Two Wings and a Kit Box Reading Answers

Two Wings and a Kit Box Reading Answers contain 13 questions and belong to the assessment system of the IELTS General Reading test. Two Wings and a Kit Box Reading Answers must be answered within 20 minutes. In this IELTS reading section, question types include: Write the appropriate numbers, Do the following statements agree with the information given and Match the correct diagram to each tool manufactured by the New Caledonian crow. Also, Two Wings and a Kit Box Reading Answers offers a comprehensive overview of how New Caledonian crows challenge human uniqueness with advanced tool-making. To practice similar reading tests, candidates can refer to the IELTS Reading Practice Test section.

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Topic:

A.Many animals use tools, but tool manufacture is rare. Rarer still is cumulative change in tool manufacture. Chimpanzee and orangutan tool manufacture, for example, is often haphazard, and short lived. It shows little evidence of incremental improvement over time. In contrast, current human technology is often the result of a long series of cumulative changes. The “ratchet-like” nature of this technological evolution means that design changes are retained at the population level until new, improved designs arise. This ratchet effect is possible because tool manufacture methods are socially transmitted with sufficient fidelity that individuals do not need to reinvent or recapitulate past inefficient designs. The skills required for the development of this cumulative technical culture are claimed to include high-fidelity social learning, an understanding of physical relationships and functional properties of objects, and the ability for fine object manipulation. Animals other than humans are generally presumed to lack the necessary neural hardware and cognitive sophistication for cumulative technological evolution.

B.The New Caledonian crow, Corvus moneduloides, is an ideal model species to examine the links between tool manufacture, social learning and cognition. These crows make tools out of the twigs and the long, ridged edges of the leaves of the tropical pandanus tree to facilitate the capture of prey. Says New Zealander Gavin Hunt. He studies these birds, which live on islands between Australia and Fiji. Dr. Hunt has discovered that New Caledonian crows have three different designs for tools. These also relate to kinds of stick tools–hooked and not hooked. The manufacture of pandanus tools provides a unique opportunity for study because a record of tool manufacture is faithfully recorded in “counterparts” or outlines remaining on the leaves. In the wild, adult New Caledonian crows leave narrow pandanus (a still-rooted palm native to Southeast Asia) leaves and split them to keep the serrated outside edge intact. The split leaves are cut again in a few lengths for bill-controlled tools to hook small insects from cracks or to swish through leaf litter to impale other prey.

C.Recent work has revealed that these tools have four features previously thought to be unique to primitive humans: a high degree of standardization, the use of hooks, “handedness,” and cumulative changes in design. Evidence has come from cumulative changes in a field survey documenting the shapes of 5,550 tools from 21 sites throughout the range of pandanus tools. Three distinct tool designs are found: wide tools, narrow tools, and stepped tools. The lack of ecological correlates of the different tool designs makes it unlikely that they evolved independently at each site. Similarities in the method of manufacture for each design suggest that pandanus tools have gone through a process of cumulative evolution from a single historical origin.

D.Evidence is accumulating quickly on the inherent talent of crows for tool-making ability which indicates that this ability is at least partly inherited and not dependent on learning through social contacts. To date there is no experimental evidence that New Caledonian crows transmit tool-making knowledge via social learning. These crows live in small family units, and these juveniles have ample opportunity to learn foraging techniques. The social learning and reasoning abilities of other Corvus species are well documented. The high fidelity in the shape of tool design at sites makes individual trial-and-error learning unlikely. Similarly, the evidence that crows might have some sense of causality in their tool use continues to grow.

E.Researchers have also found that crows may use different parts of the brain to control making and using tools, and that the biology of hands—or beakness—may be more complex than we thought. Just like humans, New Caledonian crows are usually right “handed” when it comes to tool making, such as making hooks out of pandanus. But it is not yet certain whether all crows use left and right equally, although individual crows prefer one side or the other. “This has opened up Pandora’s box,” says William McGrew, who studies chimpanzees’ tool use at Miami University. “People always assumed handedness would be the same for using and making tools.” Scientists will now need to explore this assumption,” he adds.

F.A major breakthrough in these studies occurred when it became evident that traditional theory of evolution as espoused by Ludwig Edinger, a German neurobiologist and the leading exponent of comparative neuroanatomy, was wrong. He believed that avian brains evolved in a straight line with limited flexibility at the low end and progressed upwards through fish, reptiles, birds to mammals, with humans at the top. Neurobiologists now understand that although constructed differently from that of mammals, the crow’s brain nevertheless function as elegantly as any mammals’ brain. In fact, in proportion to body size, the crow’s brain is as large as a chimpanzee’s.

G.In mammals, the lower third of our brains consists of groups of neurons, whereas the upper two thirds exotics-cortices made up of six-cell layers, including cell layers. Thick top part generates our rational life of mind and the lower third controls our instinctive reactions such as withdrawing an arm to soften a fall or jerking a hand from a hot pan. The bird brain is missing the six-cell layer configuration. However, it is convoluted, with cells packed to such an extent that the only way the scull-confined brain can develop is to become convoluted, to increase cell density. The tops of bird brains are smooth, not folded, and until recently, scientists assumed this meant birds had simple brains, and thus would make all bird-brain jokes valid. We know this is not the case, but the exact neural pathways are still under study. What seems to have happened is an example of convergent evolution: two very different forms of brain structure eventually lead to similar equivalent brain power. “New Caledonian crows teach us in many ways other animals are not so different from us, and we should respect these differences and similarities,” says Hunt.

Questions 15-19

Reading Passage 2 has 7 paragraphs A-G.

Write the appropriate numbers (i - x).

NB There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use them all.

LIST OF HEADINGS

i. Many animals use tools rather than make tools

ii.. The crow changes tool design

ill. Tools made of pandanus

iv. The Caledonian crow, the toolmaker

v. Tool manufacture ratcheting upward

vi. Nurture or nature

vii. Brain evolution

viii. Pandora's box opened up

ix. Difference between making and using tools

x. Scientific assumption about handedness

15 Paragraph A

Paragraph A

Answer: v. Tool manufacture ratcheting upward

Supporting statement: "This ratchet effect is possible because tool manufacture methods are socially transmitted with sufficient fidelity..."

Keywords: ratchet effect, cumulative change, social transmission

Keyword Location: Paragraph A, lines 3–5

Explanation: The paragraph focuses on how human technology evolves cumulatively due to high-fidelity social transmission — the “ratchet effect.”

16. Paragraph B

Answer: iv. The Caledonian crow, the toolmaker

Supporting statement: "The New Caledonian crow... is an ideal model species to examine the links between tool manufacture, social learning and cognition."

Keywords: Caledonian crow, model species, tool manufacture

Keyword Location: Paragraph B, line 1

Explanation: This paragraph introduces the crow as a model organism for studying tool-making behavior.

17. Paragraph C

Answer: ii. The crow changes tool design

Supporting statement: "Evidence has come from cumulative changes in a field survey documenting the shapes of 5,550 tools..."

Keywords: tool design, cumulative evolution, changes

Keyword Location: Paragraph C, line 2

Explanation: The paragraph presents evidence that New Caledonian crows modify their tool designs, indicating evolving complexity.

18. Paragraph D

Answer: vi. Nurture or nature

Supporting statement: "Evidence is accumulating quickly on the inherent talent of crows... indicates that this ability is at least partly inherited..."

Keywords: inherited, not dependent, social contacts

Keyword Location: Paragraph D, lines 1–2

Explanation: Discusses whether the crows’ tool-making skills are innate or learned, contrasting nature and nurture.

19. Paragraph E

Answer: x. Scientific assumption about handedness

Supporting statement: "People always assumed handedness would be the same for using and making tools."

Keywords: handedness, assumption, making vs using

Keyword Location: Paragraph E, last sentence

Explanation: It challenges the assumption that tool-making and tool-using require the same “handedness.”

Questions 20-22

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?write

TRUE if the statement is true

FALSE,if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage.

20. Scientists found ample evidence that crows never change their tool design.

Answer: FALSE

Supporting statement: "pandanus tools have gone through a process of cumulative evolution from a single historical origin."

Keywords: cumulative evolution, tool design

Keyword Location: Paragraph C, last sentence

Explanation: This directly contradicts the statement; evidence shows that tool design does change over time.

21. Scientists confirmed that the crow's ability in tool making is completely inherited.

Answer: FALSE

Supporting statement: "...indicates that this ability is at least partly inherited and not dependent on learning through social contacts."

Keywords: partly inherited, not completely

Keyword Location: Paragraph D, line 1

Explanation: The phrase "at least partly inherited" confirms that inheritance plays a role but is not the only factor.

22. It is unlikely that the crows need to practise many times before manufacturing tools.

Answer: TRUE

Supporting statement: "The high fidelity in the shape of tool design at sites makes individual trial-and-error learning unlikely."

Keywords: high fidelity, unlikely, trial-and-error

Keyword Location: Paragraph D, line 5

Explanation: The consistent quality of tools suggests that repetitive practice is not the main learning method.

Questions 23-24

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3? write

TRUE if the statement is true

FALSE if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage.

23. Like humans, New Caledonian crows are "right handed" when they use their tools.

Answer: NOT GIVEN

Explanation: The passage only mentions handedness in tool making, not tool using, so it's not given.

24. Research into New Caledonian crows helps scientists understand the brain evolution of other birds.

Answer: TRUE

Supporting statement: "New Caledonian crows teach us... we should respect these differences and similarities."

Keywords: brain evolution, respect differences and similarities

Keyword Location: Paragraph G, last line

Explanation: The research highlights evolutionary comparisons and insights into bird brain function.

Questions 25-27

Look at the following diagrams A-F.

Match the correct diagram to each tool manufactured by the New Caledonian crow.

25. Hooked stick

Answer: C

Supporting statement: “Two kinds of stick tools—hooked and not hooked.”

Keywords: hooked stick

Keyword Location: Paragraph B, lines 6–7

Explanation: Diagram C shows a curved, hooked structure that matches this tool type.

26. Not hooked stick

Answer: B

Supporting statement: “Two kinds of stick tools—hooked and not hooked.”

Keywords: not hooked stick

Keyword Location: Paragraph B, lines 6–7

Explanation: Diagram B displays a straight stick tool without a hook.

27. Pandanus tool

Answer: F

Supporting statement: “These crows make tools out of the… pandanus tree…”

Keywords: pandanus, leaves, serrated

Keyword Location: Paragraph B, lines 3–5

Explanation: Diagram F shows a leafy, serrated tool similar to the pandanus tool described.

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