Instructions
The Reading section of the IELTS Academic lasts 60 minutes. It is made up of 40 questions. It is composed of 3 long texts on general academic subjects from books, newspapers, journals, or magazines, written for a non-specialist public. There will be 2150 to 2750 words and 40 questions (of 1 point each) in total.
The texts can be in different formats (a story, a description, an argument, etc.) and at least one of them will have an argument. They can also be accompanied by graphics such as a diagram or illustration. These 3 exercises are of the same kind. There are no directions that differ from text to text.
The Reading exercises of the IELTS Academic evaluate your general comprehension of a text as well as its structure and details.
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READING 1
Text
Roman Times in Britain and its lasting effects.
Britain was first established in the minds of the Roman people after the account of Julius Caesar. He was a Roman general, Consul, statesman, and a notable author, compiling his military dispatches into a book entitled ‘’The conquest of Gaul’’. The name Britain derives from the name coined by the Consul, Britannica.
Caesar visited Britain twice in order to examine the country, and show his military strength after the British helped the Gauls (their neighbors to the south). Nevertheless, as Britain was eager to pay taxes to the Roman Empire out of fear and because of issues at home, it was never conquered in Caesar’s time.
However, as it was always present in the minds of the Romans, Claudius (41 – 54 AD), the fourth Roman emperor, decided to establish it as a Roman province seventy-six years later. He was considered a bastard and therefore sought to prove himself, and many legions followed him. He was anxious to be remembered and wanted to expand the territory of Rome and invaded Britain. That is why the date 43 AD is known as the beginning of Roman times in Britain. The Romans immediately instituted their system of administration on the island. They controlled its southern part effectively and although it is known from archaeological evidence that the Roman troops also visited the north, they found it too mountainous and uninteresting because of the lack of agricultural land and minute resources. Still, plans were made for more conquests in the area. Agricola, the Roman governor of Britain, asserted that Ireland can potentially be held by one legion (five thousand soldiers). His prediction did not come true, and Scotland (North) and Ireland (North-West) were never part of the Roman Empire.
The idea of incessant and persistent conquest of the world was halted when emperor Hadrian, who followed Claudius many years later, put a limit to the empire by means of building Hadrian’s Wall, which separated the Roman province from ‘’the barbarians’’. The impressive wall was built across the narrowest part of Britain from sea to sea. Large sections of the wall are still standing, and over 100,000 tourists visit it annually.
The Roman province south of the wall was administered by none other, but the Romans who also built the roads that were only slightly changed today, they developed cities like Londonium and erected many more like Chester. The only example of a Roman lighthouse erected in brick and stone in Europe can be found in Dover today. Many new concepts brought from Rome were introduced: urban planning, currency, improved agriculture, sanitation, and manifold others. Julian calendar is the basis of the calendar we use nowadays. The army itself was divided into two groups: legions composed of Roman citizens and the auxiliaries, meaning ‘’the barbarians’’. The latter brought down the Roman Empire, perhaps thanks to the training that Romans gave them themselves.
When it comes to religion, Romans had nothing against British gods as their own religion was pantheistic and the gods of different cultures were slightly incorporated into the Roman set of beliefs. Sulis, a British goddess, was simply an equivalent of Minerva, and they did not forbid its worshiping. Aqua Sulis, today’s Bath, was a place where both the Romans and the British at one point were bathing in search of remedies for their illnesses or simply good health. However, when religion was connected with political opposition, Romans were merciless. That was the case of the island Môn (Anglesey, present-day Wales) in 60 AD, where druids called the British to arms. In response, the Romans destroyed the shrine and the secret groves on the island, which effectively erased druidism from Britain.
Another interesting element brought about by the Roman Empire was the Latin language. Nevertheless, it was not permanently established, as it was spoken only by the aristocracy, and it was primarily used as the language of the Empire, its administration, public life, and literature. Latin was not able to sustain its position after 409, but what was established was the Christian religion. Previously persecuted, Christianity spread because of the Edict of Milan of 313, and the intrinsic link between the Roman church and the British was established until Henry Tudor’s break with the papacy in the 1530s.
Thus, it is clear that the Roman conquest left the island significantly different from what it was before. People depended on its administration and military support, which made it significantly easy for the Anglo-Saxons to invade Britain when the Roman troops left in 409 to defend Roman frontiers from the Germanic tribes. Left to their own meager devices, Britain’s inhabitants were no longer protected and easily succumbed to the Anglo-Saxon invasion. The principal source of knowledge for this period is Bede, a monk who lived in the Jarrow monastery near Newcastle in the 8th century, he was the author of ‘’Ecclesiastical History of the English People’’.