Table of Contents
BEST IELTS General Reading Test 482
IELTS GENERAL READING TEST 482 – PASSAGE – 2
IELTS GENERAL READING TEST – 482
READING PASSAGE – 2
Sigiriya
A. Sigiriya or Sinhagiri is an ancient rock fortress located in the northern Matale District near the town of Dambulla in the Central Province, Sri Lanka. The name refers to a site of historical and archaeological significance that is dominated by a massive column of rock nearly 200 metres high.
According to the ancient Sri Lankan chronicle the Culavamsa, this site was selected by King Kashyapa (477-495 AD) for his new capital. He built his palace on the top of this rock and decorated its sides with colourful frescoes. On a small plateau about halfway up the side of this rock he built a gateway in the form of an enormous lion. Sigiriya today is a UNESCO listed World Heritage Site.
IELTS General Reading Test
B. The name of this place is derived from this structure, Sinhāgiri, the Lion Rock (an etymology similar to Sinhapura, the Sanskrit name of Singapore, the Lion City). The capital and the royal palace were abandoned after the king’s death. It was used as a Buddhist monastery until the 14th century. It is one of the best-preserved examples of ancient urban planning. In 1831 Major Jonathan Forbes of the 78th Highlanders of the British Army, while returning on horseback from a trip to Pollonnuruwa, encountered the “bush covered summit of Sigiriya” for the first time.
C. Sigiriya came to the attention of antiquarians and, later, archaeologists. Archaeological work at Sigiriya began on a small scale in the 1890s. H.C.P. Bell was the first archaeologist to conduct extensive research on Sigiriya. The Cultural Triangle Project, launched by the Government of Sri Lanka, focused its attention on Sigiriya in 1982. Archaeological work began on the entire city for the first time under this project.
IELTS General Reading Test
D. There was a sculpted lion’s head above the legs and paws flanking the entrance, but the head collapsed years ago. Sigiriya consists of an ancient citadel built by King Kashyapa during the 5th century. The Sigiriya site contains the ruins of an upper palace located on the flat top of the rock, a mid-level terrace that includes the Lion Gate and the mirror wall with its frescoes, the lower palaces cling to the slopes below the rocks.
The moats, walls and gardens of the palace extended for a few hundred metres from the base of the rock. The site was both a palace and a fortress. The upper palace on the top of the rock includes cisterns cut into the rock.
IELTS General Reading Test
E. Sigiriya is considered to be one of the most important urban development sites of the first millennium, and the site proposal is considered very elaborate and imaginative. The proposal combined concepts of symmetry and asymmetry to intentionally interlock the man-made geometrical and natural forms of the surroundings.
On the west side of the rock lies a park for the royals, laid out on a symmetrical design; the park contains water- retaining structures, including sophisticated surface/subsurface hydraulic systems, some of which are working today. The south contains a man-made reservoir; these were extensively used from the previous capital of the dry zone of Sri Lanka. Five gates were placed at entrances. The more elaborate western gate is thought to have been reserved for the royals.
IELTS General Reading Test
F. On 14 October 1967, an incident of vandalism took place where paint was splashed on the frescoes. Luciano Maranzi, an expert trained at the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property in Rome, assisted the restoration, which took until 11 April 1968. It was considered the most challenging effort undertaken by the Chemical Preservation Division of the Department of Archaeology. There is continued concern that the original colours of the frescoes are fading, with a report presented in 2010 suggesting that the 22 frescoes have been fading since 1930.
Questions 15-20
Choose the correct heading for the given sections from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number in the answer sheet.
List of Headings
i. Skull of an animal statue broken.
ii. Archaeological evidence about the culture of Sigiriya.
iii. The water structures used in Sigiriya were better than those used in western world.
iv. Challenging refurbishment after destruction to the shades of murals.
v. Intricate and contemporary planning of the fort premises.
vi. Commencement of archaeological investigation on Sigiriya.
vii. First encounter with the magnificent Sigiriya.
viii. A fortress resembling a Lion.
ix. Once King’s abode, then becoming a place of adoration.
IELTS General Reading Test
15. Paragraph A
16. Paragraph B
17. Paragraph C
18. Paragraph D
19. Paragraph E
20. Paragraph F
IELTS General Reading Test
Read the text below and answer questions 21-26.
Playing Cards
A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic- coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front and back of each card has a finish to make handling easier. They are most commonly used for playing card games, and are also used in magic tricks, cardistry, card throwing, and card houses; cards may also be collected. Some patterns of Tarot playing card are also used for divination, although bespoke cards for this use are more common.
Playing cards are typically palm-sized for convenient handling, and usually are sold together in a set as a deck of cards or pack of cards. The most common type of playing card is that found in the French- suited, standard 52-card pack, of which the most common design is the English pattern, followed by the Belgian-Genoese pattern.
However, many countries use other, traditional types of playing card, including those that are German, Italian, Spanish and Swiss-suited. Tarot cards (also known locally as Tarocks or tarocchi) are an old genre of playing card that is still very popular in France, central and Eastern Europe and Italy. Asia, too, has regional cards such as the Japanese hanafuda.
IELTS General Reading Test
Playing cards are available in a wide variety of styles, as decks may be custom produced for casinos and magicians (sometimes in the form of trick decks), made as promotional items, or intended as souvenirs, artistic works, educational tools, or branded accessories. Decks of cards or even single cards are also collected as a hobby or for monetary value. Cards may also be produced for trading card sets or collectible card games, which can comprise hundreds if not thousands of unique cards.
Playing cards may have been invented during the Tang dynasty around the 9th century AD as a result of the usage of woodblock printing technology. The earliest known text containing a possible reference to card games is a 9th-century text known as the Collection of Miscellanea at Duyang, written by Tang dynasty writer Su E. It describes Princess Tongchang, daughter of Emperor Yizong of Tang, playing the “leaf game” in 868 with members of the Wei clan, the family of the princess’s husband.
IELTS General Reading Test
The first known book on the “leaf” game was called the Yezi Gexi and allegedly written by a Tang woman. It received commentary by writers of subsequent dynasties. The Song dynasty (960-1279) scholar Ouyang Xiu (1007- 1072) asserts that the “leaf” game existed at least since the mid-Tang dynasty and associated its invention with the development of printed sheets as a writing medium. However, Ouyang also claims that the “leaves” were pages of a book used in a board game played with dice, and that the rules of the game were lost by 1067. Other games revolving around alcoholic drinking involved using playing cards of a sort from the Tang dynasty onward.
However, these cards did not contain suits or numbers. Instead, they were printed with instructions or forfeits for whomever drew them. The earliest dated instance of a game involving cards occurred on 17 July 1294 when “Yan Sengzhu and Zheng Pig-Dog were caught playing cards [zhi pai] and that wood blocks for printing them had been impounded, together with nine of the actual cards.”
IELTS General Reading Test
William Henry Wilkinson suggests that the first cards may have been actual paper currency which doubled as both the tools of gaming and the stakes being played for, similar to trading card games. Using paper money was inconvenient and risky so they were substituted by play money known as “money cards”. One of the earliest games in which we know the rules is madiao, a trick-taking game, which dates to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
15th-century scholar Lu Rong described it is as being played with 38 “money cards” divided into four suits: 9 in coins, 9 in strings of coins (which may have been misinterpreted as sticks from crude drawings), 9 in myriads (of coins or of strings), and 11 in tens of myriads (a myriad is 10,000). The two latter suits had Water Margin characters instead of pips on them with Chinese to mark their rank and suit. The suit of coins is in reverse order with 9 of coins being the lowest going up to 1 of coins as the high card.
IELTS General Reading Test
Questions 21-26
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?
TRUE – If the statement agrees with the information.
FALSE – If the statement contradicts the information.
NOT GIVEN – If there is no information on this.
21. Plastic coated paper cards are best for handling.
22. Playing cards are typically vended as a deck of cards.
23. Playing cards can be tailored to suit the needs of illusionists.
24. It is speculated that Playing cards might have developed during the Tang dynasty.
25. Cards that were played during liquor sessions only included penalties and commands and not numbers.
26. Money cards replaced paper money because it costed less to print.
IELTS General Reading Test
IELTS General Reading Test
ANSWERS
15. IX
16. VII
17. VI
18. I
19. V
20. IV
21. NOT GIVEN
22. TRUE
23. TRUE
24. TRUE
25. TRUE
26. FALSE
IELTS General Reading Test