Ielts reading recent actual tests (2016 2017) with answers published by ieltsmaterial com

TV Addiction 
A
The amount of time people spend watching television is astonishing. On average, 
individuals in the industrialized world devote three hours a day to the pursuit 
—fully half 

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P a g e
 
of their leisure time, and more than on any single activity save work and sleep. At this 
rate, someone who lives to 75 would spend nine years in front of the tube. To some 
commentators, this devotion means simply that people enjoy TV and make a conscious 
decision to watch it. But if that is the whole story, why do so many people experience 
misgivings about how much they view? In Gallup polls in 1992 and 1999, two out of five 
adult respondents and seven out of 10 teenagers said they spent too much time watching 
TV. Other surveys have consistently shown that roughly 10 percent of adults call 
themselves TV addicts 
B 
To study people's reactions to TV, researchers have experiments in which they have 
monitored the brain waves (using an electroencephalograph, or EEG) to track behavior 
and emotion in the normal course of life, as opposed to the artificial conditions of the lab. 
Participants carried a beeper, and we signaled them six to eight times a day, at random, 
over the period of a week; whenever they heard the beep, they wrote down what they 
were doing and how they were feeling using a standardized scorecard. 
C
As one might expect, people who were watching TV when we beeped them reported 
feeling relaxed and passive. The EEG studies similarly show less mental stimulation, as 
measured by alpha brain-wave production, during viewing than during reading. What is 
more surprising is that the sense of relaxation ends when the set is turned off, but the 
feelings of passivity and lowered alertness continue. Survey participants say they have 
more difficulty concentrating after viewing than before. In contrast, they rarely indicate 
such difficulty after reading. After playing sports or engaging in hobbies, people report 
improvements in mood. After watching TV, people's moods are about the same or worse 
than before. That may be because viewers' vague learned sense that they will feel less 
relaxed if they stop viewing. So they tend not to turn the set off. Viewing begets more 
viewing which is the same as the experience of habit-forming drugs. Thus, the irony of 
TV: people watch a great deal longer than they plan to, even though prolonged viewing 
is less rewarding. In our ESM studies the longer people sat in front of the set, the less 
satisfaction they said they derived from it. For some, a twinge of unease or guilt that they 
aren't doing something more productive may also accompany and depreciate the 
enjoyment of prolonged viewing. Researchers in Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. have found 

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