IELTS Academic Practice Test 1

READING

SECTION 1
Lying Chicks
​A Chicks that are competing with siblings or whose parents are likely to die or
switch partners tend to be less honest when begging for food, research into sibling
rivalry in birds by university scientists has found. That's because these events
introduce conflict into the family group. Analysis of more than 100 studies across 60
species of birds also found that chicks are more likely to exaggerate their need for
food if their parents are likely to breed again in the future -- backing up existing
evolutionary theory about natural selection.

B The results are published in the journal RAS. Co-author Sara Carol, a doctoral
candidate in Carlton University's ​Department of Zoology, said: “We hypothesised that
you could explain the relative levels of honesty among chicks across species based
on how much conflict exists. A chick that has the nest to itself is always going to get
the worm but if you add other chicks, then there is going to be conflict over food
resources. We wanted to see whether dishonesty increases as the number of
siblings sharing a nest increases.”

C The researchers mathematically analysed 108 scientific studies, featuring

information relating to the begging behaviour of chicks across 60 species. They took
into account factors such as birds' conditions, number of siblings, and relatedness to
siblings. Sara Carol said: “We found that offspring are less honest about their need
for food when they face competition from current siblings, when their parents are
likely to breed again, and when parental divorce or death means any future siblings
can only be half, not full, siblings. In short, anything that brings in conflict is
detrimental to honesty. Over millions of years, natural selection has caused species
with higher levels of conflict to evolve (such as) chicks that beg for food even when
they don't need it.”

D She added: “If parents die or switch partners, all future siblings can only be
half siblings. Chicks do not "benefit" from an evolutionary point of view when their
parents feed unrelated chicks, and they only benefit half as much if their parents
feed half siblings. However, they could benefit a lot if their parents feed their full
siblings, because those siblings could give them nieces and nephews, helping to
continue the bloodline.”

E 'While dishonesty when competing against existing siblings for food might be
expected, what's interesting is that these results show that unborn birds - which may
or may not ever exist - have an effect on the behaviour of chicks. This may be
because if parents are saving resources for future breeding attempts, they could be
less responsive to their current brood's begging. It's therefore in chicks' interest to
exaggerate their begging to make sure they get enough food and aren't
disadvantaged by their parents' attempts to save energy.'

F Begging for food can take the form of chicks calling out, flapping their wings,
or opening their mouths as wide as possible. The most honest species, according to
the meta-analysis, tend to be long-lived, single-mate seabirds such as the
shearwater or albatross, while dishonesty is most prevalent among species such as
blackbirds or great tits, which produce larger broods and tend to breed with different
mates.

SECTION 2
Robots - The Future of Healthcare

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​A The nursing assistant for your next trip to the hospital might be a robot. This is
the implication of research recently published by Dr. Delaney and colleagues in the
Journal of Robotics and AI (Artificial Intelligence). Dr. Delaney, of the Milan Institute
of Technology, led an international team that trained a robot to imitate natural human
actions. Delaney’s work indicates that humans and robots can effectively coordinate
their actions during high-stakes events such as surgeries. Over time this should lead
to improvements in safety during surgeries because unlike their human counterparts
robots do not tire and can complete an endless series of precise movements. The
goal is not to remove human expertise from the operating room, but to complement it
with a robot's particular skills and benefits.

B "As a roboticist, I am convinced that robotic (co)workers and collaborators will

definitely change the work market, but they won't steal job opportunities. They will
just allow us to decrease workload and achieve better performances in several tasks,
from medicine to industrial applications," Delaney explains. To conduct their
experiment, Delaney's team photographed a human being conducting numerous
reaching motions in a way similar to handing instruments to a surgeon. These
camera captures were input into the neural network of the robotic arm, which is
crucial to controlling movements. Next, a human operator guided the robotic arm in
imitating the reaching motions that the human subject had initially performed.
Although there was not a perfect overlap between the robotic and human actions,
they were broadly similar.

C Finally, several humans observed as the robotic arm made numerous

motions. These observers determined whether the actions of the robotic arms were
"biologically inspired," which would indicate that their neural networks had effectively
learned to imitate human behavior. About 70% of the time this is exactly what the
human observers concluded.

D These results are promising, although further research is necessary to

validate or refine Delaney's conclusions. If robotic arms can indeed imitate human
behavior, it would be necessary to build conditions in which humans and robots can

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cooperate effectively in high stress environments like operating rooms. This future
may not be as far away as we think. Delaney's work is part of the growing field of
healthcare robotics, which has the potential to change the way we receive health
care sooner rather than later.

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READING SECTION 3

Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer's - the most common form of dementia - is a progressive, degenerative
disease of the brain. While commonly associated with elderly individuals, this
devastating illness is now believed to have its origins much earlier, infiltrating the
nervous system decades before the onset of clinical symptoms. Indeed, the greatest
obstacle to successful treatment of Alzheimer's is the fact that the disease is typically
not recognized until its progress has irreparably ravaged the brain.

The disease often begins with mild memory loss, which may interfere with normal
conversation. While advancing age remains the leading risk factor for Alzheimer's,
some individuals are also genetically predisposed. Other risk factors include high
cholesterol, heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure. Today, Alzheimer's is the
fifth-leading cause of death in adults 65-85 years old.

Despite the increasingly pronounced effects of dementia, a definitive diagnosis of

Alzheimer's disease usually requires the post-mortem examination of brain tissue
and identification of two stereotypic symptoms, known as plaques and tangles. More
recently, new imaging technology has enabled researchers to detect these
symptoms in living brains, though researchers are cautious about their interpretation.

Although plaques and tangles remain as the definitive neuropathological hallmark of

the disease, plaques do not correlate at all with the degree of cognitive impairment in
Alzheimer's, and tangles correlate only slightly. We further know that plaques and
tangles are latecomers in the cascade of events that cause the dementia of
Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer's is believed to account for 60-70 percent of dementia cases. As the

disease progresses, symptoms become more severe, including erosion of language
ability, physical disorientation and behavioral transformations, often involving the
withdrawal from family and society. Over time, bodily functions are lost, ultimately

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leading to death. Life expectancy for Alzheimer's patients varies, but three to nine
years following diagnosis is typical.

Mitochondria - membrane-bound organelles found in all eukaryotic organisms - are

often called the powerhouses of the cell. Through a process known as oxidative
phosphorylation, they produce most of the cell's chemical energy in the form of
adenosine triphosphate or ATP. In addition to supplying cellular energy,
mitochondria are involved in cell signaling, cellular differentiation and cell death, as
well as in cellular growth and the maintenance of the cell cycle.

Because mitochondria play such an important role in the cell, mitochondrial

dysfunction has been implicated in a broad range of illness, including cardiovascular
disease, autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, epilepsy, stroke, Lou Gehrig's
disease and diabetes along with forms of dementia including Alzheimer's.
Unsurprisingly, defects in mitochondrial function more severely affect energy-hungry
organ systems in the body, particularly muscles, the GI tract and the brain - an organ
making up just 2 percent of a person's weight while consuming 20 percent of the
body's total energy budget.

Mitochondria are unique among the cell's organelles, as they possess their own
DNA, distinct from the DNA contained within the cell's nucleus. This strange state of
affairs is due to mitochondrial evolution. Mitochondria are descended from free-living
bacteria that colonized other cells some 2 billion years ago. After being incorporated
into nucleated cells, these endosymbionts, as they are known, lost much of their
original machinery, yet retained their own complement of DNA. In addition to the role
of mitochondrial dysfunction in disease, the gradual degradation of mitochondrial
integrity is believed to play a central role in the normal process of aging.