The IELTS exam is a door opener for candidates who want to pursue their dreams in multiple amazing countries famous for their certain specifications. You have to ensure your great preparation in the fields of English reading, writing, listening, and speaking to get good scores in this examination. Some candidates do not take this exam seriously. You have to prepare for it according to the university you want to get or the course you are desiring to opt for. Your proficiency in English will not only help you to get satisfactory scores but you will be confident enough from within to sustain the environment of an English-speaking country. We have an article for you to upgrade your skills in the reading section. This passage is on the secret of staying young. You will understand the true way of answering the questions. Go through this article gently and grab the information.
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IELTS Preparation
The IELTS exam requires diligent preparation due to competence. The candidates have to work patiently and incredibly to achieve their goals. All the aspects of the English language must be known to you perfectly. The examiners will question you about certain topics in the IELTS speaking test, you must be confident and knowledgeable to answer all of them and make an unforgettable impression. The proficiency of English will also help you in determining the things related to studies in the future and for better sustenance. During the time of preparation, the candidates must do proper time management to excel in every field. The participants of this exam must be enthusiastic enough to learn every sort of empowering knowledge. This will help you in giving the ways to touch your targets.
The Secret of Staying Young Reading Answers – IELTS Reading Answers Part 1
Pheidole dentata, a native ant of the southeastern U.S., isn’t immortal. But scientists have found that it doesn’t seem to show any signs of aging. Old workers ants can do everything just as well as the youngsters, and their brains appear just as sharp. ‘We get a picture that these ants don’t decline,’ says Ysabel Giraldo, who studies the ants for her doctoral thesis at Boston University.
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The Secret of Staying Young Reading Answers – IELTS Reading Answers Part 2
Such age-defying feats are rare in the animal kingdom. Naked mole rats can live for almost 30 years and stay fit for nearly their entire lives. They can still reproduce even when old, and they never get cancer. But the vast majority of animals deteriorate with age just like people do. Like the naked mole-rat, ants are social creatures that usually live in highly organized colonies. ‘It’s this social complexity that makes P. dentata useful for studying aging in people,’ says Giraldo, now at the California Institute of Technology. Humans are also highly social, a trait that has been connected to healthier aging. By contrast, most animal studies of aging use mice, worms, or fruit flies, which all lead much more isolated lives.
The Secret of Staying Young Reading Answers – IELTS Reading Answers Part 3
In the lab, P. dentata worker ants typically live for around 140 days. Giraldo focused on ants at four age ranges: 20 to 22 days, 45 to 47 days, 95 to 97 days, and 120 to 122 days. Unlike all previous studies, which only estimated how old the ants were, her work tracked the ants from the time the pupae became adults, so she knew their exact ages. Then she put them through a range of tests. Giraldo watched how well the ants took care of the young of the colony, recording how often each ant attended to, carried, and fed them.
The Secret of Staying Young Reading Answers – IELTS Reading Answers Part 4
She compared how well 20-day-old and 95-day-old ants followed the telltale scent that the insects usually leave to mark a trail to food. She tested how ants responded to light and also measured how active they were by counting how often ants in a small dish walked across a line. And she experimented with how ants react to live prey: a tethered fruit fly. Giraldo expected the older ants to perform poorly in all these tasks. But the elderly insects were all good caretakers and trail-followers – the 95-day-old ants could track the scent even longer than their younger counterparts. They all responded light well, and the older ants were more active. And when it came to reacting to prey, the older ants attacked the poor fruit fly just as aggressively as the young ones did, flaring their mandibles or pulling at the fly’s legs.
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The Secret of Staying Young Reading Answers – IELTS Reading Answers Part 5
Then Giraldo compared the brains of 20-day-old and 95-day-ole ants, identifying any cells that were close to death. She saw no major differences with age, nor was there any difference in the location of the dying cells, showing that age didn’t seem to affect specific brain functions. Ants and other insects have structures in their brains called mushroom bodies, which are important for processing information, learning, and memory. She also wanted to see if ageing affects the density of synaptic complexes within these structures – regions where neurons come together. Again, the answer was no. What was more, the old ants didn’t experience any drop in the levels of either serotonin or dopamine – brain chemicals whose decline often coincides with aging. In humans, for example, a decrease in serotonin has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
The Secret of Staying Young Reading Answers – IELTS Reading Answers Part 6
‘This is the first time anyone has looked at both behavioural and neural changes in these ants so thoroughly,’ says Giraldo, who recently published the findings in the Proceeding of the Royal Society B. Scientists have looked at some similar aspects in bees, but the results of recent bee studies were mixed – some studies showed age-related declines, which biologists call senescence, and others didn’t. ‘For now, the study raises more questions than it answers,’ Giraldo says, ‘including how P. dentata stays in such good shape.’
The Secret of Staying Young Reading Answers – IELTS Reading Answers Part 7
Also, if the ants don’t deteriorate with age, why do they die at all? Out in the wild, the ants probably don’t live for a full 140 days thanks to predators, disease and just being in an environment that’s much harsher than the comforts of the lab. ‘The lucky ants that do live into old age may suffer a steep decline just before dying,’ Giraldo says, but she can’t say for sure because her study wasn’t designed to follow an ant’s final moments.
‘It will be important to extend these findings to other species of social insects,’ says Gene E. Robinson, an entomologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This ant might be unique, or it might represent a broader pattern among other social bugs with possible clues to the science of aging in larger animals. Either way, it seems that for these ants, age doesn’t matter.
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Questions Related to IELTS Reading Passage
Question Number 1
Following are a few statements given from the passage above. You have to check the answers from the passage and write them correctly.
#1. __________ can live for 30 years.
Answer: Naked mole rats.
#2. Ysabel Giraldo studies the ants for her __________ at Boston University.
Answer: doctoral thesis.
#3. Ants and insects have brains called__________.
Answer: mushroom bodies.
#4. Giraldo compared how well _________ and ___________ ants followed the telltale scent.
Answer: 20 day old and 95 day old.
#5. It will be important to extend these findings to other species of social insects, said _____________.
Answer: Gene E. Robinson.
Question Number 2
Look at the statements below and after reading them, write TRUE or FALSE in front of them.
TRUE – If the statement agrees with the information that is given above in the passage.
FALSE – If the statement disagrees with the information that is given above in the passage.
#1. Ants typically live for 150 years.
Answer: FALSE.
#2. Age-defying feats are normal in the animal kingdom.
Answer: FALSE.
#3. Naked mole rats can never get cancer.
Answer: TRUE.
#4. Pheidole Dentata of the southeastern US is mortal.
Answer: FALSE.
#5. Ants’ live prey is tethered fruit flies.
Answer: TRUE.
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Conclusion
This article is for letting you know the exact passages that come in the IELTS exam and to make your IELTS preparation top-notch. We hope that you have understood the correct ways to answer the passage questions within time limits. You must be a pro in time management to get perfect scores. For reading more such passages and other articles related to your speaking, writing, reading, and listening sections, you can visit the IELTS Ninja website. All the respected experts will help you with their support and guidance along with giving you the knowledge of preparation for this examination. You will fly high with your dreams after resolving the queries and making your exam perfect.
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