether the lighting system is affecting the students' scores for exams, but Anna reports that her students are certainly more focused.
While some people report only feelings of tiredness during winter months, other people experience a more serious condition known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD). This kind of depression has been treated with the use of bright lamps in Scandinavian countries since the 1980s. But in Sweden, support for this type of light therapy often went one step further: dressing patients in all-white clothes and sending them into brightly lit rooms. In recent years, however, light therapy has experienced something of a backlash in Sweden, and so now only a handful of clinics remain. In part, this was a response to a study by the Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care, which reviewed the evidence and concluded that 'although controlled studies in light therapy rooms is well established in Sweden, no satisfactory, controlled studies for SAD have been published on the subject, meaning that the value of light therapy for SAD 'can be neither confirmed nor dismissed'.
A town called RJukan in Norway has taken a different approach to dealing with winter darkness. In the 1913, the concept of erecting large rotatable mirrors on the northern side of the valley overlooking RJukan was proposed to collect sunlight and reflect it down over the town below. However, it wasn't until 2002 that resident Martin Andersen started to develop some concrete plans. These involved a mirror mounted in such a way that it would tum to keep track of the sun while continually reflecting its light down towards the town square. Now three enormous mirrors stand on the mountainside above RJukan. In January, the sun is only high enough for the mirrors to bring light to the square for a couple of hours per day, from midday until 2pm, but the beam produced by the mirrors is strong. Interestingly, Martin Andersen admits that he was used to the lack of sunlight even before this innovation, and he believes that other residents were too.
This is certainly the case in another Norwegian settlement: TromsO. It is 400 km north of the Arctic Circle and the sun doesn't rise above the horizon between 21 November and 21 January. Yet strangely studies have found no difference between rates of anxiety and depression in the population in winter and summer months. One suggestion is that the apparent resistance to winter depression is genetic. However, an alternative explanation is culture, meaning some people are just more willing to adapt. Recently, a psychologist called Kari Leibowitz spent ten months in Troms trying to discover how people cope during winter. She devised a 'winter mindset questionnaire' to assess people's attitudes towards winter, focusing on life satisfaction and a sense of personal growth.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 1
1
concentration
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: The aim of the experiment is to find out if students’ ______ can be improved
Main idea: Mục tiêu của thí nghiệm là tìm xem yếu tố nào của học sinh có thể được cải thiện.
Prediction: Danh từ (N) → Có thể chỉ khả năng học tập hoặc tinh thần.
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Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khoá: “experiment”, “students’”, “improved”
=> Dựa vào các từ khoá trên -> Tìm được trích dẫn ở đoạn 2.
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Step 03: Read relevant information to understand (main + detail)
📌 Trích dẫn: “Anna teaches a class of 14-year-olds, who are now part of an experiment investigating whether artificial lighting might possibly aid their concentration.”
Simplified: The experimentinvestigateswhether artificial lighting might aid concentration
Main idea: Thí nghiệm nhằm kiểm tra xem ánh sáng nhân tạo có cải thiện khả năng tập trung của học sinh không.
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Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
Trong bài đọc:Mục đích thí nghiệm là điều tra ánh sáng nhân tạo có cải thiện sự tập trung của học sinh hay không.
Trong câu hỏi: Mục đích thí nghiệm là tìm xem yếu tố nào của học sinh có thể cải thiện được.
A. Each one of us has experienced a wide array of dreams, from the funny and romantic to the terrifying and bizarre. In dreams, bits of reality, imagination, and memory intermingle in nonlinear narratives that often make little sense upon awakening. Dreams seem to be related to a reshuffling of memories, and indeed, it is often said that studying before sleep is a good way to retain information. When people say they will "sleep on" a decision or problem, it is likely because they know they will awaken the next day with a clearer solution in mind, and scientific evidence has shown that this is in fact the case.
B
To test whether or not sleep really does play a role in solving difficult problems, researchers at Northwestern University conducted a study in which they presented participants with a series of tricky, carefully designed puzzles, each of which participants had two minutes to figure out. During this time, a unique sound clip would play in the background, and a new sound clip would be played with each new puzzle. After this initial stage of the experiment, which always took place in the early evening, members of the study group were sent home with some specialized equipment that monitored their sleep and played some of the sound clips they heard while attempting the puzzles in the lab. The ensuing morning, they all returned to the lab to try to solve the puzzles that stumped them the previous night. Their success rate improved across the board, but the most marked improvement was in puzzles that were associated with sound clips they had heard while sleeping, solving 32% of the sleep-cued puzzles, compared to only 21% of the un-cued puzzles.
C
A study on the benefits of napping, headed by Sara Mednick, assistant professor of psychiatry at University of California San Diego, and Denise Cai, a graduate student, revealed that rapid eye movement (REM) sleep enhances creative problem solving. The findings of this study may have implications for how sleep, and REM sleep in particular, promotes the formation of associative creative problems that you've already been working on - the passage of time is enough to find solutions. However, for new problems, only REM sleep enhances creativity." Mednick believes that REM sleep does this because it stimulates associative networks, which allow the brain to make connections between unrelated concepts or ideas.
D
According to Robert Stickgold, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School states that "when you get into bed, the brain does a triage and 'rifles through the events of the day and sees what's left unfinished." The brain picks out emotions that occurred during or shortly after something happened, and uses these memory cues to indicate that the event was important and needs to be analyzed further. Stickgold believes that there are two key elements at play here, the first being that the prefrontal cortex shuts down. This region of the brain is in charge of executive decision- making, along with rational thinking and impulse control. With the prefrontal cortex shut down, there are no categories into which ideas can be sorted, allowing the brain to freely associate and process information in the background. The other factor at play is that when we enter REM sleep, the neuromodulators norepinephrine and serotonin are turned off. Norepinephrine enhances focus on immediate issues, and it is believed that the brain is biased into placing higher value on loose connections when serotonin is turned off. With both neurochemicals dormant, parts of ideas come together as one.
E
Mark Beeman, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, stated: ' There was this idea that during sleep the brain is resting, but now we know there's a lot of important work being done" following research by his team. While we sleep, our brains sort, consolidate, and store new information, and we "walk through" memories of recent events. This rehearsal appears to distinguish meaningful patterns from unhelpful "background noise." Beeman believes that this can be useful in problem-solving and provides an explanation as to why playing sound clips associated with certain puzzles facilitate this type of rehearsal. "This research adds to a growing list of literature suggesting that sleep can reorganise information to facilitate problem-solving." says Kristin Sanders, first author of the study and a doctoral student at Northwestern University.
Sanders, first author of the study and a doctoral student at Northwestern University. "It also suggests that a replay of the problem memory during sleep is critical for this reorganisation." Sanders also goes on to explain that "problem solving is part of everyone's daily life; while we use tricky puzzles in our study, the underlying cognitive processes could relate to solving any problem on which someone is stuck or blocked by an incorrect approach. "However, she warns that this can only be applied to situations in which one already has some background knowledge or information. For example, this effect would not help someone find a cure for a rare disease if they are not already working on this problem.
F
Some researchers also believe that dreams have an evolutionary basis, and that our ability to dream may have indeed evolved from the need to solve problems. "Dreams are thinking or problem-solving in a different biochemical state from that of waking." writes the Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett in The New Science of Dreaming. According to Barrett, all functions of the brain must have some practical usage, and are rooted in evolution and natural selection, which may explain why the brain utilizes dreams to help break down, analyze, and solve problems
G
Before we fall asleep, the brain wants to acknowledge a thought and move on to the next one, but in reality, we tend to latch onto one thought and ruminate on it, and then feelings of regret start to set in, triggering an adrenaline rush, according to Stickgold. It is helpful to acknowledge a thought and let it go by without passing judgment, similar to the calming methods used in meditation.
However, if a particular thought won't go away, there are calming steps that can be taken. Stickgold states that "there is nothing wrong with checking," and for issues that can not be resolved right away, it is acceptable to keep a notepad and pencil nearby to write down a reminder for the following day. Getting up in the middle of the night to work on a problem, however, is not particularly helpful, as it will just leave you exhausted in the morning without having gotten any closer to an answer. The best solution is in fact to just let the ideas pass through your mind unimpeded.
🔥 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 → sẽ nhanh chóng tìm được vị trí đáp án hơn!!
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Step 1: Phân tích câu hỏi (Matching Information) the limitations of using sleep to help solve problems .
Dự đoán thông tin cần tìm (SPECIFY):
Những hạn chế của việc dùng giấc ngủ để giải quyết vấn đề → Không phải lúc nào cũng áp dụng được.
“limitations” = sẽ có tín hiệu kiểu: only, can/cannot, won’t work, in some situations, requires…
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Step 2: Locate bằng chứng
Thông tin này nằm ở đoạn E, ngay câu:
She warns that this can only be applied to situations with background knowledge
This effectwould not help find a cure for a rare disease
-> Giấc ngủ chỉ giúp giải quyết vấn đề khi đã có kiến thức nền → Không giúp nếu không có thông tin gì về vấn đề.
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Step 3: Đối chiếu paraphrasing (để chốt match đoạn E)
limitations ⇔ “can only be applied to situations…” (= chỉ áp dụng được trong một số trường hợp)
using sleep to help solve problems ⇔ “this effect” (hiệu ứng ngủ giúp tái tổ chức thông tin để hỗ trợ problem-solving đang nói trong đoạn E)
Hạn chế được cụ thể hoá bằng ví dụ phủ định: “would not help…” (không giúp) nếu không có background knowledge / chưa làm vấn đề đó
→ Vì vậy, câu hỏi “limitations of using sleep to help solve problems” khớp trực tiếp với Paragraph E.
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❌ Những đáp án “bẫy” hay dính
Bẫy đoạn B: nói về thí nghiệm và kết quả (32% vs 21%) nên dễ tưởng có “giới hạn”. Nhưng B chủ yếu là method + improvement, không hề nêu điều kiện kiểu “chỉ áp dụng khi…/không giúp nếu…”.
Bẫy đoạn G: có câu “Getting up in the middle of the night… is not particularly helpful” nhìn như “limitation”. Nhưng G nói về thói quen xử lý suy nghĩ ban đêm (đừng thức dậy làm bài), không phải giới hạn khoa học của việc “ngủ giúp giải quyết vấn đề” theo nghĩa cơ chế/cognitive effect như câu hỏi yêu cầu.
There are many reasons why individuals have travelled beyond their own societies. Some travellers may have simply desired to satisfy curiosity about the larger world. Until recent times, however, travellers did start their journey for reasons other than mere curiosity. While the travellers’ accounts give much valuable information on these foreign lands and provide a window for the understanding of the local cultures and histories, they are also a mirror to the travellers themselves, for these accounts help them to have a better understanding of themselves.
Records of foreign travel appeared soon after the invention of writing, and fragmentary travel accounts appeared in both Mesopotamia and Egypt in ancient times. After the formation of large, imperial states in the classical world, travel accounts emerged as a prominent literary genre in many lands, and they held especially strong appeal for rulers desiring useful knowledge about their realms. The Greek historian Herodotus reported on his travels in Egypt and Anatolia in researching the history of the Persian wars. The Chinese envoy Zhang Qian described much of central Asia as far west as Bactria (modern- day Afghanistan) on the basis of travels undertaken in the first century BCE while searching for allies for the Han dynasty. Hellenistic and Roman geographers such as Ptolemy, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder relied on their own travels through much of the Mediterranean world as well as reports of other travellers to compile vast compendia of geographical knowledge.
During the post-classical era (about 500 to 1500 CE), trade and pilgrimage emerged as major incentives for travel to foreign lands. Muslim merchants sought trading opportunities throughout much of the eastern hemisphere. They described lands, peoples, and commercial products of the Indian Ocean basin from East Africa to Indonesia, and they supplied the first written accounts of societies in sub-Saharan West Africa. While merchants set out in search of trade and profit, devout Muslims travelled as pilgrims to Mecca to make their hajj and visit the holy sites of Islam. Since the prophet Muhammad’s original pilgrimage to Mecca, untold millions of Muslims have followed his example, and thousands of hajj accounts have related their experiences. East Asian travellers were not quite so prominent as Muslims during the post-classical era, but they too followed many of the highways and sea lanes of the eastern hemisphere. Chinese merchants frequently visited South-East Asia and India, occasionally venturing even to East Africa, and devout East Asian Buddhists undertook distant pilgrimages. Between the 5th and 9th centuries CE, hundreds and possibly even thousands of Chinese Buddhists travelled to India to study with Buddhist teachers, collect sacred texts, and visit holy sites. Written accounts recorded the experiences of many pilgrims, such as Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing. Though not so numerous as the Chinese pilgrims, Buddhists from Japan, Korea, and other lands also ventured abroad in the interests of spiritual enlightenment.
Medieval Europeans did not hit the roads in such large numbers as their Muslim and East Asian counterparts during the early part of the post-classical era, although gradually increasing crowds of Christian pilgrims flowed to Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela (in northern Spain), and other sites. After the 12th century, however, merchants, pilgrims, and missionaries from medieval Europe travelled widely and left numerous travel accounts, of which Marco Polo’s description of his travels and sojourn in China is the best known. As they became familiar with the larger world of the eastern hemisphere - and the profitable commercial opportunities that it offered - European peoples worked to find new and more direct routes to Asian and African markets. Their efforts took them not only to all parts of the eastern hemisphere, but eventually to the Americas and Oceania as well.
If Muslim and Chinese peoples dominated travel and travel writing in post- classical times, European explorers, conquerors, merchants, and missionaries took centre stage during the early modern era (about 1500 to 1800 CE). By no means did Muslim and Chinese travel come to a halt in early modern times. But European peoples ventured to the distant corners of the globe, and European printing presses churned out thousands of travel accounts that described foreign lands and peoples for a reading public with an apparently insatiable appetite for news about the larger world. The volume of travel literature was so great that several editors, including Giambattista Ramusio, Richard Hakluyt, Theodore de Biy, and Samuel Purchas, assembled numerous travel accounts and made them available in enormous published collections.
During the 19th century, European travellers made their way to the interior regions of Africa and the Americas, generating a fresh round of travel writing as they did so. Meanwhile, European colonial administrators devoted numerous writings to the societies of their colonial subjects, particularly in Asian and African colonies they established. By mid-century, attention was flowing also in the other direction. Painfully aware of the military and technological prowess of European and Euro-American societies, Asian travellers in particular visited Europe and the United States in hopes of discovering principles useful for the organisation of their own societies. Among the most prominent of these travellers who made extensive use of their overseas observations and experiences in their own writings were the Japanese reformer Fukuzawa Yu-kichi and the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen.
With the development of inexpensive and reliable means of mass transport, the 20th century witnessed explosions both in the frequency of long-distance travel and in the volume of travel writing. While a great deal of travel took place for reasons of business, administration, diplomacy, pilgrimage, and missionary work, as in ages past, increasingly effective modes of mass transport made it possible for new kinds of travel to flourish. The most distinctive of them was mass tourism, which emerged as a major form of consumption .for individuals living in the world’s wealthy societies. Tourism enabled consumers to get away from home to see the sights in Rome, take a cruise through the Caribbean, walk the Great Wall of China, visit some wineries in Bordeaux, or go on safari in Kenya. A peculiar variant of the travel account arose to meet the needs of these tourists: the guidebook, which offered advice on food, lodging, shopping, local customs, and all the sights that visitors should not miss seeing. Tourism has had a massive economic impact throughout the world, but other new forms of travel have also had considerable influence in contemporary times.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 3
27
C
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Multiple Choice
Step 01: Read the question to understand
Simplified: What were most people travelling for in the early days ?
Main idea: Hầu hết mọi người - du hành/ lữ hành vì lý do gì - trong thời kỳ đầu?
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Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khóa: “most people”, “travelling”, “early days”, "reasons/purposes"
-> Dựa vào các từ khoá trên, tìm được trích dẫn ở đoạn 1.
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Step 03: Read relevant information to understand
📌 Trích dẫn: “Some travellers may have simply desired to satisfy curiosity about the larger world. Until recent times, however, travellers did start their journey for reasons other than mere curiosity.” (Đoạn 1)
Simplified: Some travellers simply desired to satisfy curiosity about the larger world.
Until recent times, travellers did start their journey for reasons other than mere curiosity .
Main idea: Một số người - du hành vì muốnthỏa mãn sự tò mò về thế giới→ Chỉ đến gần đây thì mới có những lý do khác ngoài sự tò mò đơn thuần.
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Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
❌ A. Studying their own cultures.: Sai. Bài đọc tập trung vào việc đi đến foreign lands (vùng đất nước ngoài), không phải nghiên cứu văn hóa của chính họ.
❌ B. Business.: Sai. Kinh doanh (trade) là mục đích chính trong post-classical era (thời kỳ sau cổ điển - Đoạn 3), nhưng câu hỏi hỏi về early days (thời kỳ đầu) nói chung, nơi mà mục đích phổ biến là "curiosity".
✅ C. Knowing other people and places better.: Đúng.Chỉ đến gần đây thì mới có những lý do khác ngoài sự tò mò đơn thuần => Điều này ngụ ý trước đây thì du hành chủ yếu là do tò mò, muốn tìm hiểu thêm về thế giới.
❌ D. Writing travel books.: Sai. Viết sách là kết quả của việc đi lại ("travel accounts appeared"), chứ không phải là mục đích chính của hầu hết mọi người.
As far back as the 6th century, historians were describing seasonal peaks of joy and sorrow among the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Norway and Finland. Because these countries are so far north, there is continuous daylight in summer, and an almost complete absence of it in winter. Today researchers recognise that a lack of light can cause some people to experience a range of negative consequences, from low energy to more serious depression.
At Lindeberg School, in southern Sweden, teacher Anna Odder Milstam arrives at work before dawn for several months of the year. 'During the winter, we just feel so tired,' she says. Anna teaches a class of 14-year-olds, who are now part of an experiment investigating whether artificial lighting might possibly aid their concentration. A few years ago, Anna's classroom was fitted with ceiling lights that change in colour and intensity. The lights were developed by researchers at a company called BrainLit. The ultimate goal of the experiment is to create a system designed to suit individual workers by adjusting the lighting already installed within their offices to optimise physical wellbeing.
BrainLit's artificial lighting system simulates the experience of being outside on a typical day during spring, rather than any other season so, when Anna's pupils arrive at 8.10am, the lights are a bluish-white to wake them up. The lights grow gradually more intense through to lunch time. But then the lights gradually dim and become more yellow as the afternoon progresses. Bright light in the morning quickly stops further production of melatonin. This is the hormone naturally released by the human body that plays a vital role in the sleep-wake cycle. Shutting this off early in the day helps people to feel sleepy at the correct time when night comes around again.
Already, there's some evidence that the artificial lighting system is affecting the pupils' sleep. In a study, in order to monitor sleep cycles, 14 pupils from Anna's class and 14 from a neighbouring class without sleep lighting system were each given a sleep tracking app and their own diary for making notes. During the second week of the study, significant differences started to emerge between the two groups; in terms of quality, Anna's pupils woke up fewer times during the night and slept for longer. As yet, no one has identified whether the lighting system is affecting the students' scores for exams, but Anna reports that her students are certainly more focused.
While some people report only feelings of tiredness during winter months, other people experience a more serious condition known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD). This kind of depression has been treated with the use of bright lamps in Scandinavian countries since the 1980s. But in Sweden, support for this type of light therapy often went one step further: dressing patients in all-white clothes and sending them into brightly lit rooms. In recent years, however, light therapy has experienced something of a backlash in Sweden, and so now only a handful of clinics remain. In part, this was a response to a study by the Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care, which reviewed the evidence and concluded that 'although controlled studies in light therapy rooms is well established in Sweden, no satisfactory, controlled studies for SAD have been published on the subject, meaning that the value of light therapy for SAD 'can be neither confirmed nor dismissed'.
A town called RJukan in Norway has taken a different approach to dealing with winter darkness. In the 1913, the concept of erecting large rotatable mirrors on the northern side of the valley overlooking RJukan was proposed to collect sunlight and reflect it down over the town below. However, it wasn't until 2002 that resident Martin Andersen started to develop some concrete plans. These involved a mirror mounted in such a way that it would tum to keep track of the sun while continually reflecting its light down towards the town square. Now three enormous mirrors stand on the mountainside above RJukan. In January, the sun is only high enough for the mirrors to bring light to the square for a couple of hours per day, from midday until 2pm, but the beam produced by the mirrors is strong. Interestingly, Martin Andersen admits that he was used to the lack of sunlight even before this innovation, and he believes that other residents were too.
This is certainly the case in another Norwegian settlement: TromsO. It is 400 km north of the Arctic Circle and the sun doesn't rise above the horizon between 21 November and 21 January. Yet strangely studies have found no difference between rates of anxiety and depression in the population in winter and summer months. One suggestion is that the apparent resistance to winter depression is genetic. However, an alternative explanation is culture, meaning some people are just more willing to adapt. Recently, a psychologist called Kari Leibowitz spent ten months in Troms trying to discover how people cope during winter. She devised a 'winter mindset questionnaire' to assess people's attitudes towards winter, focusing on life satisfaction and a sense of personal growth.
The aim of the experiment
is to find out
if
students’ ______
can be improved
Main idea: Mục tiêu của thí nghiệm là tìm xem yếu tố nào của học sinh có thể được cải thiện.
Simplified: The experimentinvestigateswhether artificial lighting might aid concentration
Main idea: Thí nghiệm nhằm kiểm tra xem ánh sáng nhân tạo có cải thiện khả năng tập trung của học sinh không.
Trong bài đọc:Mục đích thí nghiệm là điều tra ánh sáng nhân tạo có cải thiện sự tập trung của học sinh hay không.
Trong câu hỏi: Mục đích thí nghiệm là tìm xem yếu tố nào của học sinh có thể cải thiện được.
B. To test whether or not sleep really does play a role in solving difficult problems, researchers at Northwestern University conducted a study in which they presented participants with a series of tricky, carefully designed puzzles, each of which participants had two minutes to figure out. During this time, a unique sound clip would play in the background, and a new sound clip would be played with each new puzzle. After this initial stage of the experiment, which always took place in the early evening, members of the study group were sent home with some specialized equipment that monitored their sleep and played some of the sound clips they heard while attempting the puzzles in the lab. The ensuing morning, they all returned to the lab to try to solve the puzzles that stumped them the previous night. Their success rate improved across the board, but the most marked improvement was in puzzles that were associated with sound clips they had heard while sleeping, solving 32% of the sleep-cued puzzles, compared to only 21% of the un-cued puzzles.
C. A study on the benefits of napping, headed by Sara Mednick, assistant professor of psychiatry at University of California San Diego, and Denise Cai, a graduate student, revealed that rapid eye movement (REM) sleep enhances creative problem solving. The findings of this study may have implications for how sleep, and REM sleep in particular, promotes the formation of associative creative problems that you've already been working on - the passage of time is enough to find solutions. However, for new problems, only REM sleep enhances creativity." Mednick believes that REM sleep does this because it stimulates associative networks, which allow the brain to make connections between unrelated concepts or ideas.
D. According to Robert Stickgold, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School states that "when you get into bed, the brain does a triage and 'rifles through the events of the day and sees what's left unfinished." The brain picks out emotions that occurred during or shortly after something happened, and uses these memory cues to indicate that the event was important and needs to be analyzed further. Stickgold believes that there are two key elements at play here, the first being that the prefrontal cortex shuts down. This region of the brain is in charge of executive decision- making, along with rational thinking and impulse control. With the prefrontal cortex shut down, there are no categories into which ideas can be sorted, allowing the brain to freely associate and process information in the background. The other factor at play is that when we enter REM sleep, the neuromodulators norepinephrine and serotonin are turned off. Norepinephrine enhances focus on immediate issues, and it is believed that the brain is biased into placing higher value on loose connections when serotonin is turned off. With both neurochemicals dormant, parts of ideas come together as one.
E. Mark Beeman, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, stated: ' There was this idea that during sleep the brain is resting, but now we know there's a lot of important work being done" following research by his team. While we sleep, our brains sort, consolidate, and store new information, and we "walk through" memories of recent events. This rehearsal appears to distinguish meaningful patterns from unhelpful "background noise." Beeman believes that this can be useful in problem-solving and provides an explanation as to why playing sound clips associated with certain puzzles facilitate this type of rehearsal. "This research adds to a growing list of literature suggesting that sleep can reorganise information to facilitate problem-solving." says Kristin Sanders, first author of the study and a doctoral student at Northwestern University.
Sanders, first author of the study and a doctoral student at Northwestern University. "It also suggests that a replay of the problem memory during sleep is critical for this reorganisation." Sanders also goes on to explain that "problem solving is part of everyone's daily life; while we use tricky puzzles in our study, the underlying cognitive processes could relate to solving any problem on which someone is stuck or blocked by an incorrect approach. "However, she warns that this can only be applied to situations in which one already has some background knowledge or information. For example, this effect would not help someone find a cure for a rare disease if they are not already working on this problem.
F. Some researchers also believe that dreams have an evolutionary basis, and that our ability to dream may have indeed evolved from the need to solve problems. "Dreams are thinking or problem-solving in a different biochemical state from that of waking." writes the Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett in The New Science of Dreaming. According to Barrett, all functions of the brain must have some practical usage, and are rooted in evolution and natural selection, which may explain why the brain utilizes dreams to help break down, analyze, and solve problems
G. Before we fall asleep, the brain wants to acknowledge a thought and move on to the next one, but in reality, we tend to latch onto one thought and ruminate on it, and then feelings of regret start to set in, triggering an adrenaline rush, according to Stickgold. It is helpful to acknowledge a thought and let it go by without passing judgment, similar to the calming methods used in meditation.
However, if a particular thought won't go away, there are calming steps that can be taken. Stickgold states that "there is nothing wrong with checking," and for issues that can not be resolved right away, it is acceptable to keep a notepad and pencil nearby to write down a reminder for the following day. Getting up in the middle of the night to work on a problem, however, is not particularly helpful, as it will just leave you exhausted in the morning without having gotten any closer to an answer. The best solution is in fact to just let the ideas pass through your mind unimpeded.
to help solve problems
She warns that
this
can only be applied to
situations with background knowledge
This effect
would not help find
a cure for a rare disease
There are many reasons why individuals have travelled beyond their own societies. Some travellers may have simply desired to satisfy curiosity about the larger world. Until recent times, however, travellers did start their journey for reasons other than mere curiosity. While the travellers’ accounts give much valuable information on these foreign lands and provide a window for the understanding of the local cultures and histories, they are also a mirror to the travellers themselves, for these accounts help them to have a better understanding of themselves.
Records of foreign travel appeared soon after the invention of writing, and fragmentary travel accounts appeared in both Mesopotamia and Egypt in ancient times. After the formation of large, imperial states in the classical world, travel accounts emerged as a prominent literary genre in many lands, and they held especially strong appeal for rulers desiring useful knowledge about their realms. The Greek historian Herodotus reported on his travels in Egypt and Anatolia in researching the history of the Persian wars. The Chinese envoy Zhang Qian described much of central Asia as far west as Bactria (modern- day Afghanistan) on the basis of travels undertaken in the first century BCE while searching for allies for the Han dynasty. Hellenistic and Roman geographers such as Ptolemy, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder relied on their own travels through much of the Mediterranean world as well as reports of other travellers to compile vast compendia of geographical knowledge.
During the post-classical era (about 500 to 1500 CE), trade and pilgrimage emerged as major incentives for travel to foreign lands. Muslim merchants sought trading opportunities throughout much of the eastern hemisphere. They described lands, peoples, and commercial products of the Indian Ocean basin from East Africa to Indonesia, and they supplied the first written accounts of societies in sub-Saharan West Africa. While merchants set out in search of trade and profit, devout Muslims travelled as pilgrims to Mecca to make their hajj and visit the holy sites of Islam. Since the prophet Muhammad’s original pilgrimage to Mecca, untold millions of Muslims have followed his example, and thousands of hajj accounts have related their experiences. East Asian travellers were not quite so prominent as Muslims during the post-classical era, but they too followed many of the highways and sea lanes of the eastern hemisphere. Chinese merchants frequently visited South-East Asia and India, occasionally venturing even to East Africa, and devout East Asian Buddhists undertook distant pilgrimages. Between the 5th and 9th centuries CE, hundreds and possibly even thousands of Chinese Buddhists travelled to India to study with Buddhist teachers, collect sacred texts, and visit holy sites. Written accounts recorded the experiences of many pilgrims, such as Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing. Though not so numerous as the Chinese pilgrims, Buddhists from Japan, Korea, and other lands also ventured abroad in the interests of spiritual enlightenment.
Medieval Europeans did not hit the roads in such large numbers as their Muslim and East Asian counterparts during the early part of the post-classical era, although gradually increasing crowds of Christian pilgrims flowed to Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela (in northern Spain), and other sites. After the 12th century, however, merchants, pilgrims, and missionaries from medieval Europe travelled widely and left numerous travel accounts, of which Marco Polo’s description of his travels and sojourn in China is the best known. As they became familiar with the larger world of the eastern hemisphere - and the profitable commercial opportunities that it offered - European peoples worked to find new and more direct routes to Asian and African markets. Their efforts took them not only to all parts of the eastern hemisphere, but eventually to the Americas and Oceania as well.
If Muslim and Chinese peoples dominated travel and travel writing in post- classical times, European explorers, conquerors, merchants, and missionaries took centre stage during the early modern era (about 1500 to 1800 CE). By no means did Muslim and Chinese travel come to a halt in early modern times. But European peoples ventured to the distant corners of the globe, and European printing presses churned out thousands of travel accounts that described foreign lands and peoples for a reading public with an apparently insatiable appetite for news about the larger world. The volume of travel literature was so great that several editors, including Giambattista Ramusio, Richard Hakluyt, Theodore de Biy, and Samuel Purchas, assembled numerous travel accounts and made them available in enormous published collections.
During the 19th century, European travellers made their way to the interior regions of Africa and the Americas, generating a fresh round of travel writing as they did so. Meanwhile, European colonial administrators devoted numerous writings to the societies of their colonial subjects, particularly in Asian and African colonies they established. By mid-century, attention was flowing also in the other direction. Painfully aware of the military and technological prowess of European and Euro-American societies, Asian travellers in particular visited Europe and the United States in hopes of discovering principles useful for the organisation of their own societies. Among the most prominent of these travellers who made extensive use of their overseas observations and experiences in their own writings were the Japanese reformer Fukuzawa Yu-kichi and the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen.
With the development of inexpensive and reliable means of mass transport, the 20th century witnessed explosions both in the frequency of long-distance travel and in the volume of travel writing. While a great deal of travel took place for reasons of business, administration, diplomacy, pilgrimage, and missionary work, as in ages past, increasingly effective modes of mass transport made it possible for new kinds of travel to flourish. The most distinctive of them was mass tourism, which emerged as a major form of consumption .for individuals living in the world’s wealthy societies. Tourism enabled consumers to get away from home to see the sights in Rome, take a cruise through the Caribbean, walk the Great Wall of China, visit some wineries in Bordeaux, or go on safari in Kenya. A peculiar variant of the travel account arose to meet the needs of these tourists: the guidebook, which offered advice on food, lodging, shopping, local customs, and all the sights that visitors should not miss seeing. Tourism has had a massive economic impact throughout the world, but other new forms of travel have also had considerable influence in contemporary times.
Simplified: Some travellers simply desired to satisfy curiosity about the larger world.
Until recent times,
travellers
did start their journey for reasons other than mere curiosity
Main idea: Một số người - du hành vì muốnthỏa mãn sự tò mò về thế giới→ Chỉ đến gần đây thì mới có những lý do khác ngoài sự tò mò đơn thuần.
artificial lighting
might aid concentration
There are many reasons why individuals have travelled beyond their own societies. Some travellers may have simply desired to satisfy curiosity about the larger world. Until recent times, however, travellers did start their journey for reasons other than mere curiosity. While the travellers’ accounts give much valuable information on these foreign lands and provide a window for the understanding of the local cultures and histories, they are also a mirror to the travellers themselves, for these accounts help them to have a better understanding of themselves.
Records of foreign travel appeared soon after the invention of writing, and fragmentary travel accounts appeared in both Mesopotamia and Egypt in ancient times. After the formation of large, imperial states in the classical world, travel accounts emerged as a prominent literary genre in many lands, and they held especially strong appeal for rulers desiring useful knowledge about their realms. The Greek historian Herodotus reported on his travels in Egypt and Anatolia in researching the history of the Persian wars. The Chinese envoy Zhang Qian described much of central Asia as far west as Bactria (modern- day Afghanistan) on the basis of travels undertaken in the first century BCE while searching for allies for the Han dynasty. Hellenistic and Roman geographers such as Ptolemy, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder relied on their own travels through much of the Mediterranean world as well as reports of other travellers to compile vast compendia of geographical knowledge.
During the post-classical era (about 500 to 1500 CE), trade and pilgrimage emerged as major incentives for travel to foreign lands. Muslim merchants sought trading opportunities throughout much of the eastern hemisphere. They described lands, peoples, and commercial products of the Indian Ocean basin from East Africa to Indonesia, and they supplied the first written accounts of societies in sub-Saharan West Africa. While merchants set out in search of trade and profit, devout Muslims travelled as pilgrims to Mecca to make their hajj and visit the holy sites of Islam. Since the prophet Muhammad’s original pilgrimage to Mecca, untold millions of Muslims have followed his example, and thousands of hajj accounts have related their experiences. East Asian travellers were not quite so prominent as Muslims during the post-classical era, but they too followed many of the highways and sea lanes of the eastern hemisphere. Chinese merchants frequently visited South-East Asia and India, occasionally venturing even to East Africa, and devout East Asian Buddhists undertook distant pilgrimages. Between the 5th and 9th centuries CE, hundreds and possibly even thousands of Chinese Buddhists travelled to India to study with Buddhist teachers, collect sacred texts, and visit holy sites. Written accounts recorded the experiences of many pilgrims, such as Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing. Though not so numerous as the Chinese pilgrims, Buddhists from Japan, Korea, and other lands also ventured abroad in the interests of spiritual enlightenment.
Medieval Europeans did not hit the roads in such large numbers as their Muslim and East Asian counterparts during the early part of the post-classical era, although gradually increasing crowds of Christian pilgrims flowed to Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela (in northern Spain), and other sites. After the 12th century, however, merchants, pilgrims, and missionaries from medieval Europe travelled widely and left numerous travel accounts, of which Marco Polo’s description of his travels and sojourn in China is the best known. As they became familiar with the larger world of the eastern hemisphere - and the profitable commercial opportunities that it offered - European peoples worked to find new and more direct routes to Asian and African markets. Their efforts took them not only to all parts of the eastern hemisphere, but eventually to the Americas and Oceania as well.
If Muslim and Chinese peoples dominated travel and travel writing in post- classical times, European explorers, conquerors, merchants, and missionaries took centre stage during the early modern era (about 1500 to 1800 CE). By no means did Muslim and Chinese travel come to a halt in early modern times. But European peoples ventured to the distant corners of the globe, and European printing presses churned out thousands of travel accounts that described foreign lands and peoples for a reading public with an apparently insatiable appetite for news about the larger world. The volume of travel literature was so great that several editors, including Giambattista Ramusio, Richard Hakluyt, Theodore de Biy, and Samuel Purchas, assembled numerous travel accounts and made them available in enormous published collections.
During the 19th century, European travellers made their way to the interior regions of Africa and the Americas, generating a fresh round of travel writing as they did so. Meanwhile, European colonial administrators devoted numerous writings to the societies of their colonial subjects, particularly in Asian and African colonies they established. By mid-century, attention was flowing also in the other direction. Painfully aware of the military and technological prowess of European and Euro-American societies, Asian travellers in particular visited Europe and the United States in hopes of discovering principles useful for the organisation of their own societies. Among the most prominent of these travellers who made extensive use of their overseas observations and experiences in their own writings were the Japanese reformer Fukuzawa Yu-kichi and the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen.
With the development of inexpensive and reliable means of mass transport, the 20th century witnessed explosions both in the frequency of long-distance travel and in the volume of travel writing. While a great deal of travel took place for reasons of business, administration, diplomacy, pilgrimage, and missionary work, as in ages past, increasingly effective modes of mass transport made it possible for new kinds of travel to flourish. The most distinctive of them was mass tourism, which emerged as a major form of consumption .for individuals living in the world’s wealthy societies. Tourism enabled consumers to get away from home to see the sights in Rome, take a cruise through the Caribbean, walk the Great Wall of China, visit some wineries in Bordeaux, or go on safari in Kenya. A peculiar variant of the travel account arose to meet the needs of these tourists: the guidebook, which offered advice on food, lodging, shopping, local customs, and all the sights that visitors should not miss seeing. Tourism has had a massive economic impact throughout the world, but other new forms of travel have also had considerable influence in contemporary times.
