The Story of the Battery – IELTS Reading Answers
Get familiar with the strategy to answer Table & Sentence Completion type of questions with the IELTS Reading passage on ‘The Story of the Battery’. Find more information about the questions, answers, explanations, and much more.
Table of Contents
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With the passage on ‘The Story of the Battery’, your ability to find information will be improved which will give you an opportunity to track your progress. As you dive into this passage, you can comprehend difficult concepts with ease, attempt questions with specific strategy and improve your reading speed. Since there is a time limit in the IELTS Reading section, regular practice under exam conditions can help you in providing accurate answers.
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Types of Questions in ‘The Story of the Battery’
The ability to recognize different question types is important as you can quickly create a mental map on which strategy to follow for each question. With this approach, you can handle different question types as you gain the confidence. Let’s check out the question types for the passage on ‘The Story of the Battery’.
- IELTS Reading Table Completion [Q.1-Q.5]
- IELTS Reading Sentence Completion [Q.6-Q.7]
IELTS Reading Passage on ‘The Story of the Battery’
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-7 which are based on the Reading Passage below.
The Story of the Battery
When people consider today how indispensable the Internet is, they often overlook that without electricity, it would not function. Living without the Internet would be a significant inconvenience today, but without electricity, life as we know now would collapse. Since we started using electricity, which was in the middle of the nineteenth century, we have worked on ways to move and store it easily and efficiently and one of the most common ways of storing electricity has been the battery. A battery does not actually store electricity. A battery, which is actually an electric cell, is a device that produces electricity from a chemical reaction. The story of the battery is one of people trying to create different compounds to create an electric current. The two goals on improving batteries have always been to create ones that can produce an electric current for a long time and to make them smaller and smaller.
Alessandro Volta is credited with creating in 1800 the first battery and the first practical method of generating electricity. Luigi Galvani, another Italian scientist and contemporary of Volta, almost made the discovery, but misinterpreted his research results. Using a frog’s leg in an experiment, Galvani concluded that the electric current was ‘animal electricity’ and did not come from the apparatus he had set up. Volta’s battery was made by piling up layers of silver and paper or cloth, soaked in salt, and zinc. These layers were assembled, without paper or cloth between the zinc and silver, until the current was created.
Volta’s battery was not good for delivering currents for any significant duration. This restriction was overcome in the Daniell Cell in 1820. Using different chemicals, John Daniell used a copper pot, copper sulphate, sulphuric acid and mercury to produce his electric current. Although we now know better than to put mercury into batteries, this battery, which produced about 1.1 volts, was used to power telegraphs, telephones, and even to ring doorbells in homes for over 100 years. Although many other chemical combinations were used in batteries over the years, the lead acid battery is one that stands out. First made in 1859, it was further improved in 1881 and this design even now forms the basis of the modern lead acid battery found in cars.
One very common battery used today is the lithium-ion battery, which was developed by the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a part of their efforts during the Cold War. The idea surrounding the lithium-ion battery was to create a power source that could provide a long duration, high-density energy supply in a small package. In the early 1960’s, both the private and public sectors were experimenting with creating batteries using lithium, but the breakthrough in the chemistry was achieved by adding the ion into the equation. Not long after its invention, the CIA shared the lithium-ion battery concept with the public and a company working on an exploratory project developed and created the first patent for the lithium-ion battery for commercial use in 1968. Used for a variety of different applications, the first lithium-ion battery was a game-changer in the medical industry, where it is used as the power source in heart pacemakers.
Questions 1 – 5
Complete the table below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 1 – 5 on your answer sheet.
| Some Older Batteries | |
| Battery | Notes |
| Volta’s Battery |
|
| Daniell’s Battery |
|
| The Lead Acid Battery |
|
Questions 6 – 7
Complete the sentences below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 6 – 7 on your answer sheet.
6 The lithium-ion battery was invented as part of the United States’ contribution to the _______________.
7 The _______________ that allowed the success of the lithium-ion battery was the chemical addition of the ion to the equation.
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Answer with Explanation for ‘The Story of the Battery’
Preparation for the Reading module requires a complete analysis of correct answers for the passage on ‘The Story of the Battery’. Your understanding will be improved when you critically analyse the reasons for each answer which will help you reach your desired IELTS Band Score. The table below shows the answers along with their locations in the passage and explanations to help you understand effective strategies.
| Answer | Question Type | Answer Location | Answer Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1. research (results) |
Table Completion |
Paragraph 2, line 2 – line 3 |
The given lines of Paragraph 2 says that “Luigi Galvani, another Italian scientist and contemporary of Volta, almost made the discovery, but misinterpreted his research results.” It is clear that Alessandro Volta beat his contemporary, Galvani, who made errors with his research (results), the answer is ‘research (results)’. |
|
2. Layers |
Table Completion |
Paragraph 2, line 5–6 |
The passage states that Volta’s battery was made by piling up layers of silver and paper or cloth, soaked in salt, and zinc. This indicates that the materials used in the battery were arranged in layers. |
|
3. Duration |
Table Completion |
Paragraph 3, line 1 |
The passage mentions that Volta’s battery was not good for delivering currents for any significant duration, meaning it could not provide electricity for a long period. |
|
4. Mercury |
Table Completion |
Paragraph 3, line 3–5 |
The passage explains that although mercury is no longer used in modern batteries, this battery produced about 1.1 volts and was used to power telegraphs, telephones, and doorbells for over 100 years. |
|
5. Cars |
Table Completion |
Paragraph 3, line 7–8 |
The text states that the lead-acid battery, first developed in 1859 and later improved in 1881, still forms the basis of modern batteries used in cars. |
|
6. Cold War |
Sentence Completion |
Paragraph 4, line 1–2 |
The passage explains that the lithium-ion battery was developed by the CIA as part of their efforts during the Cold War. |
|
7. Breakthrough |
Sentence Completion |
Paragraph 4, line 4–6 |
The passage states that although many experiments were conducted with lithium batteries, the major breakthrough occurred when ions were added to the chemical process. |
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