READING PASSAGE 45 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13which are based on Reading Passage 45 below. BAKELITE The birth of modern plastics In 1907, Leo Hendrick Baekeland, a Belgian scientist working in New York, discovered and patented a revolutionary new synthetic material. His invention, which he named ‘Bakelite’, was of enormous technological importance, and effectively launched the modern plastics industry. The term ‘plastic’ comes from the Greek plassein, meaning ‘to mold’. Some plastics are derived from natural sources, some are semi-synthetic (the result of chemical action on a natural substance), and some are entirely synthetic, that is, chemically engineered from the constituents of coal or...
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IELTS READING
Practice Reading Passage 1 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-15 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. A SPARK, A FLINT: HOW FIRE LEAPT TO LIFE The control of fire was the first and perhaps greatest of humanity’s steps towards a life-enhancing technology To early man, fire was a divine gift randomly delivered in the form of lightning, forest fire or burning lava. Unable to make flame for themselves, the earliest peoples probably stored fire by keeping slow-burning logs alight or by carrying charcoal in pots. How and where man learnt how to produce flame at will is unknown. It was probably a secondary invention, accidentally made during tool-making operations with wood or stone. Studies of primitive societies suggest that the earliest method of making fire was through friction. European peasants would insert a wooden drill in a round hole and rotate it briskly between their palms. This process could be speeded up by wrapping a cord ar...
IELTS READING 2
READING PASSAGE 7 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1 -12 which are based on Reading Passage 7 below. A WORKAHOLIC ECONOMY FOR THE first century or so of the industrial revolution increased productivity led to decreases in working hours. Employees who had been putting in 12-hour days, six days a week, found their time on the job shrinking to 10 hours daily, then, finally, to eight hours, five days a week. Only a generation ago social planners worried about what people would do with all this new-found free time. In the US, at least, it seems they need not have bothered. Although the output per hour of work has more than doubled since 1945, leisure seems reserved largely for the unemployed and underemployed. Those who work full-time spend as much time on the job as they did at the end of World War II. In fact, working hours have increased noticeably since 1970 – perhaps because real ...
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