Information Theory – The Big Idea IELTS Reading Answers
The Academic passage ‘Information Theory – The Big Idea’ is a reading passage that appeared in an IELTS Test. Read the passage below and answer questions 1 – 14. Beyond the questions, you will find the answers along with the location of the answers in the passage and the keywords that help you find out the answers.
Information Theory – The Big Idea
Answers
Question number | Answer | Keywords | Location of keywords |
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1 | D | noise sets a limit on the rate at which information can pass along communication channels while remaining error-free | Paragraph D;
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2 | F | by stripping out superfluous (‘redundant’) bits from data which contributed little real information | Paragraph F;
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3 | B | While at Bell Laboratories, Shannon developed information theory, but shunned the resulting acclaim | Paragraph B;
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4 | E | uses a simple error-detecting system that ensures supermarket check-out lasers can read the price even on, say, a crumpled bag of crisps. | Paragraph E;
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5 | A | In April 2002 an event took place which demonstrated one of the many applications of information theory. | Paragraph A;
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6 | C | He set out with an apparently simple aim: to pin down the precise meaning of the concept of ‘information’ | Paragraph C;
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7 | Jupiter and Saturn IN EITHER ORDER; | The space probe, Voyager I, launched in 1977, had sent back spectacular images of Jupiter and Saturn | Paragraph A;
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8 | Solar System | 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 | Paragraph A;
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9 | sensors and circuits IN EITHER ORDER | Sensors and circuits were on the brink of failing | Paragraph A;
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10 | spares | The solution was to get a message to Voyager I to instruct it to use spares to change the failing parts. | Paragraph A;
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11 | radio dish | By means of a radio dish belonging to NASA’s Deep Space Network, the message was sent out into the depths of space | Paragraph A;
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12 | TRUE | Having identified this fundamental unit, Shannon set about defining otherwise vague ideas about information and how to transmit it from place to place. | Paragraph C;
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13 | TRUE | This rate depends on the relative strengths of the signal and noise travelling down the communication channel, and on its capacity (its ‘bandwidth’) | Paragraph D;
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14 | FALSE | 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. | Paragraph E;
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