TAS K TYPE 1 3 Identifying the Writer's

Views and Claims ( Yes/No/Not G iven )

----

A About the task

1 Read the information about the task type. Then look at some questions about the
task a student in your class has emailed to you. Can you answer them?

The Identifying the Writer's Views and Claims (Yes/No/Not Given) task tests your ability to identify the views
and claims of the writer in a passage. I t's often used to test your understanding of a passage in which the
writer is presenting an argument or where different ideas about a subject are compared and analysed. On the
question paper. you see a set of statements that report information and ideas from the passage. You r job is to
read the passage and decide if the statements are reporting the information and ideas correctly or not. For each
statement, there are three possible answers:
YES if the statement agrees with the views/claims of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the views/claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
Here are the basic rules for the Identifying the Writer's Views and Claims (Yes/No/Not Given) task:
• The statements follow the order of information in the passage.
• The wording of the statements is not exactly the same as the wording in the passage, but they contain the
same information and ideas.
The statements include some words and names that are also used in the passage. These help to locate the
relevant information and ideas.
You read this section of the passage carefully and compare the writer's views and claims with the statement.
• You then decide if the statement reports those ideas exactly or not, and write YES or NO on the answer sheet.
• For some statements. there isn't enough information in the passage to know whether the writer's views or
claims are being reported exactly or not. In this case, you write NOT GIVEN on the answer sheet.

Hi there,
I 've got some questions for you about the Yes/No/Not Given task.
1 Is this the task where the answers are all facts and figures?
2 Do the statements come in the same order as the information in the passage?
3 Do the statements include words from the passage?
4 What do you have to write on the answer sheet?
5 If the information is NOT GIVEN , do you leave the box blank?
Thanks!

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B Sample questions
2 Read the passage and answer the questions. Use the rules about the task from
Section A to help you. Then check your answers. Which questions did you find difficult?

IELTS PRACTIC E TASK

Addicted to Tech?

Smartphones, social networking and the Internet are destroying our identities and ruining our lives. At least, that is
what two new books. iDisorder by Larry Rosen and Digital Vertigo by Andrew Keen, would have you believe. I'm not
so sure.

Rosen, a psychologist a t California State University, argues that over-reliance on technology can cause psychological
problems, the 'iDisorders' of the book's title, but I struggled to find any causal link in chapter after chapter of
correlations. He describes how overuse of hand-held devices and general exposure to technology can cause various
psychological disorders. But of course, the disorders existed before these technologies, and Rosen fails to convince
that their incidence is on the rise.

Digital Vertigo is equally u nconvincing. Keen, whose previous book The Cult of the Amateur spoke out against user­

generated content, states that privacy 'is being dumped into the dustbin of history', warning that we cannot trust
the large corporations that run the Internet with our precious personal data. It's a viewpoint I'm entirely sympathetic
with, but Keen's argument, woven between name-dropping anecdotes from Silicon Valley conferences and well­
known quotes from the film The Social Network, left me unconvinced. As Keen points out. we must all take personal
responsibility for the information we put online. However, social media needn't inevitably lead to the problems he
suggests. I have found Twitter, Facebook and other online services essential for initiating and maintaining major social
connections. In fact, without social networking, I would be short one wife, one job and at least half a dozen close
friends.

These technologies are tools, and like all tools they must be used correctly. Cars are far more dangerous to society
than Facebook. According to the World Health Organization, 1.2 million people die in road traffic accidents each year.
As a society we accept this because of the benefits that cars offer, and we work to mitigate the downsides. It should
be the same with smartphones and social networking. If you can't go five minutes without a status update then, yes,
you should probably step away from the touchscreen, but let's not ignore the great opportunities these technologies
offer for fear of some unproven and unrealised disaster. People used to worry about the effects of the telephone on
society, but 150 years on. we seem to be managing just fine.

Questions 1-6
Do the following statements agree with the information in the Reading Passage?
Next to each statement, write

YES if the statement agrees with the views/claims of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the views/claims of the writer

NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

1 Rosen has demonstrated a connection between overuse of technology and certain psychological conditions.
2 Rosen provides evidence that the conditions he describes are becoming more common.
3 Keen's previous book has been very influential.
4 Keen is right to warn about the threat to privacy posed by the I n ternet.
5 An international body is concerned that social networking might be addictive.
6 There may be people who are over-dependent on electronic devices.

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ASKTVPE -13
T ' -
Identifying the Writer's Views and Claims (Yes/No/Not Given)
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C Tips and tactics

3 Work in pairs. Read the tips and tactics and discuss these questions.
a Which tips and tactics do you think are the most useful?
b Did you use any of these tips and tactics when you answered the sample questions
i n Section B?
c Which tips will you use in the future?
Before you read the passage, read the statements in the questions and think about what
you're going to read.
2 Don't use your own opinions or knowledge of the subject to decide the answers. Use
O N LY the views of the writer of the passage.
3 For each statement. think about the names, key words and main ideas you're looking for
in the passage to help you locate the relevant section.
4 First read the passage quickly and mark the relevant sections for each question. Write the
question numbers in the margin so that you can find the sections again easily.
5 Remember that the questions follow the order of information in the passage. When you
read the passage, you may see some words or ideas from the statements. These help
you to find the relevant sections.
6 Questions where the answer is NOT GIVEN also refer to a specific section of text - so
you always need to find the relevant section.
7 Go through the questions one by one. Read the section of the passage you have marked
carefully to make sure you are in the correct place.
8 If you think the statement agrees with the writer's views, re-read both the statement and
the section of passage carefully and think about the meaning of both. Does the wording
of the statement express exactly the same ideas or not?
9 If you think the statement contradicts the writer's view, re-read both the statement and
the section of passage carefully and think about the meaning of both. Underline the
words that make the statement different from the passage.
10 For YES and NO answers, quickly check the rest of the paragraph in the passage to make
sure you haven't missed anything.
11 I f you think the answer i s NOT GIVEN, underline the words and ideas i n t h e statement
that aren't in the passage. Read the rest of the paragraph in the passage quickly to make
sure you haven't missed anything.
12 Remember to write the words YES. NO o r NOT GIVEN i n the boxes o n the answer sheet.
13 Never leave a box empty. I f you're not sure, always give an answer.

D S kills-building exercises
Q FOCUS 4 Read the pairs of statements (1-5). Underline the important words and ideas in each
statement.
Identifying whether
statements A I first heard about the particular properties of mycelium at college.
report the writer's B I discovered the particular properties of mycelium by chance.
claims or views as 2 A The idea of making packaging materials from mycelium was the result of a joint effort.
expressed in the B I needed help to develop my idea of making insulation material from mycelium.
passage or not 3 A Our packaging is generally no more expensive to produce than its synthetic rivals.
B Our packaging is generally much cheaper to produce than its synthetic rivals.
4 A We aim to make our products even more environmentally friendly.
B Our products are already extremely environmentally friendly.
5 A It's encouraging that we can't meet the growing demand for our products.
B It's worrying that we can't meet the growing demand for our products.

5 Read the passage on page 165 quickly. Mark the sections that contain the information
relevant to each pair of statements in Exercise 4.

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6 Go through the questions in Exercise 4 on page 1 64 one by one. Read the passage
carefully and decide which statement (A or B) agrees with the writer's claims or views,
and which one contradicts it. Write YES if the statement agrees with the writer's claim
or view, and NO if it contradicts it.

7 Work in pairs and answer the questions.

1 Did you and your partner mark the same section of the passage?
2 Are your answers all the same?
3 Discuss why the YES statements agree with the writer's claims and views and the NO
statements do not. Compare your ideas with another pair.

r
l
I grew up on a farm in Vermont and I just happened to notice
one day that mycelium - that's essentially the 'roots' - of
mushrooms- had an unusual quality: it made chips of wood stick
l together. Years later, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, I was
working to develop a better insulation material. I remembered
the bonding ability of mushrooms and began to think about
industrial applications. After making a few samples, I teamed up
with Gavin Mcintyre and our professor, Burt Swersey, to figure
out how this could work as a product. Packaging materials made
from mushroom waste were the outcome.
The strength of our products comes from the mycelium, which
consists of millions of tiny fibres. The fibres bond with chitin - a
natural plastic produced by mushrooms. Together, these act like
a glue, fusing agricultural waste such as seed husks into solid
forms. Our materials basically self-assemble; the organism is
doing most of the work. As well as packaging, we're also
In general, we are cost competitive with synthetic packaging developing materials for the
materials such as expanded polystyrene and polyethylene. But construction industry. We have found
that's not our only advantage. Plastics start with expensive, finite that if we take our material and
raw materials derived from oil or natural gas, whereas we're compress it, we can create products
using waste from farms. For over a century, humans have been that are similar to engineered woods
using petrochemicals to make plastics. Eventually we will run out, like fibreboard and particle board.
and if we aren't careful toxic waste will choke our oceans and current engineered wood products
landfills. Biomaterials like ours are sustainable, non-polluting and use toxic resins to hold the wood
need little outside energy to make. They also dissolve back into particles together. In our process,
the earth at the end of their useful lives. we're using mycelium as the resin.
We're also developing materials
to replace the plastic foams used
in insulation and acoustic tiles. we
even grew a miniature house from
mushrooms to test our insulation
product!
our key challenge at the moment is an
enviable one: scaling up to meet the
growing demand. We're coping with
it. Restore11.1 Mushroom® Packaging
is now being made widely available,
from our Upstate Green Island plant
and a manufacturing facility in Cedar
Rapids, Iowa tl1rough our partnership
with Sealed Air Corporation.

ACADEMIC READING 165

TASK TYPE 13 Identifying the Writer's Views and Clalms (Yes/No/Not Given)

Q FOCUS 8 Is there enough information in the passage to know if the statements (1-6) agree with
the writer's views or not? Do the following:
Identifying if there
is a view or claim a Read the statements (1-6) and underline the main ideas.
about the statement b Read the passage quickly and find the relevant section for each statement.
in the passage or c For each statement, read the passage carefully and decide if an opinion about this point is
not given or not given.

1 The book The Hidden Persuaders is still worth reading today.

2 Packard's background in psychology made people take his book seriously.
3 The title of Packard's book may have contributed to its success.
4 Packard should be credited with coining the term 'subliminal advertising'.
5 Vicary's research findings should no longer be considered valid.
6 There is evidence to suggest that subliminal advertising is still in use.

T H E B I RT H O F
S U B LI M I NAL
ADVE RTI S I N G
These days most people are very aware of
the attempts of advertisers and marketing
professionals to influence their consumer habits,
but this wasn't always the case. The first serious
critique of questionable marketing techniques
came in 1957 in Vance Packard's celebrated book
The Hidden Persuaders. It remains one of the best
books around for demystifying the deliberately
mysterious arts of advertising. Packard argued
that advertisers used the techniques of applied
sociology and psychology to make consumers
perceive a need to buy certain products, whether
they really needed them or not. Packard's book was
a great success, his impeccable choice of a very
catchy title revealing just how well he understood Eat popcorn', and the experiment went on for six
at least one of the basic rules of marketing. In the weeks. The result? According to Vicary, popcorn
book, Packard described a number of methods sales jumped by a whopping 57 .8%. The public
advertisers used to take advantage of consumers' panicked, thinking t11is technique could be used
unconscious fears and desires. Although the term for all kinds of sinister purposes. However, in 1 962,
was yet to be coined, one sucl1 method is what we psychologist Dr Henry Link challenged Vicary to
now know as subliminal advertising. repeat his experiment under controlled conditions.
A notorious experiment involving this technique This time, there was no increase in popcorn sales.
was conducted by marketing researcher James Vicary later admitted that he'd made up the original
Vicary in 1956. If popular legend is to be believed, sales figures. In fact, it's likely that he never even
during a showing of a movie called Picnic in New conducted the first experiment, so his findings
Jersey, Vicary used a special projector to flash a deserve to be disregarded. Despite his confession,
subliminal message onto the screen. The message however, the media and the public continued to
appeared every five seconds, but only remained focus only on the sensational original story and the
there for a fraction of a second, far too fast for the idea that subliminal advertising works is still widely
human eye to reacl. The message read, 'Hungry? believed.

9 Work in pairs. Do you have the same answers for exercise 8? Discuss any answers that
are different.

10 Look at the statements where a view is given. Does each statement agree with the
writer's view or not? Write YES if the statement agrees with the writer's view, and NO
if it contradicts it.

166 ACADEMIC READING

Q FOCUS 1 1 You are going to identify whether the views in the statements contradict the writer's
views or claims, or if no information is given.
Identifying if
the view in a Read the statements (1 -6) and underline the main words and ideas.
the statement b Read the passage qu ickly and mark the relevant sections for each statement.
contradicts the c None of the statements agrees with the writer's views or claims. But does each
writer's view or statement contradict the writer's view? Is there enough information to know? Next to
claim, or if no each statement, write
information is given NO if the statement contradicts the writer's view or claim
about it NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
The majority of steel shipping containers currently i n Amsterdam are unlikely to go to sea
again.
2 Various solutions to Amsterdam's housing shortage have been tried.
3 The suggested way of repurposing used steel shipping containers is not a new idea.
4 The poor condition of some of the containers means they cannot be reconditioned.
5 Once rehabilitated, the containers sell for relatively low prices.
6 Reconditioned shipping containers could meet the growing housing needs of developing
nations.

1 2 Work in pairs. Did you get the same answers for Exercise11? Discuss any which are
different. Then compare your answers with those of another pair.

people instead of products. It's an idea that could

catch on.
This creative, green style of housing costs only a
fraction of what i t costs to build standard houses,
and requires less energy and new materials. Freight
containers are available for just a few thousand
dollars before they are rehabilitated. Despite their
uniform size and shape, they can be used in a nearly
endless number of configurations because they fit
together like real-world building blocks. After years
at sea, the containers are often dented and beat up,
but they can be reconditioned to look remarkably
attractive. The interiors are compact but can be
made into cosy living spaces.
Today, half of the Earth's population lives in cities,
and that figure will reach sixty per cent by 2030.
Nearly all of this urban expansion is likely to occur in

A
bout eighteen million steel shipping containers the sprawling cities of the developing world, which
are currently moving cargo on seas and roadways already suffer from a lack of decent, affordable
around the world. But, especially in countries housing.
where imports outnumber exports, such as the More than eight hundred million people now live
Netherlands, mountainous stacks of them pile up in in urban slums and that number is expanding.
the ports. some two million steel containers sit idle Slum housing often lacks basic necessities for
at any given time, and some of these will eventually human health, including running water and proper
be retired. sanitary facilities. Steel shipping containers can be
In the densely populated city of Amsterdam there economically fitted with necessities like modern
is a pressing need for student and other low-cost bathrooms and other amenities for a fraction of
housing. one innovative suggestion for meeting this traditional construction costs. Although cargo
need is to repurpose used steel shipping containers. containers cannot by themselves solve tile urban
A growing number of steel containers are being housing needs of developing nations, they may
cleaned and refurbished and then used to house provide a useful resource.

ACADEMIC READING 1 67
TASK TYPE 13 Identifying the Writer's Views and Clalms (Yes/No/Not Given)

IELTS PRACTICETASI<

Fieldwork on the final frontier

What is it like to work in the remote forests of Papua New Guinea? Biologist Vojtec/J Novotny

knows better than most.

Let me tell you about our work in Papua New Guinea. We've built a research station on the northern coast.
About five per cent of all species live in Papua New Guinea. With the Amazon and the Congo, it is one of the
three largest areas of rainforest still left.

Papua New Guinea has about 800 different languages, a really amazing diversity, and there are 20 different
ones within a 20 mile radius of our station. Because different tribes speak such different languages, they also
speak one universal language, pidgin English. Once you learn that - and Europeans usually manage this in
less than six rr1onths - you can speak directly to the local people. This is socially very rewarding because there
is a coming together of tribal culture and high-level academic culture.

We have a team of what we call para-ecologists. These are people we train in scientific methods and pay
to work with us. The local people are perfect for this. They not only have an intimate knowledge of the local
geography, they also have an extensive knowledge of taxonomy, especially of the trees. We connect the Latin
names with their local language names and then explain that we need caterpillars from this list of trees. and
ask then1 to collect them for us. On one occasion, we were studying tiny larvae that bore tunnels in leaves.
I put a fairly high reward for every live insect. We were expecting that our collectors might earn £5 a day,
which is reasonable by Papua New Guinea standards and by our budget. But embarrassingly, they found so
many that we had to lower the rate because otherwise we would have gone bankrupt.

This collaboration with local people helps our research because it opens up possibilities that others
don't have. For instance, we have contacts with people who own the forest that they cut down for their
subsistence, using traditional 'slash-and-burn' agricultural methods. We always like to shock our fellow
biologists at conferences by describing how we are cutting down tropical forests so that we can survey
insects from the canopy. But that's exactly what we are doing. When local people were clearing their part of
the forest. we worked with them, slowly taking the forest apart, collecting caterpillars, ants, everything.

We have devised a 30 structure of insects and plants in the forest. Our inventory came up with about 9,500
insect species feeding on 200 species of tree, and they do it in 50,000 different ways. Even for us ecologists,
this is a mind-boggling complexity. However. ecologists also tend to get overexcited by the huge diversity we
see in rainforests and extrapolate it to unrealistic numbers of species for the entire planet. Previous estimates
put the number of insect species worldwide at 30 million. We put it at six million. We found that a tree
species has about the same number of insect species feeding on it whether it grows in Papua New Guinea or
Europe: tropical forests are so rich in insects only because they have so many species of tree.

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Questions 1-6

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in the Reading Passage?
Next to questions 1-6, write

YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer

NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

1 The range of languages in the region makes communication difficult for Europeans.
2 The training of para-ecologists costs less in Papua New Guinea than in Europe.
3 Reducing the rate of pay offered to specimen collectors can reduce their effectiveness.
4 The fact that some local collaborators are also landowners is an advantage.
5 The researchers try to discourage the use of destructive agricultural practices.
6 There is a tendency for scientists to underestimate the diversity of species in existence in the world.

Which statement best describes how you feel about Identifying the Writer's Views and
Claims (Yes/No/Not Given) tasks?

I feel confident about doing Yes/No/Not Given tasks.

I did OK, but I still need to do more work on Yes/No/Not Given tasks.
I need more practice with Yes/No/Not Given tasks. I need to focus on . . .

ACADEMIC READING 169