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Lesson 3 - 28.7.24
IELTS Reading - Session 1
Table of Contents
Exercise 1: ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 2
Exercise 2: ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 5
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Exercise 1:
THINK HAPPY
It’s no joke: even scientists at the Royal Society are now taking the search for the source of happiness very
seriously.
A. What would Sir Isaac Newton have made of it? There he was, painted in oils, gazing down at one of the
strangest meetings that the Royal Society, Britain’s most august scientific body, has ever held. If Newton
had flashed a huge grin, it would have been completely appropriate, for beneath him last week a two- day
conference was unfolding on a booming new field of science: investigating what makes people happy.
Distinguished professors strode up to the podium, including one eminent neurologist armed with videos of
women giggling at comedy films; another was a social scientist brandishing statistics on national
cheerfulness. Hundreds of other researchers sat scribbling notes on how to produce more smiles.
B. The decision by the Royal Society to pick ‘the science of wellbeing’ from hundreds of applications for
conferences on other topics is no laughing matter. It means that the investigation of what makes people
happy is being taken very seriously indeed. ‘Many philosophies and religions have studied this subject, but
scientifically it has been ignored,’ said Dr Nick Baylis, a Cambridge University psychologist and one of the
conference organisers. ‘For the Royal Society to give us its countenance is vital, because that states that
what we are doing deserves to be acknowledged and Investigated by the best scientific minds.’
C. At first sight, the mission of Baylis – and the growing number of other scientists working on happiness
research – appears fanciful. They want to deploy scientifically rigorous methods to determine why some
people are lastingly happy while others tend to misery. Then they envisage spreading the secret of
happiness across the globe and, in short, increasing the sum of human happiness. ‘If someone is happy,
they are more popular and also healthier, they live longer and are more productive at work. So it is very
much worth having’ he says.
D. Baylis, the only ‘positive psychology’ lecturer in Britain, knows that the aims of happiness research might
sound woolly, so he is at pains to distance himself from the brigades of non- academic self-help gurus. He
refers to ‘life satisfaction’ and ‘wellbeing’ and emphasises that his work, and that of others at the
conference, is grounded in solid research. So what have the scientists discovered – has a theory of
happiness been defined yet?
E. According to Professor Martin Seligman, probably the world’s leading figure in this field, happiness could
be but a train ride – and a couple of questionnaires – away. It was Seligman, a psychologist from
Pennsylvania University, who kick-started the happiness science movement with a speech he made as
President of the American Psychological Association (APA). Why, asked Seligman, shocking delegates at an
APA conference, does science only investigate suffering? Why not look into what steps increase happiness,
even for those who are not depressed, rather than simply seek to assuage pain? For a less well- known
scientist, the speech could have spelt the end of a career, but instead Seligman landed funding of almost
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£18m to follow his hunch. He has been in regular contact with hundreds of other researchers and practising
psychologists around the world, all the while conducting polls and devising strategies for increasing
happiness.
F. His findings have led him to believe that there are three main types of happiness. First, there is ‘the
pleasant life’ – the kind of happiness we usually gain from sensual pleasures such as eating and drinking or
watching a good film. Seligman blames Hollywood and the advertising industry for encouraging the rest of
us, wrongly as he sees it, to believe that lasting happiness is to be found that way. Second, ị there is ‘the
good life’, which comes from enjoying something we are good or talented at. The key to this, Seligman
believes, lies in identifying our strengths and then taking part in an activity that uses them. Third, there is
‘the meaningful life’. The most lasting happiness, Seligman says, comes from finding something you believe
in and then putting your strengths at its service. People who are good at communicating with others might
thus find long-lasting happiness through becoming involved in politics or voluntary work, while a rock star
wanting to save the world might find it in organising a charity concert.
G. Achieving ‘the good life’ and ‘the meaningful life’ is the secret of lasting happiness, Seligman says. For
anybody unsure of how to proceed, he has an intriguing idea. To embark on the road to happiness, he
suggests that you need a pen, some paper and, depending on your location, a railway ticket. First, identify a
person to whom you feel a deep debt of gratitude but have never thanked properly. Next, write a 300-word
essay outlining how important the help was and how much you appreciate it. Then tell them you need to
visit, without saying what for, turn up at their house and read them the essay. The result: tears, hugs and
deeper, longer-lasting happiness, apparently, than would come from any amount of champagne.
H. Sceptics may insist that science will always remain a clumsy way of investigating and propagating
happiness and say that such things are better handled by artists, writers and musicians – if they can be
handled at all. And not everybody at the conference was positive about the emerging science. Lewis
Wolpert, professor of biology as applied to medicine at University College London, who has written a
bestseller about his battle with depression, said: ‘If you were really totally happy, I’d be very suspicious. I
think you wouldn’t do anything, you’d just sort of sit there in a treacle of happiness. There’s a whole world
out there, and unless you have a bit of discomfort, you’ll never actually do anything.’
Questions 56-59: There are eight paragraphs marked A-H in the passage. In which paragraph is the
following mentioned? Write your answers in the corresponding numbered box provided.
56. a view that complete happiness may not be a desirable goal
57. a reference to the potential wider outcomes of conducting research into happiness
58. an implication of the fact that the conference was held at all
59. a statement concerning the possible outcome of expressing a certain view in public
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Questions 60-62: Complete the sentences below with words taken from the passage. Use NO MORE THAN
THREE WORDS for each answer. Write your answers in the corresponding numbered box provided.
60. At the conference, research into happiness was referred to as the _______.
61. Baylis and others intend to use _______ to find out what makes people happy or unhappy.
62. Baylis says he should not be categorised among the _______ who do not have academic credentials.
Questions 63-68: Complete the sentences below using words from the box. Write your answers in the
corresponding numbered box provided.
Seligman’s categories of happiness Seligman’s first type of happiness involves the enjoyment of pleasures
such as (63)_______. He believes that people should not be under the (64)_______ that such things lead to
happiness that is not just temporary. His second type is related to (65)_______. Identification of this should
lead to (66)_______ and the result is ‘the good life’. His third type involves having a strong (67)_______ and
doing something about it for the benefit of others. This, according to
Seligman, leads to happiness that has some (68)_______.
confidence
entertainment
incentive
leadership
thrill
perseverance
illusion
effort
ability
theory
celebration
participation
ego
permanence
leadership
encouragement
exaggeration
concept
conviction
support
POST – READING 1:
Summarize the key points of the reading passage
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Exercise 2:
READING WARS
A. In many developed countries literacy skirts are under siege. This is true even in societies where access to
primary education is universal and governments invest heavily in education. New Zealand, for example, was
leading the world in literacy rates in 1970, but tumbled to thirteenth place in 2001 and then again to
twenty-fourth just a few years later. Test scores in the USA also slumped ten percent during the 1990s
despite the country riding an economic boom for much of the decade. In some cases, these statistics
reverse trends that were in motion for over a century and a half. The steady, gradual expansion of literacy
across social groups and classes was one of the greatest successes of the period of industrialization that
began in the mid-1850s.
B. This reversal of fortunes has led to widespread contention over the pedagogy of teaching literacy. What
was once a dry and technical affair—the esoteric business of linguists and policy analysts—rapidly
escalated into a series of skirmishes that were played out in high-visibility forums: Newspapers ran special
features, columns and letters-to-the-editor on the literacy crisis; politicians successfully ran their national
campaigns on improving reading test scores; and parents had their say by joining Parent Teacher
Associations (PTAs) and lobby groups.
C. The arguments around reading pooled into two different classroom methodologies: constructivism and
behaviorism. The constructivist methodology grew from a holistic conception of knowledge creation that
understood reading and writing to be innate, humanistic and interpretative practices that suffered when
they were spliced and formalized within rigid doctrines, strict rules and universal skill-sets. Constructivists
associate words with meanings; each word might be thought of as a Chinese ideogram. Students are
encouraged to learn individual words and skip over and guess words they do not understand, or learn to
interpret those words by situating them within the lexical infrastructure of the sentence and the story's
wider narrative. These practices materialize as learning processes centered on guided group reading and
independent reading of high-quantity, culturally diverse literature or textual composition that emphasises
pupils conveying their own thoughts and feelings for real purposes such as letters to pen pals or journal
entries.
D．Behaviorism sees the pedagogical process in a less dialectical fashion—words are initially taught not
lexically, as vehicles to convey meaning, but rather sub-lexically, as a combination of features that can be
separated and learnt in a schematic process. The behaviorist approach does not focus on words at all in the
early stages of learning. Rather, it is centered on a universally applicable method of teaching students to
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isolate graphemes and phonemes with the intention that students will eventually learn to synthesize these
individual parts and make sense of spoken words textually. In this way, individual components are not
equated with the strokes of a brush on a Chinese ideogram, but rather as the focal pieces of interpretation as in, for example, learning to read musical notations or Morse Code. Because of its emphasis on universal
rules, behaviorism is much more conducive to formal examination and the consolidation of results across
regions and countries. The ability to master language is considered to rest in the acquisition of a set of
skills that exist independently of individuals. Classroom learning is therefore based upon the transmission
of knowledge from tutor to student, rather than seen as an internalized process that erupts within the
students themselves.
E. So who comes out on top? It is not easy to say. Champions of behaviorism have claimed victory because
constructivist learning took over in the late 1980s, just before test scores on literacy began sinking across
the West. Constructivists, however, can make the valid claim that the behaviorist approach has a heavy
methodological bias towards testing and examination, and that test results do not represent the ability of
individuals to use and interpret language freely and creatively. Furthermore, different socio-economic
groups respond in different ways to each method. Those from wealthier families tend to do well regardless
of the method, but thrive on the constructivist approach implemented in the 1990s. Children from poorer
families, however, are better served by behaviorism. These outcomes have ramped up levels of socioeconomic based educational disparities in educational systems that have pushed the constructivist method.
F. It is unlikely that either constructivism or behaviorism will be permanently sidelined from curricula in the
near future. Most teachers find it easier to incorporate aspects of each approach. Constructivism may
ultimately hold the trump card because of its proven success with pupils who come from families where
they are introduced to reading and writing in various forms from a young age - this process of 'living and
learning' and immersing oneself in language is a sound principle. In a world rife with social inequities,
households with illiterate parents and a scarcity of funding for education, however, the behaviorist
approach may have the upper hand in teaching children to access the basic skills of literacy quickly and
efficiently, even if some linguistic creativity is crushed in the process.
Questions 56-62: There are six paragraphs marked A-F in the passage. In which paragraph is the
following mentioned? Write your answers in the corresponding numbered box provided.
56. A reason why constructivism might increase inequalities in society
57. Ways in which people debated the merits of different ways of teaching reading
58. A comparison between forms of communication that build meaning from isolated parts
59. Reasons why a method that is theoretically superior might not always work effectively in practice
60. An explanation of why measuring the success of different reading methods is difficult
61. An example of an activity that teachers might use to develop writing skills
62. Evidence of a national decline in reading standards
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Questions 63-65: Which THREE of the following are features of constructivism? Choose THREE
letters, A-G. Write your answers in the corresponding numbered box provided.
A．Students learn best by working on their own.
B．People are naturally inclined to develop language abilities.
C．It is vital that a disciplined and regulated approach is used.
D．It is important that students understand every word they encounter.
E．Language is best learnt as a single, organic process.
F．Everyone learns to read and write in a similar manner.
G．Context can provide helpful cues to understanding words.
Questions 66-68: Which THREE of the following are features of behaviorism? Choose THREE letters,
A-G. Write your answers in the corresponding numbered box provided.
A．The whole of a word is less important than its parts.
B．There is not a common set of conventions.
C．Students learn best by working on their own.
D．Meaning is created by connecting word fragments.
E．Linguistic capacities are built into people.
F．Students learn by receiving information from teachers.
G．It is difficult to judge how well students are doing collectively.
Post – reading 2: Discussion
Constructivism (chủ nghĩa kiến tạo) VS Behaviorism (Chủ nghĩa hành vi) in education
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