When we are talking about the IELTS examination, there are a lot of questions that come to our mind and especially when we are talking about the reading passage and the part of this exam. How do we prepare ourselves for it? How to increase our speed for the reading passages that will be there in the exam? How to study properly for it? What are the different strategies involved in this?
Well, a lot of questions are there and to deal with all of them seems almost like a headache but with us, it’ll be easy to get the answers to such difficult questions and to turn them from difficult to not-so-difficult questions.
A Chronicle of Timekeeping IELTS Reading Answers
So, what are you waiting for? Let’s get on a ride with us.
IELTS Reading Passage Part One
According to archaeological evidence, at least 5,000 years ago, and long before the advent of the Roman Empire, the Babylonians began to measure time, introducing calendars to co-ordinate communal activities, to plan the shipment of goods and, in particular, to regulate planting and harvesting. They based their calendars on three natural cycles: the solar day, marked by the successive periods of light and darkness as the earth rotates on its axis; the lunar month, following the phases of the moon as it orbits the earth; and the solar year, defined by the changing seasons that accompany our planet’s revolution around the sun.
A Chronicle of Timekeeping IELTS Reading Answers – IELTS Reading Passage Part Two
Before the invention of artificial light, the moon had greater social impact. And, for those living near the equator in particular, its waxing and waning was more conspicuous than the passing of the seasons. Hence, the calendars that were developed at the lower latitudes were influenced more by the lunar cycle than by the solar year. In more northern climes, however, where seasonal agriculture was practised, the solar year became more crucial. As the Roman Empire expanded northward, it organised its activity chart for the most part around the solar year.
A Chronicle of Timekeeping IELTS Reading Answers – IELTS Reading Passage Part Three
Centuries before the Roman Empire, the Egyptians had formulated a municipal calendar having 12 months of 30 days, with five days added to approximate the solar year. Each period of ten days was marked by the appearance of special groups of stars called decans. At the rise of the star Sirius just before sunrise, which occurred around the all-important annual flooding of the Nile, 12 decans could be seen spanning the heavens.
The cosmic significance the Egyptians placed in the 12 decans led them to develop a system in which each interval of darkness (and later, each interval of daylight) was divided into a dozen equal parts.
These periods became known as temporal hours because their duration varied according to the changing length of days and nights with the passing of the seasons. Summer hours were long, winter ones short; only at the spring and autumn equinoxes were the hours of daylight and darkness equal. Temporal hours, which were first adopted by the Greeks and then the Romans, who disseminated them through Europe, remained in use for more than 2,500 years.
Also Read: The Nature and Aims of Archaeology: Find Reading Answers for IELTS Reading Test
A Chronicle of Timekeeping IELTS Reading Answers – IELTS Reading Passage Part Four
In order to track temporal hours during the day, inventors created sundials, which indicate time by the length or direction of the sun’s shadow. The sundial’s counterpart, the water clock, was designed to measure temporal hours at night. One of the first water clocks was a basin with a small hole near the bottom through which the water dripped out. The falling water level denoted the passing hour as it dipped below hour lines inscribed on the inner surface. Although these devices performed satisfactorily around the Mediterranean, they could not always be depended on in the cloudy and often freezing weather of northern Europe.
A Chronicle of Timekeeping IELTS Reading Answers – IELTS Reading Passage Part Five
The advent of the mechanical clock meant that although it could be adjusted to maintain temporal hours, it was naturally suited to keeping equal ones. With these, however, arose the question of when to begin counting, and so, in the early 14th century, a number of systems evolved. The schemes that divided the day into 24 equal parts varied according to the start of the count: Italian hours began at sunset, Babylonian hours at sunrise, astronomical hours at midday and ‘great clock’ hours, used for some large public clocks in Germany, at midnight. Eventually, these were superseded by ‘small clock’, or French, hours, which split the day into two 12-hour periods commencing at midnight.
A Chronicle of Timekeeping IELTS Reading Answers – IELTS Reading Passage Part Six
The earliest recorded weight-driven mechanical clock was built in 1283 in Bedfordshire in England. The revolutionary aspect of this new timekeeper was neither the descending weight that provided its motive force nor the gear wheels (which had been around for at least 1,300 years) that transferred the power; It was the part called the escapement. In the early 1400s came the invention of the coiled spring or fusee which maintained constant force to the gear wheels of the timekeeper despite the changing tension of its mainspring. By the 16th century, a pendulum clock had been devised, but the pendulum swung in a large arc and thus was not very efficient.
A Chronicle of Timekeeping IELTS Reading Answers – IELTS Reading Passage Part Six
To address this, a variation on the original escapement was invented in 1670, in England. It was called the anchor escapement, which was a lever-based device shaped like a ship’s anchor. The motion of a pendulum rocks this device so that it catches and then releases each tooth of the escape wheel, in turn allowing it to turn a precise amount. Unlike the original form used in early pendulum clocks, the anchor escapement permitted the pendulum to travel in a very small arc. Moreover, this invention allowed the use of a long pendulum that could beat once a second and thus led to the development of a new floor-standing case design, which became known as the grandfather clock.
A Chronicle of Timekeeping IELTS Reading Answers – IELTS Reading Passage Part Seven
Today, highly accurate timekeeping instruments set the beat for most electronic devices. Nearly all computers contain a quartz-crystal clock to regulate their operation. Moreover, not only do time signals beamed down from Global Positioning System satellites calibrate the functions of precision navigation equipment, they do so as well for mobile phones, instant stock-trading systems and nationwide power-distribution grids. So integral have these time-based technologies become to day-to-day existence that our dependency on them is recognised only when they fail to work.
Questions Based on the IELTS Reading Passage
Question Number One
Describe in particular the statements given below.
Question A
Q. How was the timekeeping invention affected by the cold temperatures during that time?
Answer: Back then, Sundials were invented by the inventors and our ancestors and they used to believe that these sundials can help us in knowing the accurate time with the help of the changing direction of the Sun.
Also Read: The Life Cycle of a Star: An IELTS Reading Answers Topic with Questions Solved
Question B
Q. How was geography important in developing the calendar of the farming people?
Answer: Back then in times, there was no artificial light so all the options people had were to depend themselves directly or indirectly on the natural light that was with them. As the light of the Sun or the light of the Moon, they were all dependent on these two forms of light and all their activities were done based on these two sources of light.
So, geography played an important role in helping them know about the different locations and the sunlight that was placed on them.
Question C
Q. How was the Pendulum clock invented back then?
Answer: Our great-great ancestors invented a pendulum clock. This clock was a great way to help know about the time. There was an object long enough known as the pendulum that hung from the centre of the clock that rang whenever the clock struck a particular hour. But any single time, whenever human force was applied to it, the accuracy of the pendulum dropped and it lost its speed and hence, this clock was no longer useful for them.
So, they had to drop the idea of using a pendulum clock.
Question D
Q. How did the different societies come forward to know about the calculation of time?
In the 14th century, people did not have any kind of particular system with the help of which time could be calculated correctly. So, they had to come up with something with the help of which this could be done.
Hence, different groups set out their different ways to find out the exact time. For example – Italians began their hour at sunset, Babylonians began their hour at sunrise, the astronomical hour began at midnight. In fact, in many places in Germany, clocks were used in public places as well.
ALSO, READ What is a Good IELTS Score? Is 7.5 a Good IELTS Score? Here’s All You Need to Know
Successful IELTS Preparation Techniques for the IELTS Exam
There could be different ways and techniques which could be used in successfully carrying out the preparation of the IELTS examination. These are:
The First Step
#1. The first step in this exam and its preparation would require any individual to improve their vocabulary. Vocabulary is one such thing that is extremely essential for us to look at if we have decided to take this IELTS examination.
So, the first step would always require us to do it and in order to do it, we have to read a lot of books for the same. Reading books can help an individual to improve their vocabulary and the sentences that they make each day, thus it will be easy for them to learn new words each day.
The Second & Third Step
#2. Obviously, the second step in the same has to be reading. Reading is the only thing that can help you if you have decided to improve your language skills. For reading, there are various steps that one can follow. These are:
#a. Skim the text by getting a general reading of it and looking at it in general
#b. Make as much use of the dictionary as you can to improve your language
#c. Find out some words from the internet that you can make use of and add it to your day-to-day vocabulary.
#3. Take as many practice test as you can to learn more about the IELTS examinations.
Conclusion
Reading passages are extremely important for the IELTS examination and it helps an individual to increase their reading skills along with working on the other skills as well.
Hopefully, with the help of the above passage and piece of information, you must have understood in detail how and what kind of passages are assigned to an individual in an IELTS examination and how one can answer the different questions in the examination.
If you have any kind of doubts regarding the same, feel free to comment down below and let us know about the same.
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