Collins IELTS 3 General Training Reading Test 2

3 passages · 40 questions · 60 minutes

Induction Week Programme / Central Building Construction Work

[[READ: 1–7]]

INDUCTION WEEK PROGRAMME

Welcome to your Accounting and Finance course induction. The induction is designed to give you information about your course, college support services and fun events provided by the Students' Union. Your induction week timetable is below.

[A] Day 1

10:00-12:00 Programme Leader session 1: Welcome and course overview

Other activities today include:

• Q&A at the library • Careers Service: Placement and work experience drop-in • Cooking demonstration – good food on a budget! • The Big Friday Quiz

[B] Day 2

10:00-12:00 International Students: Meet the tutors at the English Language Centre to learn about its activities

Other activities today include:

• International Student Advice: Ask us about UK culture • Careers Service: Placement and work experience drop-in • Friends Hang Out

[C] Day 3

10:00-11:00 Programme Leader session 2: Economics and International Finance module

Other activities today include:

• Q&A at the Writing Shop • Careers Service: Finding part-time work

[D] Day 4

10:00-11:00 Programme Leader session 3: Banking and Finance module

Other activities today include:

• Disability Service: Introduction to student support • Careers Service: Drop-in • International Student Advice: Visa advice

[[READ: 8–13]]

CENTRAL BUILDING CONSTRUCTION WORK

This email is to inform you about forthcoming construction work to the Central Building between the beginning of October and mid-November. The rules below are for your safety during the construction work and must be followed.

As you know, the Central Building is in urgent need of upgrading. Site management have therefore taken the decision to partially close sections of the building to make this possible. The work involves essential maintenance mainly to the corridors and ventilation system to make sure that they comply with current fire and safety regulations.

While work is in progress in these parts of the building, please try to find an alternative route that avoids them completely. If you need to access offices or rooms affected by the work, you must:

• let the site manager know that you would like to enter a particular room by completing a permission form and giving the date and time of entry • wear the hard hat, mask and goggles provided so that you are protected from dust and falling objects • make sure all electrical equipment is switched off – both the piece of equipment and the plug – when you leave in order to avoid fire hazards • let the site manager know when you have left the area.

Please comply with these rules and remember that they are intended for your safety and to minimise the risk of accidents. If you have any further questions, please contact us and we will reply within 24 hours.

Questions 1–7

Look at the induction week events for days A–D above. On which day will the following people get the information they need? Write the correct letter, A–D. You may use any letter more than once.

1. a student from abroad who wants to find out about speaking classes in English

2. a student who wants to learn about their course in International Finance

3. a disabled student who wants to find out what help is available to them

4. a student who wants to make their own meals without spending a lot of money

5. a student who would like to work in the evening after studying

6. a student who wants to ask about how to stay in the country legally

7. a student who would like to improve their reports and essays

Questions 8–13

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text?

TRUEif the statement agrees with the information

FALSEif the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVENif there is no information on this

8. The staff kitchen will be upgraded.

9. The building falls below the standards of modern fire regulations.

10. The building work will take two months to complete.

11. Building work will be carried out mainly to hallways and air circulation systems.

12. If you want to go into a room affected by building work, you need to call the site manager.

13. The work will probably end earlier than scheduled.

Online Courses / IT Outages

[[READ: 14–22]]

EDUCATION NOW – ONLINE COURSES

At Education Now, all our online courses are free so anyone can be a student anywhere, any time. Here are some of our trending courses.

A. Songs: How to listen to a song

Music and songs have always been part of human society. Discover what songs can tell us about human emotions and learn techniques for interpreting them. On this course, you will learn how to understand what you are listening to and learn to appreciate songs of all kinds. This course is designed for music lovers and anyone who wants to develop and expand their understanding of songs and songwriting.

What will you learn? By the end of the course, you will be able to ...

• talk about how songs create their effects and describe how music becomes effective, accessible and compelling. • develop an understanding of the role of songs in contemporary society.

What topics will you cover? • Traditions: the history of popular music, where it comes from, how it has changed, and how it has been important to societies at different times and in different places. • How songs work: songwriting techniques and the craft of writing a good song.

B. Business bookkeeping and personal finance

Develop skills to manage finances in the 21st century. This course is for anyone interested in bookkeeping and financial accounting and will also be of interest to small business owners or those wanting to manage their own finances better.

What will you learn? By the end of the course, you will have learned ... • how money works and the skills to manage your personal finances. • how profit or loss leads to income or debt. • how to record and organise financial data and how to interpret the information. • how to prepare a balance sheet and a profit and loss account.

What topics will you cover? • The main aspects of financial accounting, such as assets, liabilities, revenue and expenses. • Financial statements and their purposes.

C. Superfood: Truth and fiction

Blueberries, kale and green tea have all been called superfoods. But what exactly is a superfood? Find out about the link between superfoods, society and health in this course.

What will you learn? By the end of the course, you will ...

• be able to define what a superfood is. • evaluate the impact of the superfood phenomenon on society and the economy.

What topics will you cover? • What is a superfood? Are superfoods different from other foods? • How can we assess superfoods and their impact and role in our diet? • Are there dangers connected to eating superfoods?

D. How to get a graduate job

This course has been designed for students and graduates looking for guidance on how to land a graduate job more easily. It is also useful for anyone who would like to bring their job-hunting skills up to date.

What will you learn? By the end of the course, you will ... • be able to write a professional CV. • have developed the interview skills necessary to secure the job you want.

What topics will you cover?

• Everything you need to know about the graduate job market. • How to stand out in a highly competitive graduate job application process. • How to prepare for work and how to make a good impression in your new job.

[[READ: 23–28]]

IT OUTAGES

When IT systems are offline for maintenance and upgrading, employees can feel upset and inconvenienced. However, it's a fact of working life that IT systems have to be taken offline periodically so having effective communications systems and practices are essential to take some of the pain out of the process and can avoid questions, confusion and lost productivity.

Communicate in advance

Whenever possible, provide plenty of notice about any planned downtime. This will help people organise their work in advance and plan accordingly. For example, if they know IT systems will be down for several hours one day in the week, they may decide to work at home or do tasks that don't require IT connectivity during that period.

Communicate more than once

People have lots to do at work and an IT outage a few weeks in the future won't be high on their priority list. Sending an email weeks or days in advance of a suspension of IT services isn't an effective way of informing people. It is much better to communicate several times leading up to the event and again shortly before it. Repeating your key message about the IT service helps to maintain awareness of the event.

Use multiple channels

In the same way that you need to inform people more than once about an IT outage, don't just communicate this via email; if you have several communication channels, use these as well. For example, old-fashioned posters in the staff canteen will remind everyone that scheduled maintenance is about to happen.

On-screen pop-ups

We're all used to notifications from our favourite apps on our mobile phones, and when a pop-up notification is flashed onto our screens at work, it has an immediate impact. Specialist software sends messages directly to the user. These messages cannot be dismissed and require a response so that you know they have been seen and hopefully read. For example, if the IT outage is due the next day, a reminder notification can be sent to all users so that they can prepare for it.

Using these simple suggestions can help everyone get smoothly through an IT outage by communicating facts, getting people's attention and preparing everyone in advance.

Questions 14–22

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text?

TRUEif the statement agrees with the information

FALSEif the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVENif there is no information on this

14. People have always expressed their feelings through music.

15. Course A will teach you how to write your own songs.

16. A knowledge of harmony is necessary if you want to do course A.

17. Course B teaches you about banking regulations and rules.

18. At the end of course B you will have a deep understanding of economics.

19. In course C you will learn about the economic effect of superfoods.

20. In course C you can learn which superfoods to include in a healthy diet.

21. Course D is useful for people with out-of-date job-hunting skills.

22. In course D you will learn how to apply for a job and how the job market works.

Questions 23–28

Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the text for each answer.

23. When IT systems are not available to people, it can cause …………………………, lost work and lots of questions.

24. It is better to let people know in advance about any ………………………… that has been planned so they can adjust their work pattern.

25. For example, they may plan tasks away from the computer or work at ………………………….

26. It is essential to tell people several times in different ways. By ………………………… the main message and by using

27. ………………………… methods, for example, posters in the staff canteen, you can get people's attention.

28. Another good way to alert people is to send ………………………… messages to their computers as they work.

Decisions, decisions

[A] We make decisions every minute of our lives, from large, life-changing ones about our careers or relationships to mundane, day-to-day ones, like which socks to wear or how to travel to work. But we often make decisions without considering what we are doing and sometimes our emotions get in the way of rational thought. Making good choices is a balance between reason and desire, knowing what has happened in the past and what you want in the future. Most people do this instinctively, without understanding the mental processes that influence our decisions, but what would happen if we understood these processes better? Researchers today are uncovering the hidden influences that direct us one way or the other when we make choices.

[B] 'Everyone loves a winner' is a common saying but surprisingly, people dislike losing more than they like winning and it actually takes a lot to tempt us to take a risk. Psychologist and economist Daniel Kahneman from Princeton University found that people do not like to bet money in a 50:50 situation unless they can win twice the amount they could lose. So, for example, although the chance of winning or losing is the same, most people will only bet $100 if they can win more than $200. This suggests that people are more likely to decide to stick with a current situation unless there is a powerful reason to change.

[C] When a decision needs to be made, emotions seem to get in the way. Daniel Fessler from the University of California asked a group of people to play a game in which they could either get a $15 reward or gamble with the money and risk getting nothing. In one version of the game, he made the people feel angry beforehand and found that men, but not women, gambled more when they were feeling annoyed.

[D] So, while emotions can sometimes influence us to make bad decisions, logically, the more information we have, the better decisions we should make. Unfortunately, researchers have found that this is not necessarily the case. Having too much data can be just as problematic as having too little. Ap Dijksterhuis and his colleagues at the University of Amsterdam gave two groups of subjects a problem: which car to choose. One group got a list describing just four features, such as how many miles a car had been driven, while the other group had a list of twelve features. Dijksterhuis found that the subjects who had fewer choices picked the best car for them, whereas the other group became confused by the number of features. Surprisingly, the latter group made the best decision when they did not analyse their options based on the features given and relied on gut instinct.

[E] Another factor that influences our decision-making is sunk cost. The supersonic jet Concorde is a good illustration of the sunk cost fallacy, where the British and French governments justified further spending on a project that would never make a profit because of the amount already spent on it. The sunk cost fallacy, in other words, is the belief that if you have already invested time or money in something, this justifies spending more time or money on it. The fallacy also influences decision-making on a much smaller scale. The more time or money we have invested in something, the more attached to it we are. Hal Arkes and Catherine Blumer at Ohio State University asked a group of students to imagine they had paid $100 for a trip. They were then told they could buy another holiday to a better resort but for a cheaper price. After they had bought both holidays, the students were told that the trips were on the same weekend and they had to choose one of them. Surprisingly, they chose the more expensive but worse deal – a decision based on the fallacy, not logic.

[F] The way we behave around our friends has often been studied and it seems that their behaviour also strongly influences the decisions we take. At Arizona State University, researchers led by Robert Cialdini placed cards in hotel rooms asking guests to use their towels more than once, either a) to help the environment, or b) for the sake of future generations, or c) because most of the other guests in the hotel were doing so. The last reason turned out to be 30% more effective than the other two reasons. Social validation can be a major factor in decision-making so it is a good idea to ask yourself when you are making a decision whether it really is your own.

[G] On the other hand, we make fast and competent judgements all the time about who we want to talk to and to trust. Alexander Todorov and Janine Willis from Princeton University found that people make judgements about qualities like aggressiveness, likability and attractiveness within the first 100 milliseconds of seeing a person for the first time. Even when the research subjects were given one second more time, they usually just became more confident about their initial choice. It seems that snap decisions and quick judgements can be valid ways of making decisions.

Questions 29–34

Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.

List of Headings:

i. Sticking with bad decisions

ii. Small and big decisions

iii. Avoiding losing

iv. Unhelpful emotions

v. Information overload

vi. First impressions

vii. The temptations of risk

viii. Understanding processes that influence choices

ix. Peer pressure

x. Making well-informed decisions

29. Paragraph B:

30. Paragraph C:

31. Paragraph D:

32. Paragraph E:

33. Paragraph F:

34. Paragraph G:

Questions 35–40

Look at the following statements and the list of researchers below. Match each statement with the correct researcher, A–F. You may use any letter more than once.

Researchers

A Alexander Todorov and Janine Willis

B Daniel Kahneman

C Robert Cialdini

D Ap Dijksterhuis

E Hal Arkes and Catherine Blumer

F Daniel Fessler

35. It takes under a second for people to make judgements about others.

36. Social pressure affects our decision-making.

37. When people have spent time or money on something, they are reluctant to abandon it.

38. Having a lot of information does not always help when making decisions.

39. People dislike situations in which what they risk losing is equal to the amount they might gain.

40. Men are more likely to make bad choices than women when they are emotional.

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