Cambridge IELTS 17 Test 4 Reading Passage 1 là một bài tập không quá khó nhưng vẫn đủ thử thách để luyện tập cho phần thi IELTS Reading. Để cùng vận dụng hết những từ vựng mà bài có thì hãy cùng ISE giải đề và phân tích đáp án nhé!

 1. Phần thi Cambridge IELTS 17 Test 4 Reading Passage 1 là gì?

1.1. Thông tin bộ sách Cambridge IELTS 17

Cambridge IELTS là một bộ sách được xuất bản bởi Cambridge với mục đích luyện đề thi IELTS và được ra mắt vào tháng 5 hàng năm.

Các đề từ Cambridge IELTS nhìn chung bám khá sát với đề thi thực tế và đã được thí sinh trên toàn thế giới thêm vào danh sách các bộ đề luyện thi IELTS uy tín.

Nội dung sách bao gồm các phần thi của cả 4 kỹ năng trong bài thi IELTS Academic bao gồm: Reading, Listening, Speaking và Writing.

1.2. Tổng quan Cambridge IELTS 17 Test 4 Reading Passage 1

Bài đọc Cambridge IELTS 17 Test 4 Reading Passage 1 là một bài đọc nói về lợi ích của loài dơi Madagascar trong việc giúp đỡ nông dân bảo vệ mùa màn. Bài đọc cho ta biết về nhà khoa học Rocha và nhóm nghiên cứu của ông. Họ đã tìm ra được những lợi ích của dơi như săn loài gây hại cho mùa màn, thậm chí là cả những loài muỗi mang theo dịch bệnh. Rocha cho biết rằng nên có sự hỗ trợ của nông dân để cả loài dơi và con người cùng được hưởng lợi ích.

Phần Passage 1 sẽ bao gồm 13 câu hỏi từ câu 1 đến 13 của phần Reading Test 4.

2. Bài đọc và đề bài Cambridge IELTS 17 Test 4 Reading Passage 1

READING PASSAGE 1

You should spend about 20 minutes Questions 1—13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.

Bats to the rescue

How Madagascar’s bats are helping to save the rainforest

There are few places in the world where relations between agriculture and conservation are more strained. Madagascar’s forests are being converted to agricultural land at a rate of one percent every year. Much of this destruction is fuelled by the cultivation of the country’s main staple crop: rice. (Q1) And a key reason for this destruction is that insect pests are destroying vast quantities of what is grown by local subsistence farmers, leading them to clear forest to create new paddy fields. (Q2) The result is devastating habitat and biodiversity loss on the island, but not all species are suffering. In fact, some of the island’s insectivorous bats are currently thriving and this has important implications for farmers and conservationists alike.

Enter University of Cambridge zoologist Ricardo Rocha. He’s passionate about conservation, and bats. More specifically, he’s interested in how bats are responding to human activity and deforestation in particular. (Q3) Rocha’s new study shows that several species of bats are giving Madagascar’s rice farmers a vital pest control service by feasting on plagues of insects. And this, he believes, can ease the financial pressure on farmers to turn forest into fields.

Bats comprise roughly one-fifth of all mammal species in Madagascar and thirty-six recorded bat species are native to the island, making it one of the most important regions for conservation of this animal group anywhere in the world.

(Q4) Co-leading an international team of scientists, Rocha found that several species of indigenous bats are taking advantage of habitat modification to hunt insects swarming above the country’s rice fields. (Q5) They include the Malagasy mouse-eared bat, Major’s long-fingered bat, the Malagasy white-bellied free-tailed bat and Peters’ wrinkle-lipped bat.

‘These winner species are providing a valuable free service to Madagascar as biological pest suppressors,’ says Rocha. (Q6) ‘We found that six species of bat are preying on rice pests, including the paddy swarming caterpillar and grass webworm. The damage which these insects cause puts the island’s farmers under huge financial pressure and that encourages deforestation.’

The study, now published in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, set out to investigate the feeding activity of insectivorous bats in the farmland bordering the Ranomafana National Park in the southeast of the country.

Rocha and his team used state-of-the-art ultrasonic recorders to record over a thousand bat ‘feeding buzzes’ (echolocation sequences used by bats to target their prey) at 54 sites, in order to identify the favourite feeding spots of the bats. (Q7) They next used DNA barcoding techniques to analyse droppings collected from bats at the different sites.

The recordings revealed that bat activity over rice fields was much higher than it was in continuous forest – seven times higher over rice fields which were on flat ground, and sixteen times higher over fields on the sides of hills – leaving no doubt that the animals are preferentially foraging in these man-made ecosystems. The researchers suggest that the bats favour these fields because lack of water and nutrient run-off make these crops more susceptible to insect pest infestations. DNA analysis showed that all six species of bat had fed on economically important insect pests. (Q8) While the findings indicated that rice farming benefits most from the bats, the scientists also found indications that the bats were consuming pests of other crops, including the black twig borer (which infests coffee plants), the sugarcane cicada, the macadamia nut-borer, and the sober tabby (a pest of citrus fruits).

‘The effectiveness of bats as pest controllers has already been proven in the USA and Catalonia,’ said co-author James Kemp, from the University of Lisbon. ‘But our study is the first to show this happening in Madagascar, where the stakes for both farmers and conservationists are so high.’

Local people may have a further reason to be grateful to their bats. While the animal is often associated with spreading disease, (Q9) Rocha and his team found evidence that Malagasy bats feed not just on crop pests but also on mosquitoes – carriers of malaria, Rift Valley fever virus and elephantiasis – as well as blackflies, which spread river blindness.

(Q10) Rocha points out that the relationship is complicated. When food is scarce, bats become a crucial source of protein for local people. Even the children will hunt them. (Q11) And as well as roosting in trees, the bats sometimes roost in buildings, but are not welcomed there because they make them unclean. (Q12) At the same time, however, they are associated with sacred caves and the ancestors, so they can be viewed as beings between worlds, which makes them very significant in the culture of the people. And one potential problem is that while these bats are benefiting from farming, at the same time deforestation is reducing the places where they can roost, which could have long-term effects on their numbers. (Q13) Rocha says, ‘With the right help, we hope that farmers can promote this mutually beneficial relationship by installing bat houses.’

Rocha and his colleagues believe that maximising bat populations can help to boost crop yields and promote sustainable livelihoods. The team is now calling for further research to quantify this contribution. ‘I’m very optimistic,’ says Rocha. ‘If we give nature a hand, we can speed up the process of regeneration.’ 

Questions 1–6

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

In boxes 1–6 on your answer sheet, write

            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. Many Madagascan forests are being destroyed by attacks from insects.

2. Loss of habitat has badly affected insectivorous bats in Madagascar.

3. Ricardo Rocha has carried out studies of bats in different parts of the world.

4. Habitat modification has resulted in indigenous bats in Madagascar becoming useful to farmers.

5. The Malagasy mouse-eared bat is more common than other indigenous bat species in Madagascar.

6. Bats may feed on paddy swarming caterpillars and grass webworms.

Questions 7–13

Complete the table below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 7–13 on your answer sheet.

3. Đáp án và giải thích chi tiết

3.1 Câu 1 – 6 – True / False / Not Given

Trong câu 1 – 6, bài thi yêu cầu thí sinh cần hiểu được đại ý trong các câu hỏi để đưa ra được lựa chọn đúng, thí sinh cần nắm rõ keywords và paraphrase của nó trong bài cũng như đại ý của các phần câu hỏi đặt ra.

3.2 Câu 7 – 13 – Notes Completion

Trong phần câu 7 – 13, bài thi yêu cầu thí sinh cần nắm được từ khóa (keywords) trong các câu hỏi, sau đó đối chiếu theo trên bài để tìm được vị trí. Ngoài ra, thí sinh cần biết về paraphrase để có thể tìm đúng được từ cần phải điền vào chỗ trống.

TỔNG KẾT VỀ CAMBRIDGE IELTS 17 TEST 4 READING PASSAGE 1

Vậy là chúng ta đã cùng nhau đi qua những câu hỏi tuy không quá khó nhưng cũng có thể dễ dàng đánh lừa thí sinh. Bài đọc này được ISE đánh giá là vừa sức với các bạn thi IELTS do chủ đề không quá hàn lâm và từ vựng cũng không quá cao cấp. Vì vậy, việc đạt được điểm tối đa ở bài đọc Cambridge IELTS 17 Test 4 Reading Passage 1 là hoàn toàn có thể nếu bạn có một chiến thuật làm bài hợp lý. Các thí sinh cũng có thể mua sách Cambridge IELTS 16 để tham khảo và tự thực hành các bài tại nhà nhé.

Bạn có thể liên hệ ISE để đăng ký tư vấn lộ trình học IELTS phù hợp tại:

Chi nhánh 1: 02 Nguyễn Huy Lượng, Phường 14, Quận Bình Thạnh, TP.HCM

Chi nhánh 2: 393 Điện Biên Phủ, Phường 4, Quận 3, TP.HCM

Chi Nhánh 3: 15 Hoàng Trọng Mậu, Phường Tân Hưng, quận 7, TP.HCM

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