Why Are So Few Tigers Man-Eaters? - IELTS Reading Answers & Explanations
From IELTS Practice Test Plus 2 Academic Reading Test 1 · Part 2 · Questions 14–26
Reading Passage
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
Why are so few tigers man-eaters?
A As you leave the Bandhavgarh National Park in central India, there is a notice which shows a huge, placid tiger. The notice says, 'You may not have seen me, but I have seen you.' There are more than a billion people in India and Indian tigers probably see humans every single day of their lives. Tigers can and do kill almost anything they meet in the jungle - they will even attack elephants and rhino. Surely, then, it is a little strange that attacks on humans are not more frequent.
B Some people might argue that these attacks were in fact common in the past. British writers of adventure stories, such as Jim Corbett, gave the impression that village life in India in the early years of the twentieth century involved a state of constant siege by man-eating tigers. But they may have overstated the terror spread by tigers. There were also far more tigers around in those days (probably 60,000 in the subcontinent, compared to just 3000 today). So in proportion, attacks appear to have been as rare then as they are today.
C It is widely assumed that the constraint is fear; but what exactly are tigers afraid of? Can they really know that we may be even better armed than they are? Surely not. Has the species programmed the experiences of all tigers with humans into its genes to be inherited as instinct? Perhaps. But I think the explanation may be more simple and, in a way, more intriguing.
D Since the growth of ethology1 in the 1950s, we have tried to understand animal behaviour from the animal's point of view. Until the first elegant experiments by pioneers in the field, such as Konrad Lorenz, naturalists wrote about animals as if they were slightly less intelligent humans. Jim Corbett's breathless accounts of his duels with man-eaters in truth tell us more about Jim Corbett than they do about the animals. The principle of ethology, on the other hand, requires us to attempt to think in the same way as the animal we are studying thinks, and to observe every tiny detail of its behaviour without imposing our own human significances on its actions.
E I suspect that a tiger's fear of humans lies not in some preprogrammed ancestral logic but in the way he actually perceives us visually. If you try to think like a tiger, a human in a car might appear just to be part of the car, and because tigers don't eat cars the human is safe unless the car is menacing the tiger or its cubs, in which case a brave or enraged tiger may charge. A human on foot is a different sort of puzzle. Imagine a tiger sees a man who is 1.8m tall. A tiger is less than 1m tall but he may be up to 3m long from head to tail. So when a tiger sees the man face on, it might not be unreasonable for him to assume that the man is 6m long. If he met a deer of this size, he might attack the animal by leaping on its back, but when he looks behind the man, he can't see a back. From the front the man is huge, but looked at from the side he all but disappears. This must be very disconcerting. A hunter has to be confident that it can tackle its prey, and no one is confident when they are disconcerted. This is especially true of a solitary hunter such as the tiger and may explain why lions - particularly young lionesses who tend to encourage one another to take risks - are more dangerous than tigers.
F If the theory that a tiger is disconcerted to find that a standing human is both very big and yet somehow invisible is correct, the opposite should be true of a squatting human. A squatting human is half the size and presents twice the spread of back, and more closely resembles a medium-sized deer. If tigers were simply frightened of all humans, then a squatting person would be no more attractive as a target than a standing one. This, however, appears not to be the case. Many incidents of attacks on people involve villagers squatting or bending over to cut grass for fodder or building material.
G The fact that humans stand upright may therefore not just be something that distinguishes them from nearly all other species, but also a factor that helped them to survive in a dangerous and unpredictable environment.
ethology the branch of zoology that studies the behaviour of animals in their natural habitats
Questions
Questions 14–18 Matching Information
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs labelled A-G.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Questions 19–23 True / False / Not Given
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading
Passage 2?
Questions 24–26 Multiple Choice (One Answer)
Choose the correct answer, A, B, C or D.
Answers & Explanations Summary
| # | Answer | Evidence | Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q14 | C | Can they really know that we may be even better armed than they are? Surely not | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage asks if tigers can understand that humans have better weapons. Then it answers its own question with 'Surely not,' meaning 'No, that's not possible.' This shows that the idea of tigers knowing about human weapons is an explanation that is not accepted. Answer Explanation: The answer is paragraph C. This paragraph talks about ideas that people have, but then says those ideas are probably not true or not the full answer. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is paragraph C because it presents a common idea for why tigers don't often attack humans, and then very quickly says this idea is wrong. It mentions the idea that tigers might know humans have more dangerous weapons. The passage then directly rejects this idea by saying, 'Surely not.' This shows that the explanation (tigers know about human weapons) is 'rejected' by the author. |
| Q15 | A | There are more than a billion people in India and Indian tigers probably see humans every single day of their lives. Tigers can and do kill almost anything they meet in the jungle - they will even attack elephants and rhino. Surely, then, it is a little strange that attacks on humans are not more frequent | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage says that tigers see people every day and can kill many different big animals like elephants. So, it seems surprising that they do not attack people more often. Answer Explanation: The answer is paragraph A. This paragraph tells us why we might think tigers would attack people more often but they don't. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is paragraph A because it highlights two reasons why tiger attacks on humans might be expected to be more frequent: tigers 'see humans every single day' and 'can and do kill almost anything they meet'. Despite these facts, the paragraph states, 'it is a little strange that attacks on humans are not more frequent,' directly addressing the question of why attacks might be expected to happen more often. |
| Q16 | F | Many incidents of attacks on people involve villagers squatting or bending over to cut grass for fodder or building material | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage says that many times, when tigers attack people, it is when villagers are 'squatting' (sitting with knees bent and close to the ground) or 'bending over' to do things like 'cut grass.' This shows specific times when people get attacked more often. Answer Explanation: The answer is paragraph F. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is F because this paragraph explains that tigers are more likely to attack humans who are 'squatting' or 'bending over.' It gives examples of people doing these actions, like cutting grass, which makes them seem like easier prey to a tiger. This directly addresses the question about 'situations' where attacks are 'more likely.' |
| Q17 | B | So in proportion, attacks appear to have been as rare then as they are today | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage says that when you think about how many tigers there were a long time ago compared to now, tiger attacks happened just as rarely then as they do today. It compares the number of attacks to the total number of tigers, showing their 'relative frequency'. Answer Explanation: The answer is paragraph B. This paragraph talks about how often tigers attacked people. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is paragraph B because it contains information about how frequently tigers attacked humans, both in the past and in the present, relative to the number of tigers. The passage compares the 'frequency' of attacks historically with today's frequency, stating that 'in proportion, attacks appear to have been as rare then as they are today,' directly addressing the 'relative frequency' of these incidents. |
| Q18 | E | If you try to think like a tiger, a human in a car might appear just to be part of the car, and because tigers don't eat cars the human is safe unless the car is menacing the tiger or its cubs, in which case a brave or enraged tiger may charge. A human on foot is a different sort of puzzle. Imagine a tiger sees a man who is 1.8m tall | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage says that if you try to imagine things from a tiger's perspective (which is how ethology works), then a tiger might see a person in a car as part of the car, making the person safe because tigers don't eat cars. But a person walking alone is confusing to a tiger. Answer Explanation: The answer is E. This letter shows the part of the text that talks about how tigers act, based on studying animals in their natural homes. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is E because this paragraph uses the idea of 'thinking like a tiger' to explain why tigers act the way they do around humans. This method, trying to understand animal behavior from the animal's point of view, is a key principle of 'ethology,' which is mentioned earlier in the passage as the study of animal behavior. Paragraph E explains that a tiger's fear of humans might come from how they 'perceive us visually,' which is a direct application of trying to understand the animal's perspective. |
| Q19 | NOT GIVEN | As you leave the Bandhavgarh National Park in central India, there is a notice which shows a huge, placid tiger | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage talks about a notice at the 'Bandhavgarh National Park' in India and a tiger. It tells us about the park where tigers live. But this part, and no other part of the passage, says if these tigers are protected animals or not. The information is simply not there. Answer Explanation: The answer 'NOT GIVEN' means that the story does not tell us if tigers in Bandhavgarh National Park are kept safe by special rules or laws. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is 'NOT GIVEN' because the passage mentions the 'Bandhavgarh National Park' and discuses tigers within the park. However, the passage does not provide any information about whether 'tigers' are a 'protected species' in this park or anywhere else. We cannot find details to say 'yes' or 'no' to the statement in the text. |
| Q20 | TRUE | British writers of adventure stories, such as Jim Corbett, gave the impression that village life in India in the early years of the twentieth century involved a state of constant siege by man-eating tigers. But they may have overstated the terror spread by tigers | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage says that writers of adventure stories, like Jim Corbett, made it seem like tigers were constantly attacking people in Indian villages. But the passage also says that these writers might have made the fear caused by tigers seem too big or too much, meaning they exaggerated it. Answer Explanation: The answer means that the statement is correct, according to the passage. It is true that some writers made the danger of tigers to people seem bigger. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is TRUE because the passage clearly states that certain writers made the danger from tigers seem greater than it was. It mentions 'British writers of adventure stories, such as Jim Corbett,' and then says they 'may have overstated the terror spread by tigers.' To 'overstate' means to describe something as being more important or dangerous than it really is, which is the same as exaggerating it. Therefore, the passage supports the idea that some writers made the danger appear bigger. |
| Q21 | TRUE | Has the species programmed the experiences of all tigers with humans into its genes to be inherited as instinct? Perhaps | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage asks a question: 'Does a tiger's group pass down memories of people in their genes, like a natural feeling?' And the answer given is 'Maybe.' This shows that the idea of fear being passed down in genes is something the passage considers. Answer Explanation: The answer means that it is true that a tiger's fear of people might be passed from parents to their babies through their genes. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is TRUE because the passage mentions this idea as a possible reason why tigers might be afraid of humans. In Section C, the author asks if the memory of human interactions has been 'programmed... into its genes to be inherited as instinct.' The passage then offers 'Perhaps' as a response, indicating that this is a considered possibility, even if the author later suggests a different explanation. The statement in the question aligns with this presented possibility. |
| Q22 | NOT GIVEN | Until the first elegant experiments by pioneers in the field, such as Konrad Lorenz, naturalists wrote about animals as if they were slightly less intelligent humans. Jim Corbett's breathless accounts of his duels with man-eaters in truth tell us more about Jim Corbett than they do about the animals. The principle of ethology, on the other hand, requires us to attempt to think in the same way as the animal we are studying thinks, and to observe every tiny detail of its behaviour without imposing our own human significances on its actions | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage says that before scientists like Konrad Lorenz, people wrote about animals almost as if they were less smart humans. But Lorenz and others helped change this way of thinking. Their new method, called ethology, focuses on understanding animals from their own viewpoint, not by comparing them to people. This part does not say that Lorenz believed animals were smarter than humans. Answer Explanation: The answer 'NOT GIVEN' means that the passage does not tell us if Konrad Lorenz said that some animals are smarter than humans. This information is not in the text. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is 'NOT GIVEN' because the passage mentions Konrad Lorenz as a first scientist in a field called 'ethology'. The passage explains that *before* his work, people thought of animals as 'slightly less intelligent humans'. After scientists like Lorenz, the way of thinking changed to understand animals from their own view, not by comparing them directly to humans. The passage never says that Konrad Lorenz believed animals were *more* intelligent than humans. Therefore, we cannot find this specific information in the text. |
| Q23 | FALSE | The principle of ethology, on the other hand, requires us to attempt to think in the same way as the animal we are studying thinks, and to observe every tiny detail of its behaviour without imposing our own human significances on its actions | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage says that ethology means we must try to think like the animal we are watching. It also says we should look at what the animal does without putting our own human ideas or feelings onto its actions. This shows that ethology is the opposite of applying human behavior to animals. Answer Explanation: The answer 'FALSE' means that the statement is not true. It is incorrect to say that ethology applies human behaviors to animals. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is FALSE because the passage explains that ethology is about trying to understand how animals think and act from *their* own point of view, not from a human's. The passage specifically states that ethology requires observing animal behavior "without imposing our own human significances on its actions," which means not using human principles or ideas to explain animal actions. This directly contradicts the idea of applying human behavior principles to animals. |
| Q24 | C | If you try to think like a tiger, a human in a car might appear just to be part of the car, and because tigers don't eat cars the human is safe unless the car is menacing the tiger or its cubs, in which case a brave or enraged tiger may charge | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage says that if you try to think like a tiger, a person sitting in a car looks like a part of the car. Tigers do not eat cars, so people in cars are usually safe. A tiger will only attack if the car itself is hurting the tiger or its babies. Answer Explanation: The answer means that tigers do not see people inside cars as actual animals that they can hunt or eat. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is C because the passage explains how tigers might visually perceive humans in cars. It suggests that a tiger sees the human as merely a component of the car itself, not as a separate living creature. Since tigers do not hunt or eat cars, they generally do not attack the people inside them, making the humans safe unless the car poses a threat to the tiger or its young. |
| Q25 | B | From the front the man is huge, but looked at from the side he all but disappears. This must be very disconcerting | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage says that a tiger sees a standing person as very big from the front, but from the side, the person almost vanishes. This makes the tiger feel 'disconcerted,' which means confused or unsure. This confusion about the person's 'shape' from different angles stops the tiger from attacking. Answer Explanation: The answer is that tigers don't often attack people who are standing up because the tiger gets confused by how a person looks. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is B because the passage explains that a tiger is 'disconcerted' or confused by the way a standing human's 'shape' changes. When a tiger sees a person from the front, the person looks very big ('huge'). But when the tiger looks at the person from the side, the person almost disappears. This strange change in how a person's body 'appears' is confusing for the tiger, making it unsure if the person is a good prey to hunt. A hunter needs to feel sure it can catch its food, and this confusion makes the tiger less confident. |
| Q26 | D | A squatting human is half the size and presents twice the spread of back, and more closely resembles a medium-sized deer | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage explains that when a person squats, they appear smaller in height but wider across their back. This new shape looks more like a medium-sized deer, which is an animal tigers usually hunt. This makes the person a more tempting target for the tiger. Answer Explanation: The answer means that when a person squats down, their back looks longer compared to how tall they are, which makes them an easier target for a tiger. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is supported by the passage, which explains that a tiger sees a squatting human differently than a standing one. When a person squats, their body shape changes. The passage states that a 'squatting human is half the size and presents twice the spread of back, and more closely resembles a medium-sized deer'. This change makes the human look more like the animals tigers usually hunt, such as a medium-sized deer, which makes them a more 'attractive as a target'. This shape, specifically the appearance of a longer back relative to height, makes the tiger see them as potential prey, increasing vulnerability. |