Information Theory – The Big Idea IELTS Reading Answers
IELTS reading is an important section within the IELTS exam which tests the reading skills of students. The IELTS reading section tests the proficiency of candidates through a passage and 40 questions. IELTS reading tests the understanding abilities of the candidate. The best way to prepare for the IELTS reading test is practicing from IELTS reading practice papers. The topic for IELTS Academic Reading Information Theory – The Big Idea IELTS Reading Answers would help students to practice for developing their reading skills which includes a passage with corresponding questions.The passage contains the following question types from IELTS Reading Question Types:
- Identifying information
- Complete the notes
- True/ False/ Not Given
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Section 1
Read the Passage to Answer the Following Questions
Information Theory – The Big Idea IELTS Reading Answers
A
In April 2002 an event took place which demonstrated one of the many applications of information theory. The space probe, Voyager I, launched in 1977, had sent back spectacular images of Jupiter and Saturn and then soared out of the Solar System on a one-way mission to the stars. After 25 years of exposure to the freezing temperatures of deep space, the probe was beginning to show its age. Sensors and circuits were on the brink of failing and NASA experts realized that they had to do something or lose contact with their probe forever. The solution was to get a message to Voyager I to instruct it to use spares to change the failing parts. With the probe 12 billion kilometers from Earth, this was not an easy task. By means of a radio dish belonging to NASA’s Deep Space Network, the message was sent out into the depths of space. Even traveling at the speed of light, it took over 11 hours to reach its target, far beyond the orbit of Pluto. Yet, incredibly, the little probe managed to hear the faint call from its home planet and successfully made the switchover.
B
It was the longest-distance repair job in history, and a triumph for the NASA engineers. But it also highlighted the astonishing power of the techniques developed by American communications engineer Claude Shannon, who had died just a year earlier. Born in 1916 in Petoskey, Michigan, Shannon showed an early talent for math and for building gadgets and made breakthroughs in the foundations of computer technology when still a student. While at Bell Laboratories, Shannon developed information theory but shunned the resulting acclaim. In the 1940s, he single-handedly created an entire science of communication which has since inveigled its way into a host of applications, from DVDs to satellite communications to bar codes - any area, in short, where data has to be conveyed rapidly yet accurately.
C
This all seems light years away from the down-to-earth uses Shannon originally had for his work, which began when he was a 22-year-old graduate engineering student at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1939. He set out with an apparently simple aim: to pin down the precise meaning of the concept of ‘information’. The most basic form of information, Shannon argued, is whether something is true or false - which can be captured in the binary unit, or ‘bit’, of the form 1 or 0. Having identified this fundamental unit, Shannon set about defining otherwise vague ideas about information and how to transmit it from place to place. In the process he discovered something surprising: it is always possible to guarantee the information will get through random interference - ‘noise’ - intact.
D
Noise usually means unwanted sounds which interfere with genuine information. Information theory generalizes this idea via theorems that capture the effects of noise with mathematical precision. In particular, Shannon showed that noise sets a limit on the rate at which information can pass along communication channels while remaining error-free. This rate depends on the relative strengths of the signal and noise traveling down the communication channel, and on its capacity (its ‘bandwidth’). The resulting limit, given in units of bits per second, is the absolute maximum rate of error-free communication given signal strength and noise level. The trick, Shannon showed, is to find ways of packaging up - ‘coding’ - information to cope with the ravages of noise, while staying within the information-carrying capacity - ‘bandwidth’ - of the communication system being used.
E
Over the years scientists have devised many such coding methods, and they have proved crucial in many technological feats. The Voyager spacecraft transmitted data using codes which added one extra bit for every single bit of information; the result was an error rate of just one bit in 10,000 - and stunningly clear pictures of the planets. Other codes have become parts of everyday life - such as the Universal Product Code, or bar code, which uses a simple error-detecting system that ensures supermarket check-out lasers can read the price even on, say, a crumpled bag of crisps. As recently as 1993, engineers made a major breakthrough by discovering so-called turbo codes - which come very close to Shannon’s ultimate limit for the maximum rate that data can be transmitted reliably, and now play a key role in the mobile videophone revolution.
F
Shannon also laid the foundations of more efficient ways of storing information, by stripping out superfluous (‘redundant’) bits from data which contributed little real information. As mobile phone text messages like ‘I CN C U’ show, it is often possible to leave out a lot of data without losing much meaning. As with error correction, however, there’s a limit beyond which messages become too ambiguous. Shannon showed how to calculate this limit, opening the way to the design of compression methods that cram maximum information into the minimum space.
Section 2
Solution and Explanation
Questions 1 to 6:
Reading Passage has six paragraphs, A to F.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct paragraph, A to F, on your answer sheet.
Question 1: an explanation of the factors affecting the transmission of information
Answer: D
Supporting Sentence: Information theory generalizes this idea via theorems that capture the effects of noise with mathematical precision. In particular, Shannon showed that noise sets a limit on the rate at which information can pass along communication channels while remaining error-free.
Keywords: information theory, theorems, mathematical precision
Keyword Location: Paragraph D; Line 3
Explanation: information that passes through communication channels remaining free from errors is affected by noise thereby capturing effects of noise through precision of mathematics can be considered a factor that affects the transmission of information.
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Question 2: an example of how unnecessary information can be omitted
Answer: F
Supporting Sentence: Shannon also laid the foundations of more efficient ways of storing information, by stripping out superfluous (‘redundant’) bits from data which contributed little real information.
Keywords: foundations, storing information
Keyword Location: Paragraph F; Line 1
Explanation: unnecessary information can be omitted by stripping out superfluous bits from data that contribute little to real time information.
Question 3: a reference to Shannon’s attitude to fame
Answer: B
Supporting Sentence: While at Bell Laboratories, Shannon developed information theory but shunned the resulting acclaim.
Keywords: information theory, resultying acclaim
Keyword Location: Paragraph B; Line 4
Explanation: Shannon’s attitude towards fame is quite modest considering that Shannon had shunned the acclaim he received for developing the information theory.
Question 4: details of a machine capable of interpreting incomplete information
Answer: E
Supporting Sentence: Other codes have become parts of everyday life – such as the Universal Product Code, or bar code, which uses a simple error-detecting system that ensures supermarket check-out lasers can read the price even on, say, a crumpled bag of crisps.
Keywords: codes, Universal Product Code, error-detecting system
Keyword Location: Paragraph 3; Line 3
Explanation: with the use of error-detecting systems, it is possible to even read the price even from a crumpled bag of crisps which implies that machines have the capability of reading and interpreting data even from incomplete information.
Question 5: a detailed account of an incident involving information theory
Answer: Paragraph A
Supporting Sentence: In April 2002 an event took place which demonstrated one of the many applications of information theory.
Keywords: demonstrated, event, applications of information theory
Keyword Location: Paragraph A; Line 1
Explanation: April 2022 evaluates an event when an incident that involves information theory took place including a demonstration of applications of information theory
Question 6: a reference to what Shannon initially intended to achieve in his research
Answer: C
Supporting Sentence: He set out with an apparently simple aim: to pin down the precise meaning of the concept of ‘information’.
Keywords: simple aim, concept of ‘information’
Keyword Location: Paragraph C; Line 2
Explanation: Shannon initially had a simple aim which was to understand and evaluate precise meaning of ‘information’
Questions 7 to 11:
Complete the notes below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 7 to 11 on your answer sheet.
Question 7 and 8: The probe transmitted pictures of both 7 _____, then left the 8 ______.
Answer: Jupiter and Saturn (in either order); Solar System
Supporting Sentence: The space probe, Voyager I, launched in 1977, had sent back spectacular images of Jupiter and Saturn and then soared out of the Solar System on a one-way mission to the stars.
Keywords: space probe, Voyager, spectacular images
Keyword Location: Paragraph A; Line 2
Explanation: the Voyager I was a space probe that sent back images of Jupiter and Saturn and then is supposed to have left the solar system.
Question 9: The freezing temperatures were found to have a negative effect on parts of the space probe. Scientists feared that both the _____ were about to stop working.
Answer: sensors and circuits (in either order)
Supporting Sentence: Sensors and circuits were on the brink of failing and NASA experts realized that they had to do something or lose contact with their probe forever.
Keywords: sensors and circuits, brink of failing, NASA
Keyword Location: Paragraph A; Line 4
Explanation: the sensors and circuits were on the verge of failing which the scientists feared due to the negative effect of freezing temperatures.
Question 10: The only hope was to tell the probe to replace them with ______ but distance made communication with the probe difficult.
Answer: spares
Supporting Sentence: The solution was to get a message to Voyager I to instruct it to use spares to change the failing parts.
Keywords: solution, message, change
Keyword Location: Paragraph A; Line 5
Explanation: in order to change the failing parts it was important to instruct the Voyager I to replace the same with 10 spares but communication was difficult with the Voyager I
Question 11: ______ was used to transmit the message at the speed of light.
Answer: radio dish
Supporting Sentence: By means of a radio dish belonging to NASA’s Deep Space Network, the message was sent out into the depths of space.
Keywords: radio dish, NASA’s Deep Space Network, depths of space
Keyword Location: Paragraph A; Line 7
Explanation: radio dish was used in order to send a message into the depth of space
Questions 12 to 14:
Do the following statements agree with the information given in reading passage?
In boxes 12 to 14 on your answer sheet write:
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
Question 12: The concept of describing something as true or false was the starting point for Shannon in his attempts to send messages over distances.
Answer: True
Supporting Sentence: Having identified this fundamental unit, Shannon set about defining otherwise vague ideas about information and how to transmit it from place to place.
Keywords: Shannon, messages, information, distances, place to place
Keyword Location: Paragraph C; Line 4
Explanation: Since the line says, ‘Having identified this fundamental unit, Shannon set about defining otherwise vague ideas about information and how to transmit it from place to place.’ As in the question, the answer is TRUE.
Question 13: The amount of information that can be sent in a given time period is determined with reference to the signal strength and noise level.
Answer: True
Supporting Sentence: This rate depends on the relative strengths of the signal and noise traveling down the communication channel, and on its capacity (its ‘bandwidth’).
Keywords: signal strength, noise level
Keyword Location: Paragraph D; Line 4
Explanation: As the line says, ‘This rate depends on the relative strengths of the signal and noise traveling down the communication channel, and on its capacity (its ‘bandwidth’).’ As in the question, the answer is TRUE.
Question 14: Products have now been developed which can convey more information than Shannon had anticipated as possible.
Answer: False
Supporting Sentence: As recently as 1993, engineers made a major breakthrough by discovering so-called turbo codes – which come very close to Shannon’s ultimate limit for the maximum rate that data can be transmitted reliably, and now play a key role in the mobile videophone revolution.
Keywords: engineers, discovering, turbo codes
Keyword Location: Paragraph E; Last Line
Explanation: The line says ‘which comes very close to Shannon’s ultimate limit’ while the question says more than anticipated which is incorrect. Hence, the question is FALSE.
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