The Secret Of Staying Young IELTS Reading Answers

The Reading Module of the IELTS can be the top-scoring category, with diligent practice. To achieve the best results in this section, you must understand how to approach and answer the different Question types in the Reading Module. By solving and reviewing Sample Reading Questions from past IELTS papers, you can ensure that your Reading skills are up to the mark.

The Academic passage ‘The Secret Of Staying Young’ is a reading passage that appeared in an IELTS Test. Try to find the answers to get an idea of the difficulty level of the passages in the actual reading test. If you want more passages to solve, try taking one of our IELTS reading practice tests.

The types of questions found in this passage are:

Note Completion

In these types of questions, you are required to go through the given text and identify the relevant context asked in the questions. Then, fill in the blanks with the missing words or phrases and complete the notes. It should be meaningful in relation to the passage. You might/might not get the exact phrases/words from the passage; hence, pay close attention to the passage.

True/False/Not Given

In this type of question, you need to provide an answer using the words/phrases ‘True’, ‘False’, or ‘Not Given’ with respect to the statements made. If you believe that the given statement is mentioned in the text and is correct, write ‘True’. If you think the statement is wrong, write ‘False’. And, in case you do not find any piece of information regarding the given statement, write ‘Not Given’.

The Secret Of Staying Young

Answers

1 Answer: four/4

Question Type: Note Completion

Answer location: Paragraph 3, Lines 1-2

Answer explanation: “Giraldo focused on ants at four age ranges: 20 to 22 days, 45 to 47 days, 95 to 97 days, and 120 to 122 days.” This gives the answer to this question that Giraldo focused on four age groups while carrying out her studies on ants.

2 Answer: young

Question Type: Note Completion

Answer location: Paragraph 4, Lines 1-2

Answer explanation: “Giraldo watched how well the ants took care of the young of the colony, recording how often each ant attended to, carried, and fed them.” This provides the answer that Giraldo analysed how did the ants take care of the young ones in their colony.

3 Answer: food

Question Type: Note Completion

Answer location: Paragraph 4, Lines 2-3

Answer explanation: “She compared how well 20-day-old and 95-day-old ants followed the telltale scent that the insects usually leave to mark a trail to food.” It is clear that the notes are referring to the mechanism of trailing the food source by the ants using a scent.

4 Answer: light

Question Type: Note Completion

Answer location: Paragraph 4, Lines 3-4

Answer explanation: “She tested how ants responded to light and also measured how active they were by counting how often ants in a small dish walked across a line.” Giraldo studied how light affected the ants and this gives the answer to this blank.

5 Answer: aggressively

Question Type: Note Completion

Answer location: Paragraph 4, Lines 9-11

Answer explanation: “And when it came to reacting to prey, the older ants attacked the poor fruit fly just as aggressively as the young ones did, flaring their mandibles or pulling at the fly’s legs.” This tells us how the ants aggressively attacked the fruit fly (prey).

6 Answer: location

Question Type: Note Completion

Answer location: Paragraph 5, Lines 2-3

Answer explanation: “She saw no major differences with age, nor was there any difference in the location of the dying cells, showing that age didn’t seem to affect specific brain functions.” The quoted sentence from the passage proves that Giraldo found no major difference when she compared the age of the ants with the location of dying cells in their brain. Hence, the answer is ‘location’.

7 Answer: neurons

Question Type: Note Completion

Answer location: Paragraph 5, Lines 3-6

Answer explanation: “Ants and other insects have structures in their brains called mushroom bodies, which are important for processing information, learning, and memory. She also wanted to see if ageing affects the density of synaptic complexes within these structures – regions where neurons come together.” Here, the area of synapse, where the neurons meet, in the brain’s mushroom bodies of the ants is mentioned.

8 Answer: chemicals

Question Type: Note Completion

Answer location: Paragraph 5, Lines 7-8

Answer explanation: “Again, the answer was no. What was more, the old ants didn’t experience any drop in the levels of either serotonin or dopamine – brain chemicals whose decline often coincides with aging.” Here, the reference of two brain chemicals – Dopamine and Serotonin is made, which generally decline with ageing in most organisms.

9 Answer: False

Question Type: True/False/Not Given

Answer location: Paragraph 2, Lines 1-2

Answer explanation: “Naked mole rats can live for almost 30 years and stay fit for nearly their entire lives. They can still reproduce even when old, and they never get cancer.” This shows that even naked mole rats remain active and efficient all through their lives besides the Pheidole dentata ants.

10 Answer: True

Question Type: True/False/Not Given

Answer location: Paragraph 3, Lines 2-4

Answer explanation: “Giraldo focused on ants at four age ranges: 20 to 22 days, 45 to 47 days, 95 to 97 days, and 120 to 122 days. Unlike all previous studies, which only estimated how old the ants were, her work tracked the ants from the time the pupae became adults, so she knew their exact ages.” This line suggests that Giraldo used the exact data for her studies unlike all such prior studies that worked on estimations.

11 Answer: False

Question Type: True/False/Not Given

Answer location: Paragraph 5, Lines 5-7

Answer explanation: “She also wanted to see if ageing affects the density of synaptic complexes within these structures – regions where neurons come together. Again, the answer was no.” This line suggests that contrary to what Giraldo was expecting to find in her studies, she couldn’t find any age-related differences in the ants from any aspect.

12 Answer: Not Given

Question Type: True/False/Not Given

Answer location: N/A

Answer explanation: There is no reference where the context of using different methods of measuring age related decline is studied in bees.

13 Answer: True

Question Type: True/False/Not Given

Answer location: Paragraph 7, Lines 1-3

Answer explanation: “Out in the wild, the ants probably don’t live for a full 140 days thanks to predators, disease and just being in an environment that’s much harsher than the comforts of the lab.” This line suggests that the ants live longer in laboratories as they are more vulnerable and prone to die much earlier in the natural environment (wild) due to various reasons.

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