Academic/General Training Module by Adam Smith First Published in 2015

 IELTS
 JOURNAL 
 
162 
Select words from Reading Passage 2 to fill the spaces in the chart. Use 
UP TO THREE 
WORDS
for each space. Write your answers in boxes 20-23 on your answer sheet. 
Area
Activity
Example
Forests 
grazing cows, buffalo
Forests:
gathering ...... (20) ......., hunting wild animals 
Hill fields: 
cultivating ................... (21) .................. 
Villages:
raising ..... (22) .... cultivating vegetables 
Valley bottom:
growing .................... (23) .................... 
Question 24
From the list below, select the three main structures which constitute the muang faai 
irrigation system. Write the THREE appropriate letters, in any order, in box 24 on your 
answer sheet. 
A) channels
B) saplings 
C) dam 
D) barriers 
E) reservoir 
F) water 
Question 25
From the list below, select two criteria for allocating water to farmers. Write TWO 
appropriate letters, in any order, in box 25 on your answer sheet.
A) field characteristics
B) social status 
C) location of field 
D) height of barriers 
E) fees paid 
F) water available 
 
 
 

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 IELTS
 JOURNAL 
 
163 
READING PASSAGE 3
You are advised to spend about 20 minutes on Questions 26-39 which are based on 
Reading Passage 3 below. 
THE ORIGINS OF INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES
The traditional view of the spread of the Indo-European languages holds that an Ur-
language, ancestor to all the others, was spoken by nomadic horsemen who lived in 
what is now western Russia north of the Black Sea near the beginning of the Bronze 
Age. As these mounted warriors roamed over greater and greater expanses, they 
conquered the indigenous peoples and imposed their own proto-Indo-European 
language, which in the course of succeeding centuries evolved in local areas into the 
European languages we know today. In recent years, however, many scholars, 
particularly archaeologists, have become dissatisfied with the traditional explanation. 
The starting point of the problem of the origins of Indo-European is not archaeological 
but linguistic. When linguists look at the languages of Europe, they quickly perceive 
that these languages are related. The connections can be seen in vocabulary, grammar 
and phonology (rules for pronunciation). To illustrate the numbers from one to ten in 
several Indo-European languages. Such a comparison makes it clear that there are 
significant similarities among many European languages and also Sanskrit, the 
language of the earliest literary texts of India, but that languages such as Chinese or 
Japanese are not members of the same family (see figure 1).