Answer of The Secret of Staying Young with Explanation is taken from IELTS Academic Reading: Cambridge 14, Reading Test 3: Passage 3 and is aimed for candidates who have major problems in finding IELTS Reading Answers.
Download Link 1
Download Link 1
Answer of The Secret of Staying Young with Explanation is divided into three parts for your ease of navigating answer, passage, and questions, all at the same time.
Answer of The Secret of Staying Young with Explanation
- The answers appear in the same order in the text as the order of the statements
- You don’t need to read the whole text. First, you will scan for keywords and then you’ll read in detail the section in which they’re located for the answer.
- There will be at least one of each answer type – True, False, Not Given. So, if you don’t have at least one of each when you’ve completed the question, you’ve made a mistake.
- Identify any words that qualify the statement, for example, some, all, mainly, often, always and occasionally. These words are there to test if you have read the whole statement because they can change the meaning. For example, ‘Coca-Cola has always made its drinks in the U.S.A.’ has a different meaning from ‘Coca-Cola has mainly made its drinks in the U.S.A.’
- The statements won’t be a word-for-word match to the information in the text. They will contain synonyms and paraphrasing. It’s the meaning that you are trying to match.
- Remember that at least one answer will be NG. This means that you will be searching for information that is not there.
- Don’t answer based on your assumptions
- If you can’t find the information you are looking for, then it is probably ‘not given’. Don’t waste time looking for something that is not there.
- If you have no idea what the answer is put ‘not given’. You probably have no idea because the answer is not there.
- Don’t write yes for True, No for false.
| Answer | Keyword | Location | Explanation |
| 1. Four/4 | focused age groups, ants | Para 3, line 1 | Scan for the keywords; focused, age groups= age ranges, ants. Now read this line “In the lab, P. dentata worker ants typically live for around 140 days. 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.” Giraldo focused on ants at four age ranges, so the answer is four. |
| 2. Young | how well, ants, looked after | Para 4 | Scan for the Keywords fin para 4: how well, ants, looked after= took care. Now read this line, “Giraldo watched how well the ants took care of the young of the colony, .. . ..” Giraldo watched how well the ants took care of the young of the colony. So, the answer is: young |
| 3. food | ability, locate, scent trail | Para 4, line 2 | Scan for the Keywords in para 4: ability, locate, trail Now read this line, “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.” This means that she studied ants’ ability to locate food using a scent trail. |
| 4. light | effect, had on them, | Para 4, line 3 | Scan for the keywords in para 4: effect= respond, them= ants. Now read this line, “She tested how ants responded to light . .. .” She tested how ants responded to light means she tested the effect of light on ants. |
| 5. aggressevely | attacked, prey, | Para 4 | Scan for the keywords in para 4: attacked, prey. Now read this line, “And when it came to reacting to prey, the older ants attacked the poor fruit fly just as aggressively as the young ones did, ..” She studied how aggressively ants attacked the prey. |
| 6. location | comparison, age, dying, cells, brains | Para 5, line 1 | Scan for the Keywords in para 5: comparison, age and, dying cells, brains. Now read this line, “Then Giraldo compared the brains of 20-day-old and 95-day-old ants, identifying any cells that were close to death. She saw no major differences with age, nor was there any difference in the location of the dying cells, ” She saw no major differences with age, nor was there any difference in the location of the dying cells suggests that she compared between the age and location of dying cells. |
| 7. neurons | synaptic complexes, mushroom bodies | Para 5, line 4 | Scan for the Keywords in para 5: synaptic complexes, mushroom bodies. Now read this line, “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.” It is stated that synaptic complexes are regions where neurons come together. |
| 8. chemicals | brain, associated, ageing | Para 5, line 7 | Scan for the keywords in para 5. Now read this line, “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 ageing.” Serotonin and dopamine are two brain chemicals whose decline often coincides (associated) with aging. Thus, the answer is “chemicals”. |
| 9. false | Pheidole dentata remain | Now read this line “Naked mole rats can live for almost 30 years and stay fit for nearly their entire lives.” Suggesting that, Pheidole dentata ants are not the only known animals which remain active for almost their whole lives. This is contradiction to question. | |
| 10. true | Ysabel Giraldo, first person | Now read this line, “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.” Here, Unlike all previous studies = works done by previous scientists who did not use data about insects’ age, her worked track means Ysabel Giraldo was the first to do so. | |
| 11. false | Giraldo‟s experiments, predicted | Para 4 | Now read this line “Giraldo expected the older ants to perform poor but the elderly ants were all good caretakers and trail-followers”. Means that She thought that they would perform badly, but they performed well. This is a contradictory statement. |
| 12. not given | bees, age-related decline | Para 6 | Bees is mentioned in 6th para, but no clear information on whether the recent studies of bees used several methods of measuring age-related decline. |
| 13. true | Pheidole dentata ants, laboratory, live | Para 7 | Scan for the Keywords in para: 7. Now read this line “Out in the wild, the ants probably don’t live for a full 140 days thanks to predator, disease and just being in an environment that’s much harsher than the comfor ts of the lab.” In the wild, the ants probably don’t live for a full 140 days compared to that of in the lab because of disease, predator and environment which is harsh in wild. |