IELTS BOOTCAMP DAY 12
Understanding the main points
Another type of question that can focus on the main point of a paragraph is multiple choice. This type of question often requires you to carefully read more than one sentence in the paragraph.
The notion of planning entire communities prior to their construction is an ancient one. In fact, one of the earliest such cities on record is Miletus, Greece, which was built in tne 4th century BC. Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, various planned communities (both theoretical and actual) were conceived.
Leonardo da Vinci designed several cities that were never constructed. Following the Great Fire of London in 1666, the architect Christopher Wren created a new master plan for the city that incorporated park land and urban space. Several 18th-century cities, including Washington D.C., New York City, and St. Petersburg, Russia, were built according to comprehensive planning.
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Question: Mupliple-choice
Identifying information in a passage
For True / False / Not given tasks, you need to look at a list of sentences or statement and decide whether they are.
URBAN HEAT
In 1818, Luke Howard published The Climate of London in which he identified an emerging problem: urban development was having a direct impact on the local weather. The early 1800s was a time of great expansion for London and Howard noticed that temperatures in that temperatures in the city were gradually becoming higher than those in rural areas. We now refer to these areas as Urban Heat Islands.
The difference in temperatures is usually greater at night and the phenomenon occurs in both winter and summer. Experts agree that this is due to urban development, when open green spaces are replaced with asphalt roads and tall brick or concrete buildings. These materials retain heat generated by the Sun and release it through the night. In Atlanta, in the US, this has even led to thunderstorms occurring in the morning rather than, as is more common, in the afternoon. Officials there are advising builders to use light-coloured roofs in a bid to ‘educe the problem.
Large cities around the world are adopting strategies to combat this issue and it is not uncommon to find plants growing on top of roofs or down the walls of large buildings. In Singapore, the government has pledged to transform it into a city within a garden’ and, in 2006, they held an international competition calling for entries to develop a master plan to help bring this about. One outcome was the creation of 18 ‘Supertrees’. These metal constructions are made to resemble very tall trees and range in height from 25m to 50m. Each one is a vertical freestanding garden and is home to exotic plants and ferns. Their structure allowed the designers to create an immediate rainforest canopy without having to wait for trees to reach such heights. They contain solar panels used to light the trees at night and also containers to collect rainwater, making them truly self-sufficient.
