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Learning lessons from the past

Many past societies collapsed or vanished, leaving behind monumental ruins such as those that the poet Shelley imagined in his sonnet, Ozymandias. By collapse, I mean a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time. By those standards, most people would consider the following past societies to have been famous victims of full-fledged collapses rather than of just minor declines: the Anasazi and Cahokia within the boundaries of the modern US, the Maya cities in Central America, Moche and Tiwanaku societies in South America, Norse Greenland, Mycenean Greece and Minoan Crete in Europe, Great Zimbabwe in Africa, Angkor Wat and the Harappan Indus Valley cities in Asia, and Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean.

The monumental ruins left behind by those past societies hold a fascination for all of us. We marvel at them when as children we first learn of them through pictures. When we grow up, many of us plan vacations in order to experience them at first hand. We feel drawn to their often spectacular and haunting beauty, and also to the mysteries that they pose. The scales of the ruins testify to the former wealth and power of their builders. Yet these builders vanished, abandoning the great structures that they had created at such effort. How could a society that was once so mighty end up collapsing?

It has long been suspected that many of those mysterious abandonments were at least partly triggered by ecological problems: people inadvertently destroying the environmental resources on which their societies depended. This suspicion of unintended ecological suicide (ecocide) has been confirmed by discoveries made in recent decades by archaeologists, climatologists, historians, paleontologists, and palynologists (pollen scientists). The processes through which past societies have undermined themselves by damaging their environments fall into eight categories, whose relative importance differs from case to case: deforestation and habitat destruction, soil problems, water management problems, overhunting, overfishing, effects of introduced species on native species, human population growth, and increased impact of people.

Those past collapses tended to follow somewhat similar courses constituting variations on a theme. Writers find it tempting to draw analogies between the course of human societies and the course of individual human lives - to talk of a society’s birth, growth, peak, old age and eventual death. But that metaphor proves erroneous for many past societies: they declined rapidly after reaching peak numbers and power, and those rapid declines must have come as a surprise and shock to their citizens. Obviously, too, this trajectory is not one that all past societies followed unvaryingly to completion: different societies collapsed to different degrees and in somewhat different ways, while many societies did not collapse at all.

Today many people feel that environmental problems overshadow all the other threats to global civilisation. These environmental problems include the same eight that undermined past societies, plus four new ones: human-caused climate change, build up of toxic chemicals in the environment, energy shortages, and full human utilisation of the Earth’s photosynthetic capacity. But the seriousness of these current environmental problems is vigorously debated. Are the risks greatly exaggerated, or conversely are they underestimated? Will modern technology solve our problems, or is it creating new problems faster than it solves old ones? When we deplete one resource (e.g. wood, oil, or ocean fish), can we count on being able to substitute some new resource (e.g. plastics, wind and solar energy, or farmed fish)? Isn’t the rate of human population growth declining, such that we’re already on course for the world’s population to level off at some manageable number of people?

Questions like this illustrate why those famous collapses of past civilisations have taken on more meaning than just that of a romantic mystery. Perhaps there are some practical lessons that we could learn from all those past collapses. But there are also differences between the modern world and its problems, and those past societies and their problems. We shouldn't be so naive as to think that study of the past will yield simple solutions, directly transferable to our societies today. We differ from past societies in some respects that put us at lower risk than them; some of those respects often mentioned include our powerful technology (i.e. its beneficial effects), globalisation, modern medicine, and greater knowledge of past societies and of distant modern societies. We also differ from past societies in some respects that put us at greater risk than them: again, our potent technology (i.e., its unintended destructive effects), globalisation (such that now a problem in one part of the world affects all the rest), the dependence of millions of us on modern medicine for our survival, and our much larger human population. Perhaps we can still learn from the past, but only if we think carefully about its lessons.

Questions 1-3
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

1. When the writer describes the impact of monumental ruins today, he emphasises
   A. the income they generate from tourism.
   B. the area of land they occupy.
   C. their archaeological value.
   D. their romantic appeal.

2. Recent findings concerning vanished civilisations have
   A. overturned long-held beliefs.
   B. caused controversy amongst scientists.
   C. come from a variety of disciplines.
   D. identified one main cause of environmental damage.

3. What does the writer say about ways in which former societies collapsed?
   A. The pace of decline was usually similar.
   B. The likelihood of collapse would have been foreseeable.
   C. Deterioration invariably led to total collapse.
   D. Individual citizens could sometimes influence the course of events.

Questions 4-8
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
Write
YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

1. It is widely believed that environmental problems represent the main danger faced by the modern world.

2. The accumulation of poisonous substances is a relatively modern problem.

3. There is general agreement that the threats posed by environmental problems are very serious.

4. Some past societies resembled present-day societies more closely than others.

5. We should be careful when drawing comparisons between past and present.

Questions 9-13
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-F, below.
Write the correct letter, A-F.

1. Evidence of the greatness of some former civilisations

2. The parallel between an individual’s life and the life of a society

3. The number of environmental problems that societies face

4. The power of technology

5. A consideration of historical events and trends

A. is not necessarily valid.
B. provides grounds for an optimistic outlook.
C. exists in the form of physical structures.
D. is potentially both positive and negative.
E. will not provide direct solutions for present problems.
F. is greater now than in the past.

Question 14
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

1. What is the main argument of Reading Passage 3?
   A. There are differences as well as similarities between past and present societies.
   B. More should be done to preserve the physical remains of earlier civilisations.
   C. Some historical accounts of great civilisations are inaccurate.
   D. Modern societies are dependent on each other for their continuing survival.

Sự sụp đổ của các xã hội trong quá khứ

Nhiều xã hội trong quá khứ đã sụp đổ (collapse - downfall, ruin, disintegration) hoặc biến mất (vanish - disappear, fade, perish), để lại phía sau những tàn tích (ruins - remains, remnants, relics) hoành tráng (monumental - massive, grand, colossal) như những gì nhà thơ Shelley đã tưởng tượng trong bài sonnet Ozymandias. Khi nói về sự sụp đổ, tôi muốn ám chỉ một sự giảm sút nghiêm trọng (drastic decrease - sharp decline, severe drop, radical reduction) về quy mô dân số và/hoặc mức độ phức tạp (complexity - sophistication, intricacy, complication) chính trị, kinh tế, xã hội trong một khu vực rộng lớn và kéo dài trong một khoảng thời gian dài. Dựa trên tiêu chí đó, hầu hết mọi người sẽ coi những xã hội sau đây là nạn nhân điển hình của các cuộc sụp đổ hoàn toàn chứ không chỉ là những sự suy giảm nhỏ: Anasazi và Cahokia ở Hoa Kỳ hiện đại, các thành phố Maya ở Trung Mỹ, các xã hội Moche và Tiwanaku ở Nam Mỹ, Norse Greenland, Hy Lạp Mycenae và Crete Minoan ở châu Âu, Great Zimbabwe ở châu Phi, Angkor Wat và các thành phố Thung lũng Indus Harappan ở châu Á, và Đảo Phục Sinh ở Thái Bình Dương.>> Form đăng kí giải đề thi thật IELTS 4 kĩ năng kèm bài giải bộ đề 100 đề PART 2 IELTS SPEAKING quý đang thi (update hàng tuần) từ IELTS TUTOR

Những tàn tích hoành tráng (monumental ruins - grand remains, massive relics, colossal remnants) còn sót lại từ các xã hội trong quá khứ luôn gây sự cuốn hút (fascination - captivation, enchantment, allure) đối với chúng ta. Khi còn nhỏ, chúng ta trầm trồ (marvel at - admire, wonder at, be amazed by) trước chúng qua những bức ảnh. Khi lớn lên, nhiều người lên kế hoạch du lịch để trải nghiệm (experience - encounter, undergo, witness) tận mắt. Chúng ta bị thu hút (drawn to - attracted to, captivated by, intrigued by) bởi vẻ đẹp hùng vĩ (spectacular - breathtaking, impressive, magnificent) và ám ảnh (haunting - eerie, mysterious, unsettling) của chúng, cũng như những bí ẩn (mysteries - enigmas, puzzles, riddles) mà chúng đặt ra. Quy mô (scales - proportions, dimensions, magnitude) của các tàn tích là bằng chứng về sự giàu có (wealth - affluence, prosperity, riches) và quyền lực (power - authority, dominance, control) của những người xây dựng chúng. Tuy nhiên, những người xây dựng này đã biến mất, bỏ lại những công trình vĩ đại mà họ đã tạo ra với nỗ lực to lớn (effort - endeavor, exertion, struggle). Làm thế nào mà một xã hội từng hùng mạnh (mighty - powerful, dominant, formidable) lại kết thúc trong sự sụp đổ?

Từ lâu, người ta đã nghi ngờ rằng nhiều cuộc bỏ hoang bí ẩn (mysterious abandonments - enigmatic desertions, puzzling withdrawals, inexplicable evacuations) này ít nhất phần nào bắt nguồn từ các vấn đề sinh thái (ecological - environmental, biological, green): con người vô tình (inadvertently - unintentionally, accidentally, unknowingly) phá hủy các tài nguyên môi trường (environmental resources - natural assets, ecological materials, biological reserves) mà xã hội của họ phụ thuộc vào. Sự nghi ngờ (suspicion - doubt, uncertainty, skepticism) về một cuộc tự sát sinh thái ngoài ý muốn (unintended ecological suicide - accidental environmental destruction, unforeseen ecological demise, inadvertent green collapse) này đã được xác nhận qua những phát hiện gần đây của các nhà khảo cổ học (archaeologists - excavators, anthropologists, historians), nhà khí hậu học (climatologists - meteorologists, weather scientists, atmospheric researchers), nhà sử học (historians - chroniclers, scholars, recorders), nhà cổ sinh vật học (paleontologists - fossil experts, prehistory scientists, extinct-species specialists), và nhà khoa học nghiên cứu phấn hoa (palynologists - pollen analysts, botanical historians, plant microfossil experts). Các quá trình mà qua đó các xã hội trong quá khứ tự hủy hoại (undermined - weakened, sabotaged, destabilized) chính mình bằng cách tàn phá (damaging - harming, devastating, destroying) môi trường rơi vào tám nhóm chính, với mức độ quan trọng khác nhau tùy từng trường hợp: phá rừng (deforestation - logging, tree clearance, woodland destruction) và tàn phá môi trường sống (habitat destruction - ecosystem damage, natural area devastation, biodiversity loss), vấn đề về đất đai (soil problems - land degradation, erosion issues, fertility loss), quản lý nguồn nước kém (water management problems - hydrological issues, irrigation failures, water misallocation), săn bắn quá mức (overhunting - excessive hunting, wildlife depletion, game overexploitation), đánh bắt cá quá mức (overfishing - marine depletion, excessive fishing, aquatic resource exhaustion), ảnh hưởng của loài ngoại lai đối với loài bản địa (effects of introduced species - invasive species impact, alien organism disruption, non-native ecological interference), gia tăng dân số (population growth - demographic expansion, human proliferation, overpopulation), và sự tác động ngày càng lớn của con người (increased impact of people - escalating human effect, intensified anthropogenic influence, growing human footprint).

Ngày nay, nhiều người cảm thấy rằng các vấn đề môi trường (environmental problems - ecological issues, sustainability challenges, planetary crises) đang đe dọa (overshadow - dominate, eclipse, suppress) tất cả những mối nguy hại khác đối với nền văn minh toàn cầu. Các vấn đề này bao gồm tám vấn đề đã từng hủy hoại các xã hội trong quá khứ, cộng thêm bốn vấn đề mới: biến đổi khí hậu do con người gây ra (human-caused climate change - anthropogenic global warming, man-made climate disruption, industrial-induced weather shifts), tích tụ hóa chất độc hại trong môi trường (build-up of toxic chemicals - hazardous substance accumulation, poisonous compound concentration, pollutant aggregation), thiếu hụt năng lượng (energy shortages - fuel scarcity, power crisis, resource depletion), và việc con người khai thác toàn bộ khả năng quang hợp của Trái Đất (full human utilization of Earth’s photosynthetic capacity - complete exploitation of planetary photosynthesis, total biomass consumption, absolute sunlight energy use).

Có lẽ chúng ta vẫn có thể rút ra bài học (learn lessons - gain insights, extract knowledge, acquire wisdom) từ quá khứ, nhưng chỉ khi chúng ta suy nghĩ thận trọng (think carefully - deliberate thoroughly, analyze cautiously, contemplate prudently) về những gì nó dạy.

Questions 1-3

1. C

2. D

3. A

Questions 4-8
4. YES
5. YES
6. NO
7. NOT GIVEN
8. YES

Questions 9-13
9. C
10. A
11. F
12. D
13. E

Question 14
14. A

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