IELTS Past Papers Academic Reading Test 33 (Online Test)

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-27, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.

Is Graffiti Art or Crime?

A. The term graffiti derives from the Italian graffio meaning 'scratching' and can be defined as uninvited markings or writing scratched or applied to objects, built structures and natural features. It is not a new phenomenon: examples can be found on ancient structures around the world, in some cases predating the Greeks and Romans. In such circumstances it has acquired invaluable historical and archaeological significance, providing a social history of life and events at that time. Graffiti is now a problem that has become pervasive, as a result of the availability of cheap and quick means of mark-making.

B. It is usually considered a priority to remove graffiti as quickly as possible after it appears. This is for several reasons. The first is to prevent 'copy-cat' emulation which can occur rapidly once a clean surface is defaced. It may also be of a racist or otherwise offensive nature and many companies and councils have a policy of removing this type of graffiti within an hour or two of it being reported. Also, as paints, glues and inks dry out over time they can become increasingly difficult to remove and are usually best dealt with as soon as possible after the incident. Graffiti can also lead to more serious forms of vandalism and, ultimately, the deterioration of an area, contributing to social decline.

C. Although graffiti may be regarded as an eyesore, any proposal to remove it from sensitive historic surfaces should be carefully considered: techniques designed for more robust or utilitarian surfaces may result in considerable damage. In the event of graffiti incidents, it is important that the owners of buildings or other structures and their consultants are aware of the approach they should take in dealing with the problem. The police should be informed as there may be other related attacks occurring locally. An incidence pattern can identify possible culprits, as can stylised signatures or nicknames, known as 'tags", which may already be familiar to local police. Photographs are useful to record graffiti incidents and may assist the police in bringing a prosecution. Such images are also required for insurance claims, and can be helpful to cleaning operatives, allowing them to see the problem area before arriving on site.

D. There are a variety of methods that are used to remove graffiti. Broadly these divide between chemical and mechanical systems. Chemical preparations are based on dissolving the media; these solvents can range from water to potentially hazardous chemical 'cocktails'. Mechanical systems such as wire-brushing and grit-blasting attempt to abrade or chip the media from the surface. Care should be taken to comply with health and safety legislation with regard to the protection of both passers-by and any person carrying out the cleaning, operatives should follow product guidelines in terms of application and removal, and wear the appropriate protective equipment. Measures must be taken to ensure that run-off, aerial mists, drips and splashes do not threaten unprotected members of the public. When examining a graffiti incident it is important to assess the ability of the substrate to withstand the prescribed treatment. If there is any doubt regarding this, then small trial areas should be undertaken to assess the impact of more extensive treatment.

E. A variety of preventive strategies can be adopted to combat a recurring problem of graffiti at a given site. As no two sites are the same, no one set of protection measures will be suitable for all situations. Each site must be looked at individually. Surveillance systems such as closed circuit television may also help. In cities and towns around the country, prominently placed cameras have been shown to reduce anti-social behaviour of all types including graffiti. Security patrols will also act as a deterrent to prevent recurring attacks. However, the cost of this may be too high for most situations. Physical barriers such as a wall, railings, doors or gates can be introduced to discourage unauthorised access to a vulnerable site. However, consideration has to be given to the impact measures have on the structure being protected. In the worst cases, they can be almost as damaging to the quality of the envfronment as the graffiti they prevent. In others, they might simply provide a new surface for graffiti.

F. One of the most significant problems associated with graffiti removal is the need to remove it from surfaces that are repeatedly attacked. Under these circumstances the repeated removal of graffiti using even the most gentle methods will ultimately cause damage to the surface material. There may be situations where the preventive strategies mentioned above do not work or are not a viable proposition at a given site. Anti-graffiti coatings are usually applied by brush or spray leaving a thin veneer that essentially serves to isolate the graffiti from the surface.

G. Removal of graffiti from a surface that has been treated in this way is much easier, usually using low-pressure water which reduces the possibility of damage. Depending on the type of barrier selected it may be necessary to reapply the coating after each graffiti removal exercise.

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

Serendipity: The Accidental Scientists

A. A paradox lies close to the heart of scientific discovery. If you know just what you are looking for, finding it can hardly count as a discovery, since it was fully anticipated. But if, on the other hand, you have no notion of what you are looking for, you cannot know when you have found it, and discovery, as such, is out of the question. In the philosophy of science, these extremes map onto the purist forms of deductivism and inductivism: In the former, the outcome is supposed to be logically contained in the premises you start with; in the latter, you are recommended to start with no expectations whatsoever and see what turns up.

B. As in so many things, the ideal position is widely supposed to reside somewhere in between these two impossible-to-realize extremes. You want to have a good enough idea of what you are looking for to be surprised when you find something else of value, and you want to be ignorant enough of your end point that you can entertain alternative outcomes. Scientific discovery should, therefore, have an accidental aspect, but not too much of one. Serendipity is a word that expresses a position something like that. It's a fascinating word, and the late Robert King Merton—‘the father of the sociology of science’—liked it well enough to compose its biography, assisted by the French cultural historian Elinor Barber.

C. Serendipity means a ‘happy accident’ or ‘pleasant surprise’; specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful without looking for it. The first noted use of ‘serendipity’ in the English language was by Horace Walpole (1717-1792). In a letter to Horace Mann (dated 28 January 1754) he said he formed it from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, whose heroes ‘were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of’. The name stems from Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka.

D. Besides antiquarians, the other community that came to dwell on serendipity to say something important about their practice was that of scientists. Many scientists, including the Harvard physiologist Walter Cannon and, later, the British immunologist Peter Medawar, liked to emphasize how much of scientific discovery was unplanned and even accidental. One of Cannon's favorite examples of such serendipity is Luigi Galvani's observation of the twitching of dissected frogs' legs, hanging from a copper wire, when they accidentally touched an iron railing, leading to the discovery of ‘galvanism’; another is Hans Christian Orsted's discovery of electromagnetism when he unintentionally brought a current-carrying wire parallel to a magnetic needle. The context in which scientific serendipity was most contested and had its greatest resonance was that connected with the idea of planned science. The serendipitists were not all inhabitants of academic ivory towers. Two of the great early-20th-century American pioneers of industrial research—Willis Whitney and Irving Langmuir, both of General Electric—made much play of serendipity, in the course of arguing against overly rigid research planning.

E. Yet what Cannon and Medawar took as a benign method, other scientists found incendiary. To say that science had a significant serendipitous aspect was taken by some as dangerous denigration. If scientific discovery were really accidental, then what was the special basis of expert authority?

F. In this connection, the aphorism of choice came from no less an authority on scientific discovery than Louis Pasteur: "Chance favors the prepared mind." Accidents may happen, and things may turn up unplanned and unforeseen, as one is looking for something else, but the ability to notice such events, to see their potential bearing and meaning, to exploit then occurrence and make constructive use of them these are the results of systematic mental preparation. What seems like an accident is just another form of expertise. On closer inspection, it is insisted, accident dissolves into sagacity.

G. In 1936, as a very young man, Merton wrote a seminal essay on "The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action." It is, he argued, the nature of social action that what one intends is rarely what one gets: Intending to provide resources for buttressing Christian religion, the natural philosophers of the Scientific Revolution laid the groundwork for secularism; people wanting to be alone with nature in Yosemite Valley wind up crowding one another. We just don't know enough—and we can never know enough—to ensure that the past is an adequate guide to the future: Uncertainty about outcomes, even of our best-laid plans, is endemic. All social action, including that undertaken with the best evidence and formulated according to the most rational criteria, is uncertain in its consequences.