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READING PASSAGE 1

*You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 on pages 2 and 3.*

The history of farming

The traditional view of the history of farming is that it all began in response to the shortage of food for foraging and hunting in the dry conditions after the Ice Age about 8,000-10,000 years ago. But most experts now agree that this doesn’t account for the variations in the times when farming first appeared around the world – 11,000 years ago in the Middle East, 8,000 years ago in China and 10,000 years ago in South America. If anything, crop farming may have developed in times of plenty.

Later findings indicated that the first crops were actually grown before the end of the Ice Age. Previously, the oldest known arable farms were in the Middle East, where people were growing things such as emmer wheat (a forerunner of modern wheat strains), barley, rye, and lentils. However, in 2005, researchers working near the Sea of Galilee in Israel discovered a site known as Ohalo II. Here, at least 23,000 years ago, people used seeds of wild grasses such as emmer wheat and barley, and ground them into flour to make bread.

It seems that the origins of farming are much older than once thought and emerged gradually rather than all at once. People started to domesticate dogs as hunting companions and first tended herds of sheep for their wool or for meat tens of thousands of years ago. They may also have begun nurturing wild fruit and nut trees around this time. The idea of planting selected seeds of wild plants such as grasses in order to grow crops probably developed independently in different places around the world. When arable farming did start, the effect on the human way of life was dramatic. No longer did people have to move around hunting and foraging. To plant, tend and harvest their crops, people had to settle permanently and build houses and villages. The need to organise labour, planting, harvesting and storage, and the availability of surpluses for trading soon led to the development of the first towns and cities, the first governments, writing and everything else that we associate with the growth of civilisation. >> 🔥 Form đăng kí giải đề thi thật IELTS 4 kĩ năng kèm bài giải bộ đề 100 đề PART 2 IELTS SPEAKING quý đang thi (update hàng tuần) từ IELTS TUTOR

Interestingly, though, not everyone agrees with this positive view of farming. For example, Cambridge academic Jay Stock recently described the invention of arable farming as the worst mistake in human history. He made his damning comment after he studied the bones of hunter-gatherers living in Egypt just before farming developed and found that these people were significantly taller and healthier than the first farmers were. He blames farming for introducing a sedentary lifestyle and the proximity of animals and shared water resources for the spread of infectious diseases. Jared Diamond, in his 1997 book Guns, Germs and Steel, also claims that farming was a retrograde step. We may think that farming has brought us health, wealth and long life, Diamond contends, but it has in fact brought us misery. Farming, he argues, not only replaced a very varied and healthy diet of wild food with a poor diet of a few staples, it also led to the development of soldiers, warfare, class divisions and all the less attractive aspects of civilisation, because of the way it allowed food to be stockpiled and freed some, but not others, from the necessity of looking for it.

Yet there is plenty to suggest that a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, too, was far from idyllic. And, although the first farmers were unhealthy and stunted, things have improved. A huge number of people today are taller and live much longer, healthier lives than their hunter-gatherer ancestors. It is in the way we live and practise farming rather than in the idea of farming itself that any faults lie. Farming continues to give us the indispensable gift of food, and it is thanks to the efforts of farmers that billions of people are able to eat well every day.

Over history, by planting selected seeds and improving techniques, farmers have boosted the ability of plants to yield food far above that of their wild counterparts. The result is that farmers can now typically grow 120 bushels of wheat annually on a single acre – which is enough to keep 120 people in bread throughout the year (a bushel of wheat results in enough flour for about 100 loaves). Some farmers even get well over 400 bushels.

Experts consider it entirely realistic to talk of doubling world food production over the next two decades, which is an incredible testament to farming. Farmers are already producing enough to feed more than 6 billion people, not to mention a vast quantity of livestock (70% of the world’s maize crop is fed to animals). By 2030, if the UN’s goals are actually achieved, farmers will be producing enough to feed 8.5 billion. It would be fair to say that in today’s world people go without food not because it is impossible to produce sufficient food, but because they are unable to farm themselves or gain access to the fruits of farming. >> 🔥 Nhắn zalo 0905834420 join group zalo Hóng đề thi máy 4 skills để cập nhật đề thi thật 4 kĩ năng hằng ngày [Kèm giải & đề làm online]

Questions 1-5

Complete the notes below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

*Write your answers in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.*

History of farming

Traditional thinking

• farming developed due to food 1 ______

• farming started after a change in climatic 2 ______

More recent findings:

• oldest evidence of arable farming found at a 3 ______ in Israel where bread was made from wild cereal plants like 4 ______ and emmer wheat

Gradual emergence of farming:

• people started to keep animals

• people began using seeds of wild grasses to grow crops

Some effects of early farming:

• people stopped 5 ______ animals and picking wild plants to feed themselves

• extra food made trading possible

• as people settled, positive aspects of civilisation appeared >> 🔥 IELTS TUTOR gợi ý tham khảo CẦN VIẾT & THU ÂM BAO NHIÊU BÀI ĐỂ ĐẠT 8.0 SPEAKING & 7.0 WRITING?  

Questions 6-13

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

*In boxes 6-13 on your answer sheet, write*

True if the statement agrees with the information
False if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

6 Jay Stock found that Egyptian hunter-gatherers were smaller than early Egyptian farmers.

7 Jay Stock believes that some aspects of early farming life had a damaging effect on people’s health.

8 Jared Diamond maintains that farming resulted in social inequality.

9 Modern farming techniques involve a greater reliance on machinery.

10 Wild plants can produce more food than equivalent cultivated plants.

11 Experts believe it will be very difficult to double food production over the next 20 years.

12 More maize is now eaten by animals than by people.

13 The UN is confident that it can reach its food production goals.

1. shortage
2. conditions
3. site
4. barley
5. hunting
6. FALSE
7. TRUE
8. TRUE
9. NOT GIVEN
10. FALSE
11. FALSE
12. TRUE
13. NOT GIVEN

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