tailieunhanh - IELTS Academic Reading Sample 142 - Play Is a Serious Business

giới thiệu đến bạn IELTS Academic Reading Sample 142 - Play Is a Serious Business nhằm giúp các bạn có tài liệu ôn tập, luyện tập nhằm nắm vững được những kiến thức, kĩ năng cơ bản, đồng thời vận dụng kiến thức để giải các bài tập đề thi một cách thuận lợi. Chúc các bạn thi tốt! | You should spend about 20 minuteson Qaestions 27-40 which arebqsed on Reading Passage 142 below. PLAY IS A SERIOUS BUSINESS Does play help develop bigger better brains Bryant Furlow investigates A. Playing is a serious business. Children engrossed in a make-believe world fox cubs play-fighting or kittens teaming a ball of string aren t just having fun. Play may look like a carefree and exuberant way to pass the time before the hard work of adulthood comes along but there s much more to it than that. For a start play can even cost animals their lives. Eighty percent of deaths among juvenile fur seals occur because playing pups fail to sport predators approaching. It is also extremely expensive in terms of energy. Playful young animals use around two or three per cent of energy cavorting and in children that figure can be closer to fifteen per cent. Even two or three per cent is huge says John Byers of Idaho University. You just don t find animals wasting energy like that he adds. There must be a reason. B. But if play is not simply a developmental hiccup as biologists once thought why did it evolve The latest idea suggests that play has evolved to build big brains. In other words playing makes you intelligent. Playfulness it seems is common only among mammals although a few of the larger-brained birds also indulge. Animals at play often use unique signs tail-wagging in dogs for example to indicate that activity superficially resembling adult behavior is not really in earnest. In popular explanation of play has been that it helps juveniles develop the skills they will need to hunt mate and socialise as adults. Another has been that it allows young animals to get in shape for adult life by improving their respiratory endurance. Both these ideas have been questioned in recent years. C. Take the exercise theory. If play evolved to build muscle or as a kind of endurance training then you would expect to see permanent benefits. But Byers points out that the 2 benefits of