Rubber T and W Musgrove discuss the origins and early uses of rubber: Đề thi thật IELTS READING (IELTS Reading Recent Actual Test)

Rubber T and W Musgrove discuss the origins and early uses of rubber

The plants that produce rubber are spread right across the globe, and grow in many different habitats. One might think it likely, therefore, that humankind has known about rubber for thousands of years. Yet, while other crops of economic importance, notably rice, are relatively unambiguous in the length of their histories, rubber is different. The history of rubber is relatively anonymous. In fact, until the last 500 years or so, the Incidents of South America appear to be the first people to have understood the properties of rubber, and the Aztecs of what is now Mexico were the first to be recorded using the substance. A wall painting dating back to the sixth century depicts a scene of a factory refining oil of cloves.

After a European expedition in the Americas and the resulting Spanish Empire, further evidence starts to appear concerning the Native American use of rubber. Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas describes a ritual game played with a rubber ball at the court of the Aztecs. Emperor Montezuma II and the Mayan and Inca people are known to have taken part in similar activities. Rubber was also used to make raincoats, shoes, jars, torches and medical instruments, all of which must have been made from the indigenous Castilla elastica, as the Para rubber tree now favoured for rubber cultivation does not grow in the Mexican region.

The first description of latex (liquid rubber) extraction is made by Juan de Torquemada, who noted that if a nonspiked vine was cut and had the Native Americans would place the latex on their hands to allow it to solidify. However, no heat-treated rubber was shown up by European writer Charles de la Condamine, a French mathematician, published an account of his journey to South America in 1755. The journey was undertaken on behalf of the Paris Academy of Sciences to measure an arc of the meridian line on the equator, but the journey home was to turn out to be more significant for the Para purpose of the trip. Condamine stopped Brazil and Para and discovered that the local people used one single piece of coagulated latex to make boats. The boats were impervious to water and, when smoked, looked like real leather. In 1747 the first description of the rubber tree was passed to French Guinea. The publications of Condamine and Fresneau evoked considerable excitement among French scientists, and an attempt was made to discover a solvent that could melt the crude rubber into a substance for commercial application.>> 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

In 1818 a British metals and hardware named James Syme first used rubber to make waterproof cloth. Rubber by itself was of little value as an eraser of pencil marks, hence the name ‘rubber.’ Tubes that Syme was experimenting with balloons, rubber bands, braces, boots for the army and other ideas that met with varying degrees of success. In 1839 Thomas Hancock, an English manufacturer of rubber goods such as driving belts, industrial rollers and rubber hoses, invented a machine he called the 'masticator,' which chewed up waste strips for reuse. It was discovered that the masticated rubber was more malleable, while remaining much of its flexibility. In Scotland at the same time, Charles Macintosh had also discovered a way of using rubber as waterproofing material, by a process he patented in 1823. Hancock and Macintosh joined forces in 1835, and three years later Hancock patented the first rubber vulcanization process.

Despite the beneficial qualities, such as waterproofing, that rubber was used for, it was still particularly good for using hard materials including the fact that they dissolved malodorous. They were not fully exploited, though, until the Scottish chemist Macadam in the 19th century made great strides in improving road surfaces. Rubber is an important part of the material for surviving extreme heat, stress, exhaustion, stretching and variability, but these were not fully stabilized or governed by the British rubber industry, despite the great potential that rubber was now clearly evident. It played an important role in the Industrial Revolution, being employed in the steam engines found in factories, mills, mines and railways. It made a triumphant entrance as a new and innovative material at the Great Exhibition of 1851, where shoes, garbs, furniture and clothing made out of fully improved rubber were proudly displayed.

One of the most important rubber inventions was made in 1888, when an inshman called John Boyd Dunlop produced the first pneumatic tyre. Sold rubber tyres had been used for the previous 18 years, but Dunlop's new design, which he updated in 1890, immediately became popular. In 1895 Dunlop's tyres were first used in motor cars, and with the mass production of cars just over the horizon the rubber industry had never looked healthier. The import levels of rubber over the nineteenth century bear witness to it's irrepressible rise in 1830 Britain had imported just 211 kg of crude rubber. This had risen to 10,000kg in 1857, and by 1874 levels were just under six times as much again
Questions 1-6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage1?
In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information
1Rubber plants grow only in certain regions of the world
2. Rubber was extracted in Mexico as early as the sixth century
3.Rubber from the Castillo elastic plant is of poorer quality than that from the Para plant.
4. A French mathematician inspired real interest in rubber amongst Europeans
5. The process of vulcansation was discovered by accident>> IELTS TUTOR hướng dẫn PHÂN TÍCH ĐỀ THI 30/5/2020 IELTS WRITING TASK 2 (kèm bài sửa HS đạt 6.5)
Questions 7-13
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer
Write your answers in boxes 7-13 on your answer sheet
The Commercial Development of Rubber
Early European travelers gave accounts of various rubber objects in use in Central and South America, and these accounts created interest in the commercial exploitation of rubber.
In 1818, (7)____________ was produced using rubber, and in 1820 a machine was invented for recycling (8) ___________ of rubber
Over the next few years, other attempts were made to improve rubber, but some problems remained. For example, rubber products smelt bad when they were dissolved, and could turn ether soft or (9)___________ depending on the temperature. However, in 1839, a new process to (10)___________ substance greatly increased its potential. For example, rubber was used in the creation of the (11)___________ . Industry during the industrial revolution. Then in 1888, the (12)___________ was developed, and a few years later, the (13)___________ of the motor car began.