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IELTS Foundation Reading Meggie Nguyen – NEU – 2013

I. Reading - Exercise 1List of paragraph headingsExample: Paragraph A__Answer: v

i. Town facilitiesii. Oyo’s palace

iii. Urban divisions

iv. Architectural features

v. Types of settlements

vi. Historical foundations

vii. Domestic arrangements

viii. City defenses

ix. Various changes

x. Government buildings

Yoruba Towns

A. The Yoruba people of Nigeria classify their towns in two ways. Permanent towns with their own governments are called “ilu”, whereas temporary settlements, set up to support work in the country are “aba”. Although ilu tend to be larger than aba, the distinction is not one of size, some aba are large, while declining ilu can be small, but of purpose. There is no “typical” Yoruba town, but some features are common to most towns.

B. In the 19th century most towns were heavily fortified and the foundations of these walls are sometimes visible. Collecting tolls to enter and exit through the walls was a major source of revenue for the old town rulers, as were market fees. The markets were generally located centrally and in small towns, while in large towns there were permanent stands made of corrugated iron or concrete. The market was usually next to the local ruler’s palace.

C. The palaces were often very large. In the 1930’s, the area of Oyo’s palace covered 17 acres, and consisted of a series of courtyards surrounded by private and public rooms. After colonization, many of the palaces were completely or partially demolished. Often the rulers built two storey houses for themselves using some of the palace grounds for government buildings.

D. The town is divided into different sections. In some towns these are regular, extending out from the center of the town like spokes on a wheel, while in others, where space is limited, they are more random. The different areas are further divided into compounds called “ile”. These vary in size considerably from single dwellings to up to thirty houses. They tend to be larger in the North. Large areas are devoted to


government administrative buildings. Newer developments such as industrial or commercial areas or apartment housing for civil servants tends to be build on the edge of the town.

E. Houses are rectangular and either have a courtyard in the center or the rooms come off a central corridor. Most social life occurs in the courtyard. They are usually built of hardened mud and have roofs of corrugated iron or, in the countryside, thatch. Buildings of this material are easy to alter, either by knocking down rooms or adding new ones. And can be improved by coating the walls with cement. Richer people often build their houses of concrete blocks and, if they can afford to, build two storey houses. Within compounds there can be quite a mixture of building types. Younger well-educated people may have well furnished houses while their older relatives live in mud walled buildings and sleep on mats on the floor.

F. The builder or the most senior man gets a room either near the entrance or, in a two storied house, next to the balcony. He usually has more than one room. Junior men get a room each and there are separate rooms for teenage boys and girls to sleep in. Younger children sleep with their mothers. Any empty room are used as storage, let out or, if they face the street, used as shops.

G. Amenities vary. In some towns most of the population uses communal water taps and only the rich have piped water, in others piped water is more normal. Some areas have toilets, but bucket toilets are common with waste being collected by a “night soil man”. Access to water and electricity are key political issues.

II. Reading - Exercise 2List of paragraph headings

i. Modern technology affected the variety of chili con carne sold

ii. A misunderstanding about the necessary ingredients

iii. Not all versions of chili con carne contain meat

iv. Chili was sold alongside fast food

v. The initial ingredients of chili con carne were dictated by circumstance

A One of the staples of world cuisine is chili con carne, it is one of the most iconic of dishes. Not only

does it frequently appear cooking competitions the world over, it has even been designated as the

official dish of the American state of Texas. If we go back a century or so though, chili con carne was

the most humble of dishes eaten almost exclusively by poor immigrant Mexican communities in the

south of Texas. How has that happened? How has a stew of beef, chile peppers and tomatoes risen

so far? Well, “chili” has quite a story to tell.

BIt is said that frontiersmen were the pioneers. There were but limited ingredients available on the

trail and cooking facilities were likewise restricted and the backwoodsmen needed some food that

they could easily boil over a campfire. Their solution was to pound together what ingredients that

came to hand and these were dried beef, suet, dried chili peppers and salt. What they created was


in a sense one of the first forms of convenience food, as they carried “bricks” of this chili around with

them to be re-heated wherever they made camp.

C That much is uncertain and may be a matter of legend alone, what is much more certain is the

next stage in its evolution: the age of chili queen. By the 1880s, chili con carne had become well-

established in and around San Antonio, one of the most populous and hispanic cities of Texas. At

this time, a common sight on the streets of San Antonio were brightly dressed Mexican women

accosting passer-bys with their chili con carne. A whole street culture was born, combining not just

the rich aromatic smell of the chili itself, but also the sound of musicians serenading the customers

who were drawn to stalls where the food was cooked over charcoal fires.

D The age of the chili queen lasted for almost half a century and was in large measure responsible

for the popularisation of chili con carne. The phenomenon which started in San Antonio slowly

spread throughout Texas as travellers returned to the native cities having acquired a taste for the

dish. 1937, however, brought a temporary halt to street vendors selling chili. The problem was one of

hygiene as the standards of the stalls where the dish was sold did not meet the new health

regulations of the city and so the chili queens disappeared from the streets. Despite a brief reprieve

in 1939, it was not until the 1970s that the queens were seen again as part of a revival of lost street

culture.

E Outside of San Antonio, chili con carne was mostly sold in chili parlours, which were normally

family-run institutions set up by emigre Texans. Typically, each parlour had its own specific recipe

for chili con carne and would claim that its variation on the ingredients was the original and most

authentic. In an effort to diversify, these restaurants also began to sell a bewildering array different

chili dishes, often taking standard fast food fare such as a cheeseburger and adding chili as a relish.

By the time of the Second World War, it is safe to say that there was barely a city in the United

States that did not have its own chili joint. And by 1945, American GIs on military service abroad had

exported chili con carne the world over.

F As chili con carne spread first though the United States and then the world, so did it begin to

change. Indeed, it is now hard to tell just what authentic chili con carne is so many different versions

of it are there. Famously, President Johnson, a Texan, decreed that any chili con carne served him

should not contain beef suet on the orders of his personal physician. The recipe he favoured

featured onions and tomatoes as well as venison and, thanks to his fame, that became a popular

variation for a while. Rather more curiously for a dish that means in a literal translation chili with

meat, meat is not a compulsory ingredient. There are also several versions of vegetarian chili con

carne that are called variously chili sin carne, chili sans carne and chili non carne and usually feature

tofu or some other meat substitute alongside vegetables such a squash, mushrooms or beets.

G But what of the chili itself? A popular misconception is that the heat comes from the chili bean and

that this bean is an essential ingredient. It is true that many early recipes and most modern recipes


do include small red beans – the so-called “chili beans”. But both historically and currently, black-

eyed peas, kidney beans and navy beans are all also frequently used and it is likely that the use of

beans in chili con carne is simply down to the widespread use of beans in Tex-Mex cuisine. There is

in fact no one species of “chili bean” and the beans typically used have no particular flavour: the heat

of the dish comes from the sauce in which the beans are served and how hot that sauce is simply

depends on the type of chile pepper used.

H Needless to say, as the food industry became increasingly commercial during the latter part of the

twentieth century, so did chili con carne become part of the instant food industry. This too had an

effect on traditional recipes. Before the days when refrigerators were widely available, the

ingredients were pressed into a brick not dissimilar to the recipe of the early pioneer days. Then with

the advent of refrigeration and the popularity of canned food, more and more versions became

available, some with tomatoes, some without, some with chili beans, some without. The modern

supermarket aisle is packed with different brands, all ostensibly offering the same product until one

reads the packaging to discover that this type is microwave friendly and that type should be left

overnight to mature.III. Reading - Exercise 3

List of Headings

i. A climate of fearii. Fan violence returns

iii. FIFA's response

iv. A repeat offender

v. Legal action

vi. Not just the fans

vii. A serious problem

viii. Not to blame

ix. Violence in the news

x. A widespread problem

Soccer Violence

1. Fiorentina's exclusion from the UEFA Cup after a match official was injured by a firecracker thrown during their second-round match with Grasshopper Zurich in Salerno brought hooliganism back to centre stage.


2. The Florence club are appealing against the decision, arguing that the object was thrown by rival Salernitana fans and the ban would set a dangerous precedent. But UEFA will have borne in mind that Fiorentina were playing so far away from home only because they had been banned from their own ground for crowd trouble in Europe last season.

3. Whether Fiorentina have been hard done by or not, fan violence is a problem in the Italian game. Fighting before Sunday's 1-1 draw between Bologna and Roma left eight people in hospital, two with stab wounds. After the game a Roma supporters' bus was stoned and set on fire.

4. But Italy is not the only country suffering from what used to be called "the English disease". At the weekend police in Bucharest fired tear-gas and made 20 arrests after a pitch invasion at the Steaua-Dinamo derby, reflecting a marked growth in hooliganism in Romania. The Greek first division match between PAOK Thessaloniki and Olympiakos Piraeus last week was abandoned after one of the linesmen was left concussed by home fans furious at a disallowed goal, a decision which brought 10,000 people on to the streets of Salonika in protest. In neighbouring Albania, Skenderbeu Korce were fined and docked three points last month after a brawl involving players, fans and the referee.

5. Hooliganism is taking its toll on the South American game too. An Argentinian judge suspended all second division matches this month in an effort to combat rising violence.

6. The same judge halted the first division for two weeks in May for the same reason. Football violence has claimed 37 lives in Argentina in the Nineties and leading clubs routinely have to dole out free tickets and cash to their gangsterish fans, known as barras bravas, whose activities include extortion. A recent survey in Brazil found that 61 per cent of fans said they stayed away from matches because of fear of violence.

7. FIFA is considering the postponement of the Confederations Cup, scheduled for January, which may persuade the world champions France to take part, a FIFA spokesman said yesterday.

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