Reading 2


Reading 1: scanning A The title of the unit is Nature or nurture. What do you now understand that to mean?


B Skim the first three paragraphs of a text about nature or nurture and tick the summary below that is most accurate.


1. It is now clear that what people inherit through their genes shapes their personality. 2. What people experience as they go through life makes them who they are. 3. Whether nature or nurture has a bigger influence on our personality is open to debate.


You inherited curly hair from your father and your dazzling blue eyes from your mother, but where did you acquire your carefree personality and a talent for ball sports? Did these develop as your parents brought you up or were they pre-determined by your genes? While it has always been clear that physical characteristics are hereditary, the genetics is a little more of a grey area when it comes to an individual’s behaviour, intelligence and personality. The old argument of nature versus nurture has never really been won. We do not yet know how much of who we are is determined by our DNA and how much by life experience. What we do know is that both play a part.


It has been suggested that the use of the terms nature and nurture as a convenient catchphrase to describe the roles of heredity and environment in human development goes back as far as 13th


-century France. Some scientists believe that people behave as they do according to


genetic predispositions – a sort of animal instinct, if you like. This is known as the nature theory of human behaviour. Other scientists have concluded that people think and behave in certain ways because they are taught to do so. This is known as the nurture theory of human behaviour.


As understanding of the human genome keeps increasing, it is becoming clear that both sides are partly correct. Nature endows us with inborn abilities and traits; nurture takes these genetic tendencies and moulds them as we develop and mature. However, nobody is satisfied with this compromise and the nature versus nurture debate rages on.


C For questions 1–3, find the answers to these questions in the text as quickly as possible. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.


1. According to the text, what might your mother pass on to you? 2. What have people always understood to be hereditary?


3. In which country might the term nature or nurture have originated?


_______________ _______________ _______________


For questions 4–6, decide if the information given below agrees with the information given in the text. Write (T) true, (F) false or (NG) not given, if there is no information on this.


4. People are more likely to inherit curly hair from their father than from their mother. 5. People have talked about nature versus nurture for over a thousand years. 6. Scientists know more about the human genome than ever before.


___ ___ ___


26 Pathway to IELTS 6.0


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