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BEST IELTS Academic Reading Test 517
IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST 517 – PASSAGE – 1
IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST – 517
READING PASSAGE – 1
WATER ON TAP
A. Early people had no need for engineering works to supply their water. Hunters and nomads camped near natural sources and populations were so sparse that pollution of the water supply did not pose a serious problem. But as civilized life developed and small settlements grew into cities, water management became a major concern, not only to provide the urban centers but also to irrigate the farms surrounding them. The solution was to find a way to raise water up from the rivers.
B. Around 5000 BC, primitive attempts were made by the Egyptians. They used the Perian Wheel, a water-wheel that dipped containers into a river, lifting up water as it revolved. Another method was a simple lever-and-bucket system called the shadoof. The invention of the lever, as well as a screw, to lift water is often attributed to Archimedes (287-213 BC) but both devices were without doubt in use thousands of years before his time. A more accurate explanation is that Archimedes was the first to try to describe in mathematical terms the way these devices worked.
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C. By 2000 BC, the rulers of Mesopotamia, Babylonia and Egypt had constructed systems of dams and canals to control the flood waters of the Tigris, Euphrates and the Nile. Such canals not only irrigated crops but also supplied water for domestic purposes, the water being stored in large pottery jars, hand-carried from the river by household slaves. The remains of the earliest aqueduct on record have been pinpointed to the works of the Assyrian king and master builder Sennacherib (705-681 BC), who developed a 10-mile canal in three stages, including 18 fresh-water courses from the mountains.
D. But we can thank the Romans for being the first to consider seriously the sanitation of their water supply. Faced with the problem of directing enough water towards Rome – water from the Tiber, a muddy, smelly river, was out of the question – they set about constructing the most extensive system of aqueducts in the ancient world. These brought the pure waters of the Apennine Mountains into the city, with settling basins and filters along the way, to ensure the water’s clarity and cleanliness. The first, built around 312 BC during Appius Claudius Caecus’s administration, was Aqua Appia, an underground aqueduct about 10 miles in length.
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E. The arch revolutionized water supply. By using it, Roman architects could raise aqueducts to the height needed to span valleys. The Aqua Marcian in Rome – around 56 miles long with a 10-mile bridged section – was built by the praetor Marcius in 144 BC, and was the first to carry water above ground. Eventually, Rome was served by eleven linked aqueducts.
These keep the city’s taps and fountains running – providing an astonishing 38 million gallons of water each day. Parts of several of these are still in use, although the construction of such massive water-supply systems declined with the fall of the Roman Empire. For several centuries afterward, springs and wells provided the main source of domestic and industrial water.
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F. The introduction of the force pump in England in the middle of the 16th century greatly extended the possibilities of development of water-supply systems. This pump was by no means a new invention. It was in fact the brainchild of Ctesibius of Alexandria and it dates to the 3rd century Be, Like all great engineers, Ctesibius took his inspiration from his surroundings. While working on a way to raise and lower a mirror in his father’s barber shop by counterbalancing it with a lead weight, he stumbled on a method of automatically closing the shop’s door without it slamming.
He ran a weighted line from the door over a pulley and into a pipe, which slowed the speed at which the weight dropped. As the door hissed away, opening and closing, he realized the weight was displacing air and acting like a piston. This realization led Ctesibius to investigate methods of moving fluids along a pipe using a piston, and to the founding principle of hydraulics. Ctesibius’s force pump was not capable of pumping high volumes of water but it played a vital part in ancient Greek culture.
Among other uses, force pumps drain the bilges of the trading ships of the time. They were used to extinguish fires and they brought to life the fountains that graced Alexandria.
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G. In London, the first pumping waterworks were completed in 1562. This pumped river water to a suspended reservoir 120ft above the Thames. It was then distributed by gravity via lead pipes to surrounding buildings. In more recent times, many aqueducts have been built worldwide. Among them are the aqueducts supplying water to Glasgow (35 miles long), Marseilles (60 miles), Manchester (96 miles), Liverpool (68 miles) and Vienna (144 miles). California now has the most extensive aqueduct system in the world.
Water drawn from the Colorado River’s Parker Dam is carried 242 miles over the San Bernadino Mountains, supplying more than a billion gallons a day. In addition, the 338-mile Los Angeles aqueduct draws water from the Owens River in the Sierra Nevada, giving a daily supply of around 4 billion gallons.
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Questions 1-6
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
| EGYPTIANS (5000 BC ) | MESOPOTAMIA, BABYLONIA & EGYPT(2000 BC) | ROMANS | ENGLAND |
| – Perian Wheel (a type of water-wheel) – 1 _______ (a lever and bucket system) | – systems of dams and canals – water for 2 _______ and _______ – 3_______ used for keeping water in | – dealing with water supply 4_______ – system of aqueducts – invention of 5_____ led to aqueducts above ground | – use of force pump – water pumped to reservoir and carried to buildings through 6_______ |
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Questions 7-10
Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs labelled, A-G .
Which paragraph contains the following information?
7. an invention that could only supply limited amounts of water
8. a reference to a widespread but false belief
9. reasons why water-supply systems needed to be developed
10. the name of the person responsible for creating the first known aqueduct
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Questions 11-13
Answer the questions below using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
11. What was Ctesibius trying to move?
12. What did Ctesibius succeed in causing to move?
13. What area of science did Ctesibius help to establish?
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ANSWERS
1. SHADOOF
2. CROPS, DOMESTIC PURPOSES
3. (LARGE) (POTTERY) JARS
4. SANITATION
5. (THE) ARCH
6. LEAD PIPES
7. F
8. B
9. A
10. C
11. (A) MIRROR
12. (THE) SHOP’S DOOR
13. HYDRAULICS
IELTS Academic Reading Test