BEST IELTS Academic Reading Test 494

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IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST 494 – PASSAGE – 1

IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST – 494

READING PASSAGE – 1

Henry Ford

An American innovator

Henry Ford was born in 1863 on the family farm in Greenfield, 200 km from Pittsburg. When he was 12 he witnessed one of the first road vehicles not drawn by horses, a Nicolls and Shepard road engine, which ran on steam. This fired his imagination and he became obsessed with all types of engines and mechanized contraptions.

While still a teen on the farm he built a steam tractor and a car, but concluded that steam was not suitable as the boiler was too dangerous for small vehicles. He would pull watches apart and put them back together as a way of learning the basics of mechanics. The young Ford was already showing a curiosity and ability far beyond his years and a glimpse of the innovator to come.

These attributes would become the basis of his whole career. Ford could have very easily become a farmer like his father but he could not ignore his obsession with machines. In 1879 he took the first of what would become many risks, by leaving home to take up an apprenticeship with the Michigan Car Company, a railroad car manufacturer. Over the next few years he worked in similar jobs, moving on when he wanted to learn more. When he returned home in 1882, he operated and serviced portable steam engines on farms, sometimes worked in factories in Detroit, and cut and sold timber from 15 hectares of his father’s land.

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He got married in 1888 and three years later he and his wife moved permanently to Detroit where Ford started working as an engineer at an electric light factory. In his spare time he was one of the hundreds of people across the country working in their stables and sheds trying to build horseless carriages. Helped by a group of friends, in 1896 he completed his first commercial self-propelled vehicle, the Quadricycle. The wheels were like those on a bicycle, it had steering like a boat and a seat from a horse-drawn carriage. It had two speed settings and no reverse mechanism. Another version followed in 1898.

Ford now demonstrated what one of his greatest talents was, being able to explain his vision to people to convince them to back him financially. He was successful in convincing some backers to finance his dream of producing his own motorized carriages – an investment with a big risk. Ford had great ideas, but no commercial experience, and though learning by trial-and-error works for inventions, it’s not useful when running a business. The new company failed and so did the second one he managed to start. But what was becoming a pattern of failure didn’t slow him down, though it was becoming increasingly difficult to convince investors.

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He turned his attention to building cars he could race and his success on the track brought investors back to his door. The new Ford Motor Company started in 1903. This time he employed people with business experience and they would help make Ford Motor Company into one of the world’s most successful companies. The Model A was the first car the company manufactured and it sold very well.

In 1907, the Model N version became the bestselling car in the country, with 7,000 cars selling for $500 each. Ford’s vision was now to sell cars to the average American, not just the wealthy to use for entertainment. In 1908 the Model T was the next in the series and it was inexpensive but reliable enough to be taken on unmade road He had a hit on his hands. He would eventually sell 15 million of them on every continent.

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Ford’s problem now was that his cars were so popular he could not make them fast enough to keep up with the demand. He moved to a bigger factory in Highland Park just north of Detroit in 1910. By visiting factories of other products, such as clocks, bikes, rifles and even slaughterhouses, Ford used ideas that were original to his industry and he installed a moving assembly line system for producing cars. He cut costs by only selling the cars in one colour, famously saying, ‘You can have any colour… as long as it’s black. Assembly line work was boring and arduous and he had difficulty keeping workers for long.

He solved the problem by paying them twice as much. His vision was not just for his own benefit, he was willing to share his success with others. By the middle of the 1920s, he controlled 50 per cent of the American car market. It is estimated that there are close to a quarter of a million Model Ts around the world that are still driveable, though an increasing number of them are being dismantled to provide no-longer-manufactured spare parts to other enthusiasts Strangely, Model Ts can be worth more when they are in pieces. Still, a quarter of a million is an impressive number for a car that is more than one hundred years old.

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Questions 1-5

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

TRUE – if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE – if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN – if there is no information on this

1. Ford learned how watches work by asking people who made them.

2. His first job was with a company that made carriages for trains.

3. He changed jobs frequently to increase his knowledge.

4. He moved to Detroit in 1888 and began building carriages for horses in his free time.

5. When he started producing them for sale he found immediate success.

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Questions 6-9

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS OR A NUMBER for each answer.

Questions 10-13

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

The Ford Motor Company

Despite the failure of his first two companies, Henry Ford managed to convince 10…………. in the Ford Motor Company. Within four years, the company had become the most successful seller of cars in the USA and had trouble keeping up with demand.

Using 11………… and systems from other industries, he introduced a process called an 12…………that enabled the company to expand further and sell cars all over the world. When he found it difficult to keep workers at his factory, he solved the problem by 13…………. them twice as much.

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