Information Theory: The Big Idea - IELTS Reading Answers

The challenge of the IELTS Reading exam is to complete three passages in just one hour. As a result, time management for IELTS Reading is extremely important, and if you want to master this skill, the best way is to start by practising passages like ‘Information Theory: The Big Idea IELTS Reading Answers’ from IELTS Cambridge 9 Test 3 and moving your way up the preparation.

Take the practice test, Information Theory: The Big Idea, below, and try more IELTS reading practice tests. We have provided explanations, locations for the answers, and tips to help you handle the three different types of reading questions here.

Passage for Information Theory: The Big Idea IELTS Reading Answers

Now go through the passage for ‘Information Theory: The Big Idea’ Reading Answers given below, and be prepared to solve similar IELTS Reading topics for General and Academic for the reading section.

Information Theory: The Big Idea

Information theory lies at the heart of everything - from DVD players and the genetic code of DNA to the physics of the universe at its most fundamental. It has been central to the development of the science of communication, which enables data to be sent electronically and has therefore had a major impact on our lives

A In April 2002 an event took place which demonstrated one of the many applications of information theory. The space probe, Voyager I, launched in 1977, had sent back spectacular images of Jupiter and Saturn and then soared out of the Solar System on a one-way mission to the stars. After 25 years of exposure to the freezing temperatures of deep space, the probe was beginning to show its age. Sensors and circuits were on the brink of failing and NASA experts realised that they had to do something or lose contact with their probe forever. The solution was to get a message to Voyager I to instruct it to use spares to change the failing parts. With the probe 12 billion kilometres from Earth, this was not an easy task. By means of a radio dish belonging to NASA’s Deep Space Network, the message was sent out into the depths of space. Even travelling at the speed of light, it took over 11 hours to reach its target, far beyond the orbit of Pluto. Yet, incredibly, the little probe managed to hear the faint call from its home planet, and successfully made the switchover.

B It was the longest-distance repair job in history, and a triumph for the NASA engineers. But it also highlighted the astonishing power of the techniques developed by American communications engineer Claude Shannon, who had died just a year earlier. Born in 1916 in Petoskey, Michigan, Shannon showed an early talent for maths and for building gadgets, and made breakthroughs in the foundations of computer technology when still a student. While at Bell Laboratories, Shannon developed information theory, but shunned the resulting acclaim. In the 1940s, he single-handedly created an entire science of communication which has since inveigled its way into a host of applications, from DVDs to satellite communications to bar codes - any area, in short, where data has to be conveyed rapidly yet accurately.

C This all seems light years away from the down-to-earth uses Shannon originally had for his work, which began when he was a 22-year-old graduate engineering student at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1939. He set out with an apparently simple aim: to pin down the precise meaning of the concept of ‘information’. The most basic form of information, Shannon argued, is whether something is true or false - which can be captured in the binary unit, or ‘bit’, of the form 1 or 0. Having identified this fundamental unit, Shannon set about defining otherwise vague ideas about information and how to transmit it from place to place. In the process he discovered something surprising: it is always possible to guarantee information will get through random interference - ‘noise’ - intact.

D Noise usually means unwanted sounds which interfere with genuine information. Information theory generalises this idea via theorems that capture the effects of noise with mathematical precision. In particular, Shannon showed that noise sets a limit on the rate at which information can pass along communication channels while remaining error-free. This rate depends on the relative strengths of the signal and noise travelling down the communication channel, and on its capacity (its ‘bandwidth’). The resulting limit, given in units of bits per second, is the absolute maximum rate of error-free communication given signal strength and noise level. The trick, Shannon showed, is to find ways of packaging up - ‘coding’ - information to cope with the ravages of noise, while staying within the information-carrying capacity - ‘bandwidth’ - of the communication system being used.

E Over the years scientists have devised many such coding methods, and they have proved crucial in many technological feats. The Voyager spacecraft transmitted data using codes which added one extra bit for every single bit of information; the result was an error rate of just one bit in 10,000 - and stunningly clear pictures of the planets. Other codes have become part of everyday life - such as the Universal Product Code, or bar code, which uses a simple error-detecting system that ensures supermarket check-out lasers can read the price even on, say, a crumpled bag of crisps. As recently as 1993, engineers made a major breakthrough by discovering so-called turbo codes - which come very close to Shannon’s ultimate limit for the maximum rate that data can be transmitted reliably, and now play a key role in the mobile videophone revolution.

F Shannon also laid the foundations of more efficient ways of storing information, by stripping out superfluous (‘redundant’) bits from data which contributed little real information. As mobile phone text messages like ‘I CN C U’ show, it is often possible to leave out a lot of data without losing much meaning. As with error correction, however, there’s a limit beyond which messages become too ambiguous. Shannon showed how to calculate this limit, opening the way to the design of compression methods that cram maximum information into the minimum space.

Questions for Information Theory: The Big Idea Reading Answers

The passage, Information Theory: The Big Idea Reading Answers, consists of 14 questions, which showcase three different IELTS Reading question types. They are:

• IELTS Reading Matching Information (Q. 1-6)
• IELTS Reading Note Completion (Q. 7-11)
• IELTS Reading True False Not Given (Q. 12-14)

Questions 1-6

1 an explanation of the factors affecting the transmission of information

2 an example of how unnecessary information can be omitted

3 a reference to Shannon’s attitude to fame

4 details of a machine capable of interpreting incomplete information

5 a detailed account of an incident involving information theory

6 a reference to what Shannon initially intended to achieve in his research

Questions 7-11

The Voyager 1 Space Probe

• The probe transmitted pictures of both 7……………, then left the 8 …………… 
• The freezing temperatures were found to have a negative effect on parts of the space probe.
• Scientists feared that both the 9 …………… were about to stop working.
• The only hope was to tell the probe to replace them with 10 …………… - but distance made communication with the probe difficult.
• A11 …………… was used to transmit the message at the speed of light.
• The message was picked up by the probe and the switchover took place. 

Questions 12-14

12 The concept of describing something as true or false was the starting point for Shannon in his attempts to send messages over distances.

13 The amount of information that can be sent in a given time period is determined with reference to the signal strength and noise level.

14 Products have now been developed which can convey more information than Shannon had anticipated as possible.

Answers and Explanations of Information Theory: The Big Idea IELTS Reading Passage

Within this section, you can go through the provided answers, along with their precise locations within the given passage, and the important keywords which will help you find the answers. Check out 'Information Theory: The Big Idea' answers and assess your improvement for a high IELTS band score.

Tips for Answering the Question Types in the Information Theory: The Big Idea Reading Passage

Given below are some IELTS exam preparation tips for band score of 8+ by helping you answer the types of questions in the ‘Information Theory: The Big Idea’ Reading Answers.

Matching Information 

• Read the statements before reading the passage: Identify key ideas in each statement. This gives you a mental map of what you’re searching for.
• Underline keywords, but focus on meaning, not exact words: Match the idea (paraphrase), not the vocabulary. IELTS passages rarely repeats exact words.
• Know what you are matching: You are usually matching details, reasons, examples, descriptions, effects or opinions. Recognizing the category helps you scan faster.
• Scan paragraph by paragraph: Do NOT read the whole passage again.
  Instead, skim each paragraph looking for the topic sentence and then scan for possible paraphrased versions of your statement.
• Look for synonyms and paraphrasing patterns: Common transformations include Nouns → verbs, Verb → passive, Word → explanation or Opposites (negative vs positive shifts). 
• Some statements are found in the middle of paragraphs: Do not assume matching information is always in the first or last lines. Many answers hide in supporting details.
• One paragraph can match multiple statements: Do not rule out a paragraph just because you have used it once.
• Eliminate wrong paragraphs quickly: If a paragraph does not mention the topic, uses opposite logic, or has no related keywords. Cross it out mentally and move on.
• Be careful with distractors: Sometimes the paragraph mentions a similar idea but does not support the statement fully. If it feels only “partly correct,” it is not the answer.
• Do NOT match based on a single keyword: Matching is idea-based. A keyword is only a signal; confirm with the whole meaning.

Note Completion

• Focus on word limits: If the question says NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS, strictly follow it. Articles (a, the), prepositions, and numbers are counted as words. If the blank needs one word, only put one word. Do not put filler words.
• Use the structure of the note to predict the word form: Look at grammar clues like (adjective) + noun, verb + (noun), noun + (noun), number + measurement, etc. Predicting the word type makes searching easier.
• The completed note must be grammatically correct: If your answer breaks sentence flow, it is wrong even if taken from the passage.
• Answers appear in order: For Note Completion, answers usually follow the text order, meaning. For example: Q.1 answer appears before Q.2, Q2 before Q3, and so on. This saves time.
• Look for synonyms, not exact words: Notes often use simplified wording; the passage uses academic vocabulary.
• Read around the gap, not just the gap: Look before and after the blank.
  The context helps you identify meaning, word form, whether a noun is countable or whether a number is needed.
• Use scanning to locate the relevant part of the text: Scan for names, dates, keywords and unique terms. These anchor points guide you to the correct sentence.
• Look for definitions or explanations: Notes often summarise ideas that are explained using - “X is defined as …”, “This means that …”, or “In other words …”. Such lines usually contain the answer.
• Spell the word exactly as in the passage: Spelling mistakes mean the answer is incorrect. Plural/singular errors also lose marks.

True False Not Given

• Read the statement word by word: Look at each word carefully. If even one key word or idea is incorrect or exaggerated, the answer may be FALSE.
• Locate the section of the passage: Use keywords to locate where this topic is mentioned in the passage.
• Don't make assumptions: Only base your answer on what is directly stated in the text. Do not use your background knowledge or logical guesses.
• For ‘NOT GIVEN’, be precise: If part of the statement is in the text but the crucial detail is missing, it’s NOT GIVEN. These are the trickiest, so look closely.
• Underline contradictions: If a statement seems opposite to what’s in the text, mark that sentence in the passage to justify choosing FALSE.

To conclude, reading samples from IELTS recent actual tests, such as Information Theory: The Big Idea IELTS Reading Answers, is crucial. These resources will help you to improve your reading speed, pinpoint your areas of weakness, and become well-versed in different reading question types. So, if you keep taking these tests, it is probable that you will get the outcomes that you want to have.

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