IELTS Academic Reading Practice

/ˌāˌfanˈtāzēə/ Aphantasia: A life without mental images Part 1. Close your eyes and imagine walking along a sandy beach and then gazing over the horizon as the Sun rises. How clear is the image that springs to mind? Part 2. Most people can readily conjure images inside their head - known as their mind's eye. But this year scientists have described a condition, aphantasia, in which some people are unable to visualise mental images. Part 3. Niel Kenmuir, from Lancaster, has always had a blind mind's eye. He knew he was different even in childhood. "My stepfather, when I couldn't sleep, told me to count sheep, and he explained what he meant, I tried to do it and I couldn't," he says. "I couldn't see any sheep jumping over fences, there was nothing to count." Part 4. Our memories are often tied up in images, think back to a wedding or first day at school. As a result, Niel admits, some aspects of his memory are "terrible", but he is very good at remembering facts. And, like others with aphantasia, he struggles to recognise faces. Yet he does not see aphantasia as a disability, but simply a different way of experiencing life.

Mind's eye blind Part 1. Ironically, Niel now works in a bookshop, although he largely sticks to the non-fiction aisles. His condition begs the question what is going on inside his picture-less mind. I asked him what happens when he tries to picture his fiancee. Part 2. "This is the hardest thing to describe, what happens in my head when I think about things," he says. "When I think about my fiancee there is no image, but I am definitely thinking about her, I know today she has her hair up at the back, she's brunette. But I'm not describing an image I am looking at, I'm remembering features about her, that's the strangest thing and maybe that is a source of some regret." Part 3. The response from his mates is a very sympathetic: "You're weird." But while Niel is very relaxed about his inability to picture things, it is often a cause of distress for others. One person who took part in a study into aphantasia said he had started to feel "isolated" and "alone" after discovering that other people could see images in their heads. Being unable to reminisce about his mother years after her death led to him being "extremely distraught".

The super-visualiser Part 1. At the other end of the spectrum is children's book illustrator, Lauren Beard, whose work on the Fairytale Hairdresser series will be familiar to many six-year-olds. Her career relies on the vivid images that leap into her mind's eye when she reads text from her author. When I met her in her box-room studio in Manchester, she was working on a dramatic scene in the next book. The text describes a baby perilously climbing onto a chandelier. Part 2. "Straightaway I can visualise this grand glass chandelier in some sort of French kind of ballroom, and the little baby just swinging off it and really heavy thick curtains," she says. "I think I have a strong imagination, so I can create the world and then keep adding to it so it gets sort of bigger and bigger in my mind and the characters too they sort of evolve. I couldn't really imagine what it's like to not imagine, I think it must be a bit of a shame really." Part 3. Not many people have mental imagery as vibrant as Lauren or as blank as Niel. They are the two extremes of visualisation. Adam Zeman, a professor of cognitive and behavioural neurology, wants to compare the lives and experiences of people with aphantasia and its polar-opposite hyperphantasia. His team, based at the University of Exeter, coined the term aphantasia this year in a study in the journal Cortex. Part 4. Prof Zeman tells the BBC: "People who have contacted us say they are really delighted that this has been recognised and has been given a name, because they have been trying to explain to people for years that there is this oddity that they find hard to convey to others." Part 5. How we imagine is clearly very subjective - one person's vivid scene could be another's grainy picture. But Prof Zeman is certain that aphantasia is real. People often report being able to dream in pictures, and there have been reported cases of people losing the ability to think in images after a brain injury. Part 6. He is adamant that aphantasia is "not a disorder" and says it may affect up to one in 50 people. But he adds: "I think it makes quite an important difference to their experience of life because many of us spend our lives with imagery hovering somewhere in the mind's eye which we inspect from time to time, it's a variability of human experience."

(Questions 1–5) Do the following statements agree with the information in the IELTS reading text? TRUE: if the statement agrees with the information FALSE: if the statement contradicts the information NOT GIVEN: if there is no information on this 1. Aphantasia is a condition, which describes people, for whom it is hard to visualise mental images. 2. Niel Kenmuir was unable to count sheep in his head. 3. People with aphantasia struggle to remember personal traits and clothes of different people. 4. Niel regrets that he cannot portray an image of his fiancee in his mind. 5. Inability to picture things in someone's head is often a cause of distress for a person. 6. All people with aphantasia start to feel 'isolated' or 'alone' at some point of their lives. 7. Lauren Beard's career depends on her imagination. 8. The author met Lauren Beard when she was working on a comedy scene in her next book. (Questions 9–13) Complete the sentences below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. 9. Only a small fraction of people have imagination as _____ as Lauren does. 10. Hyperphantasia is _____ to aphantasia. 11.There are a lot of subjectivity in comparing people's imagination - somebody's vivid scene could be another person's _______ . 12. Prof Zeman is ______ that aphantasia is not an illness. 13. Many people spend their lives with _____ somewhere in the mind's eye.

Leisure time Q: What do you like to do in your free time? A: I do quite a lot of sport actually. I play football mostly - on Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoon with a local team. I also play tennis and squash when I can but I don't really get the time to do them as well every week. I work quite hard at the moment, so I don't get a lot of free time unfortunately.

Leisure Time Q: Have your leisure activities changed since you were a child? A: Not a great deal actually. I used to love playing football when I was young as well - I played a lot at school. Though of course I did all the other things kids loved to do such as going out on bike rides after school and things.

Leisure Time Q: Do you prefer to spend your free time alone or with other people? A: It depends on my mood really. I think most people need some time on their own. Sometimes my work is quite stressful and I spend a lot of time there with others, so it's good to just get home and relax and read a book or something. But I get bored if I am alone too much so I like to go out and meet friends in the evening or play football.

TRAIN Q: Do you like to travel by train? A: Yes, I quite like them. If you are on a train you can relax and look out the window, read, use your lap top - it's all quite comfortable. On the bus it's more difficult to do those things because there is less space and the movement can make you travel sick too. The only problem with trains in my country is that they are often delayed or late. That can ruin your journey.

TRAIN Q: Where do you usually go by train? A: It's usually on long trips across the country if I want to visit friends or I have an appointment somewhere. For short journeys around where I live or to work it's much easier to drive or take the bus. As I said before, you can do things such as read on the train so it's good for long journeys.

TRAIN Q: When was the last time you travelled by train? A: I'm not quite sure, let me think. It was a while ago now. I think the last time was last year when I went up to see some friends I had not seen for a while in the north of the country. Yes, that was it. It was a journey of about 3 hours and I had to change trains once during the journey. The first train was a bit crowded and noisy as I think there were people on there going to a football match, but it was an ok trip most of the way..

TIME Q: Are you good at managing your time? A: Actually I'd say I'm not too good! I don't really have a system in place to organize things. I know some people have an electronic organizer or use some device to plan what they are doing but I don't do that. But I always make sure I am on time for appointments and things like that, and I meet deadlines and get things done.

TIME Q: When is it most important for you to manage your time? A: I think it is probably when you are at work. When out of work, it's not really going to affect things too much, or at least only yourself, if you are late to meet friends or for an appointment, or if you are getting things done in your house. But at work, it will cause problems if you don't manage your time effectively because you could miss deadlines or miss appointments. You could lose your job. So at work is when it is most important to manage your time.

TRAIN Q: How do you manage your time? A: As I said, I don't have any specific system in place to manage my time. For example, if I am at work and I have a lot of cases, I just go through them each day and decide which I need to tackle first. At work we do have an online diary which I guess I use, so in that sense I do manage my time to an extent.

BOOKS Q: Books What kind of books do you like to read? A: I mostly like to read biographies. I'm not sure why but it is interesting to read about people's real lives, especially when they have had interesting lives and have had to deal with many problems. I do read fiction as well, but I often find it difficult to get hold of a book that I really like. I also like reading about books to do with current affairs.

BOOKS Q: Do you read the same kind of books now that you read when you were a child? A: Not really, no. Actually I didn't read that much when I was a child, but if I did it was mainly fiction books, such as fairy tales. Things like The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Fantasy things.

BOOKS Q: When do you think is the best time to read? A: I think any time is ok, but when I read I like to concentrate, so I can't read for a short time like on a bus ride like some people do. I like to put time aside to enjoy it. So if I have some free time at the weekend I might read for a few hours. And I nearly always read before I go to bed - this really helps me to sleep.