Cambridge IELTS 8 · Academic · Test 1 · Passage 3
Telepathy — IELTS Reading Answers
All 14 answers for Telepathy, Cambridge IELTS 8 Academic Reading Test 1 Passage 3, with the passage evidence and an explanation for each.
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Telepathy answer key at a glance
Questions 27–40. Tap an answer to see the evidence.
What this passage tests
This passage is tested with Matching Sentence Endings (Q27–30), Table Completion (Q31–40). Each section below gives the strategy for that question type, the answers, and the sentence that proves them.
Questions 27–30: Matching Sentence Endings
Strategy: Complete the grammar first, then check the meaning. The ending must follow logically from the stem as well as appear in the passage.
Options for Questions 27–30
- Athe discovery of a mechanism for telepathy.
- Bthe need to create a suitable environment for telepathy.
- Ctheir claims of a high success rate.
- Da solution to the problem posed by random guessing.
- Ethe significance of the ganzfeld experiments.
- Fa more careful selection of subjects.
- Ga need to keep altering conditions.
Researchers with differing attitudes towards telepathy agree on
“Sceptics and advocates alike do concur on one issue, however: that the most impressive evidence so far has come from the so-called 'ganzfeld' experiments, a German term that means 'whole field'”
'Sceptics and advocates alike do concur' that the ganzfeld experiments gave 'the most impressive evidence', so E, their significance, is the shared point.
Reports of experiences during meditation indicated
“Reports of telepathic experiences had by people during meditation led parapsychologists to suspect that telepathy might involve 'signals' passing between people that were so faint that they were usually swamped by normal brain activity.”
Meditation reports suggested faint signals are better detected in 'a relaxing whole field of light, sound and warmth', i.e. a suitable environment — B.
Attitudes to parapsychology would alter drastically with
“The problem stems at least in part from the lack of any plausible mechanism for telepathy Answering such questions would transform parapsychology”
The field's problem is 'the lack of any plausible mechanism'; finding one 'would transform parapsychology', matching ending A.
Recent autoganzfeld trials suggest that success rates will improve with
“Some work has begun already, with researchers trying to identify people who are particularly successful in autoganzfeld trials. Early results show that creative and artistic people do much better than average: in one study at the University of Edinburgh, musicians achieved a hit-rate of 56 per cent”
Researchers are identifying people 'particularly successful in autoganzfeld trials', and artists score higher, so careful subject selection should raise hit rates — ending F.
Questions 31–40: Table Completion
Strategy: Work row by row. The row label tells you where to look; the column heading tells you what kind of word you need.
“The idea was that a person acting as a 'sender' would attempt to beam the image over to the 'receiver' relaxing in the sealed room”
The table's role is the person who 'would attempt to beam the image over', labelled the 'sender'.
“In early ganzfeld experiments, the telepathy test involved identification of a picture chosen from a random selection of four taken from a large image bank”
The receiver identified 'a picture chosen from a random selection of four', so the table needs 'picture'.
“The idea was that a person acting as a 'sender' would attempt to beam the image over to the 'receiver' relaxing in the sealed room. Once the session was over, this person was asked to identify which of the four images had been used”
The person in the sealed room who later identifies the image is the 'receiver'.
“These ranged from 'sensory leakage' — where clues about the pictures accidentally reach the receiver — to outright fraud”
The first flaw is 'sensory leakage', where clues about the pictures accidentally reach the receiver.
“These ranged from 'sensory leakage' - where clues about the pictures accidentally reach the receiver - to outright fraud”
The range of flaws ends with 'outright fraud', the most serious item in the table's list.
“After this, many researchers switched to autoganzfeld tests - an automated variant of the technique which used computers to perform many of the key tasks such as the random selection of images”
Autoganzfeld tests 'used computers to perform many of the key tasks', so the table's agent is 'computers'.
“After this, many researchers switched to autoganzfeld tests - an automated variant of the technique which used computers to perform many of the key tasks such as the random selection of images. By minimising human involvement, the idea was to minimise the risk of flawed results”
The aim was to minimise 'human involvement' in order to reduce flawed results, so that phrase fills the gap.
“In 1987, results from hundreds of autoganzfeld tests were studied by Honorton in a 'meta-analysis', a statistical technique for finding the overall results from a set of studies”
Honorton used a 'meta-analysis', defined there as 'a statistical technique for finding the overall results from a set of studies'.
“Yet some parapsychologists remain disturbed by the lack of consistency between individual ganzfeld studies”
The remaining problem is 'the lack of consistency between individual ganzfeld studies', the noun phrase the table needs.
“If, as current results suggest, telepathy produces hit-rates only marginally above the 25 per cent expected by chance, it's unlikely to be detected by a typical ganzfeld study involving around 40 people: the group is just not big enough”
Around 40 people is too small a sample: 'the group is just not big enough', the phrase completing the table.
Learn the question types in this passage
Frequently asked questions
Where does the Telepathy passage come from?
It is Passage 3 of Cambridge IELTS 8 Academic Reading Test 1, and it covers Questions 27–40.
What question types appear in Telepathy?
The passage is tested with Matching Sentence Endings, Table Completion. Each type is explained on this page, alongside the answers.
Are these reading answers reliable?
Every answer is paired with the sentence that proves it, so you can check each one against the passage yourself. Use the page after a timed attempt, not instead of one.
Cambridge IELTS is published by Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Band9Prep is not affiliated with Cambridge. This page is an independent study aid: it gives the answer key, the passage evidence and an explanation so you can review an attempt you have already made.