Collins IELTS 3 Academic Reading Test 3

Change is inevitable in any sphere of life. Although the results of change can bring great benefits, the process of change can be intensely traumatic, involve loss of choice, power and status, and when change happens in the workplace, it can even lead to loss of jobs. Many businesses and organisations use a model called the Change Curve to understand and manage how people react to change and the stages they go through before they accept it.

The concept of the Change Curve is based on work by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Her book On Death & Dying, published in 1969, dealt with the trauma and shock that people who are facing the end of life experience and how their families are also affected. Kubler-Ross proposed several stages of grief as a way of helping patients face death and their relatives deal with its effects. Kubler-Ross's ideas were groundbreaking but have since become one of the bases of grief support and counselling. Moreover, because the ideas give a framework for dealing with personal trauma and change and for helping people adjust emotionally to significant life events, the model has been adopted by organisational theory and business management.

It is worth noting that Kubler-Ross's original work described 10-13 stages of grief rather than the simpler four-stage version used by organisations, and that she did not intend them to be regarded as individual stages to be passed through in a fixed order but rather as phases of dealing with grief, which people may experience more than once at different times.

When change is introduced, in stage 1, people's first reactions may be shock or denial as their normality is threatened. Their refusal to accept the facts is a natural defensive reaction and it is important to understand this in order to help them move beyond this stage. Even when people know about a change in advance and understand the need for it, they still need to be informed of what is happening to them and their workplace. At this stage, it is important to communicate with people and to give them the sense that they are being included in the process.

If stage 1 is handled well, stage 2, a critical stage, will be smoother than if stage 1 is badly handled. In stage 2, people start to react to the change and this may generate feelings of anger, resentment or fear. They may feel angry with themselves, their workmates and even their friends. For an organisation, this is the point at which a team can fall apart and the working environment can become chaotic. Good management is crucial now and it must consider the impact the change is having on people and their emotions and address any objections they may have. Furthermore, change may affect people differently. For example, some may find that their skills are no longer useful and that their position is being threatened or undermined. Reactions to change are highly personal so it is important to listen to people and monitor the situation and, if necessary, show that you are listening by taking action in response.

Stage 3 is when the organisation begins to assimilate the changes and come out of the crisis. At this point, the changes have become real to people and they have begun to accept them. They will begin to learn in practical terms what the changes mean for them and will do this more easily if they are helped and supported to do so. Therefore, training will be important, and time for this will need to be scheduled. The organisation's productivity may slip as people begin to work with the changes instead of against them. People will stop focusing on the past and start to learn what is good about the changes and what they need to do to adapt. When they have the right skills and training to cope, the organisation can move forward again.

The final stage, stage 4, is when people embrace the new reality and begin to see the benefits. They then start seeing opportunities and build new plans and hopes. Some may actually acknowledge that the change has been for the best, while others may accept the new status quo because they have no other option. During this stage, the organisation will become more productive. At this point, it is a good idea to acknowledge the difficulties and turmoil people have been through and celebrate the success of the change.

Questions 1–8

Look at the following descriptions and the stages below. Match each description with the stage in which it occurs. NB You may use any letter more than once.

Questions 9–12

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

Questions 13–14

Choose TWO letters, A-E. Which TWO pieces of information are mentioned by the writer of the text in paragraphs 5-7?

Since the Soviet Union successfully launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957, about 5,000 more satellites have been put into orbit around the Earth. About 2,000 of these are active and although the rest are now dead, they remain in orbit, together with parts from all the rockets that carried them there. These remnants are often referred to as space junk, space trash or orbital debris. The debris ranges in size from 1-10 centimetres and there are estimated to be around half a million pieces with an additional 23,000 fragments bigger than 10 centimetres. These larger pieces can be observed and tracked from the ground. The waste is found in all zones of the Earth's orbit: low Earth orbit, which is within 2,000 kilometres of the Earth's surface; medium orbit, which is between 2,000 and 36,000 kilometres from the Earth's surface; and high orbit, which is beyond that. Most satellites are in low Earth orbit, as is the International Space Station (ISS). The problem is that most of the space debris is found there too and this is becoming a huge problem.

Some of the debris in low Earth orbit is eventually captured by the Earth's gravity and burns up when it enters the Earth's atmosphere or reaches its surface. However, most of the space junk stays in low Earth orbit and this can have several unwanted consequences. In 2009, almost 500 miles above Siberia, there was a collision between the obsolete Russian satellite Cosmos 2251 and the working US communication satellite Iridium 33. The satellites collided with each other at a speed of 11.7 kilometres per second and produced more than 2,000 pieces of debris. This was the first time two satellites were actually observed hitting each other in space, and the fragments from that collision could be seen spreading out over a very wide area over the following months.

Even though the area within low Earth orbit is vast, the speed at which pieces of junk travel means that they are deadly at the infrequent times they encounter another object. In 2006 a small piece of space junk hit the ISS and damaged one of its windows. Later, in 2014, the ISS had to make an emergency manoeuvre to avoid a piece of junk from the Russian Cosmos 2251 satellite smashing into it. The potential disaster was only averted because a supply vehicle that was docked with the space station fired its thrusters and raised the ISS by one kilometre out of the path of the space junk. This example illustrates the first problem with the debris: satellites need to carry out important work but are in constant danger of being damaged or destroyed. The ISS was designed to withstand impacts from debris up to one centimetre in size but in order to prevent it being hit by larger objects, scientists have to watch for space junk and try to move the station out of harm's way if necessary; the lives of the people on board could be at risk so it is extremely important to monitor the paths of the pieces of debris. However, it is very difficult to accurately plot the course of a debris fragment and so the ISS is only moved when there is probability of a strike. The junk from Cosmos 2251 was spotted only six hours before it passed within three kilometres of the ISS's position. As debris is broken into smaller and smaller pieces, tracking it becomes increasingly difficult.

The second problem is what happens when we launch satellites and rockets in the future. Some scientists describe space junk as an umbrella or ring around the Earth, which any future launch will need to punch through to go into space. No one really knows how bad the problem has to get before it prevents us putting objects into space or makes it very expensive to do so. The astrophysicist Donald Kessler, who used to work for NASA, calculated that if there is enough junk in orbit, collisions between pieces would create high-velocity smaller pieces of debris that would then hit even more objects, resulting in a chain reaction, producing more and more destructive pieces of debris. The problem is made worse when satellites remain in space after their working lives or when they are destroyed deliberately. An anti-satellite test in 2007 destroyed an obsolete weather satellite, creating 3,000 pieces of space debris, and a missile strike in 2019 scattered thousands more pieces into orbit. The gradual accumulation of space junk caused by debris colliding and creating more junk is called the Kessler syndrome and it will build up over the next 100 years. Eventually, the time between collisions will become shorter and shorter, and it is predicted that a cloud of deadly space junk will circle the planet.

Kessler believes that we need legislation that requires countries to build satellites that re-enter the atmosphere after their mission has ended and impose penalties on countries that do not do this. The problem is that the damage is already done and even if everyone keeps to the rules, collisions are still happening and the amount of debris is growing. This points to a second aspect of the potential solution: clean up the biggest pieces. The larger debris could be tracked and removed; Kessler believes that if we could take just five objects per year out of orbit, the problem would stabilise. Although this sounds simple, satellites travel at great speeds and some are very large. Ideas for dealing with inactive satellites include removing them using harpoons or nets based on the ISS. A satellite service station that would repair satellites and extend their working lives has also been proposed. Whichever solution is brought forward, however, it will need international cooperation and this could be more difficult to achieve than catching the wayward satellites.

Questions 15–19

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-H, below.

Questions 20–23

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Questions 24–29

Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

[A] The baobab tree has a very distinctive appearance, with a large, round trunk and branches that look like roots reaching into the air. The latter gained it the name of the 'upside-down tree' but it is also known by other names. The origin of the word 'baobab' is not clear; it may come from the Arabic bu hibab, referring to a fruit with many seeds, or from the medieval Latin bahobab, apparently from a central African language. It grows in arid regions of the southern hemisphere and has evolved unique ways of surviving in water-scarce environments. The tree is common throughout sub-Saharan Africa, Madagascar and north-western Australia. It is impressive, not just because of its appearance and ability to survive in harsh climates, but also because of its size. In Zimbabwe, one baobab grew so big that 40 adults could fit inside it. A baobab can grow 25 metres high and as it gets older, the middle of the trunk becomes hollowed out. The hollow trunk is used as shelter by animals, and humans too have used it for a variety of purposes; one tree was even used as a prison cell. Indeed, the baobab is one of the biggest flowering plants in the world and produces fruits that are prized by people and animals alike for food.

[B] Baobabs are long lived but unlike other trees, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to discover their age by counting annual growth rings in the trunk because their growth rings are very faint. Instead, researchers use radiocarbon dating to analyse samples from trees. The oldest specimen found so far was 2,500 years old. The trees have a staged growth pattern that was observed by the naturalist Von Breitenbach, who described four phases. The first is the young or sapling phase, which lasts until the tree is 15 years old. During this phase, it reaches a height of about six metres. The second phase is the cone phase, which lasts until the tree is 60-70 years old. This is the period when growth is the fastest and the tree reaches about 15 metres in height. In the third phase, the bottle phase, the trunk broadens out to produce the tree's iconic shape, and at 200-300 years old, it gains a height of about 20 metres. During the old age phase, the trunk expands further and becomes hollow. The tree eventually dies aged 500-800 years, although some individuals survive much longer.

[C] A master of water management, the baobab can hold up to 120,000 litres of water in its trunk, which is incredibly useful for animals and humans in times of drought. Both are able to pierce the tree to access the water, and this is probably why many trees can be found along trade routes in Africa. The trunk is not a single structure but is composed of many stems fused together. This creates gaps in the trunk to capture precious water, which can be absorbed later by the tree - unless people or animals find it first.

[D] The tree first flowers after 20 years of age and the flowering period can be up to 6 weeks. The flowers appear in early summer (October to December in the southern hemisphere) and they are extraordinary. White in colour, heavy and large, they open during the evening simultaneously and survive for just 24 hours. When they open, they have a sweet smell but the scent becomes unpleasant later on as they turn brown and then fall. The flowers are pollinated mainly by fruit bats, which are attracted by the strong smell, and to a lesser extent by bushbabies as well as various insects. After flowering, the baobab produces large fruit pods about 20 centimetres long, which hang down from the tree. The pods take six months to ripen before falling to the ground, from where they can be harvested. Inside are small black seeds that are covered with a white powdery substance that tastes lemony and delicious and is a valuable food source. The fruit has many uses: it can be made into a drink that is high in vitamins C and B2, and it has been used to treat fevers; the seeds are pressed into oil or roasted as snacks; and the shell can be made into a musical percussion instrument.

[E] Like many giant trees, an old baobab creates its own ecosystem. It supports the life of thousands of creatures, from the largest mammals to insects and other small animals that shelter in its crevices. Birds nest in its branches; baboons eat its fruit; bushbabies and fruit bats drink the nectar. Little wonder the baobab is sometimes called the 'tree of life'. However, like all living things, the baobab does eventually die and when this happens, it collapses quickly and disintegrates into fibres. Perhaps this has given rise to another of its names, the 'magic tree'; its disintegration is so fast that the tree simply seems to disappear.

Questions 30–32

Complete the sentences below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Questions 33–35

Complete the table below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Questions 36–40

Reading Passage 3 has five paragraphs labelled A-E. Which paragraph contains the following information?