IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test 36

Before the middle of the nineteenth century, all business documents were produced by hand. Clerks sat at high desks copying letters and accounts, and the legibility of the finished papers depended on the skill of each copyist. If a firm needed several identical copies of a contract or a price list, there was no alternative but to pay a clerk to write out every page separately, a slow and expensive process. Any error on one page meant that the whole page had to be rewritten. Inventors had long imagined a machine that would print characters as quickly as a person could press keys, but early models were clumsy and broke down frequently.

The first practical solution came from Christopher Latham Sholes, a printer and newspaper editor from Milwaukee. Working with the mechanic Carlos Glidden and the draftsman Samuel Soule, Sholes obtained a patent for a 'type-writing machine' in 1868. In this device each key was attached to a metal typebar which, when pressed, struck an inked ribbon and left a character on the paper. What distinguished Sholes's design was a moving typebar that struck the paper from below. The basic idea was simple, but turning it into a reliable product required several years of experiment. Lacking capital and manufacturing experience, Sholes and his partners eventually sold their rights to the Remington company.

The Remington company, a manufacturer of firearms that had also made sewing machines, produced the first commercially successful typewriter in 1874. Known as the Remington No. 1, it was not an immediate success. The machine could print only capital letters, and the typist could not see the line being written because the typebars struck the underside of the platen. Nevertheless, it was reliable enough for business use, and sales grew slowly. Buyers had to learn a completely new way of operating a machine, and the company sometimes arranged demonstrations to attract customers. At first the company produced only a few hundred machines, many of which were returned because the mechanism jammed.

Sholes and his colleagues worked to improve the keyboard arrangement. The first machines used a simple alphabetical order of keys, but when common letter combinations were typed quickly the typebars collided and jammed. To reduce the risk of jamming, the designers rearranged the letters so that frequently paired characters were moved apart.

This arrangement, which became known as QWERTY after the first six letters of the top row, was not designed to make typing faster; it was a mechanical solution to a mechanical problem. Sholes experimented with many layouts before settling on the one that became standard. Once typists had learned it, however, the layout became difficult to change, and it has survived into the computer age.

An important improvement came in 1878 with the Remington No. 2, which introduced the shift key. This mechanism allowed the same key to produce two characters by shifting the carriage slightly. The earliest Remington machines had been able to print only capital letters, but the shift key gave writers the full alphabet without doubling the number of keys. The general design of the typewriter changed little after this point. Later advances included the front-stroke mechanism, which made the line of writing visible.

As typewriters spread through offices in the late nineteenth century, they transformed clerical work. The volume of business correspondence increased sharply because letters could be produced much more quickly than by hand. Employers needed workers who could operate the new machines, and this demand created new employment opportunities for women. Typewriting schools opened in many cities. Many women entered the workforce as typists, and the typewriter came to be associated with the modern office. It also made documents easier to read and helped standardise forms and ledgers. Employers began to require neat typed work from their staff.

Portable typewriters appeared in the early twentieth century and became popular with travelling writers and journalists. These machines were lighter and smaller than office models. Electric typewriters followed around the middle of the century, using a motor to reduce the force needed to press keys. They allowed faster typing but became widespread only after the Second World War. Later, electronic typewriters replaced many mechanical parts with circuits, and word processors eventually made the standalone typewriter obsolete for most users. Collectors and enthusiasts, however, continue to value the sounds and rhythms of the older machines.

The typewriter changed perceptions of authorship and authority. A typed page looked uniform and impersonal, in contrast to handwriting. Legal and commercial documents gained seriousness, and typing became a standard requirement for many occupations. The keyboard layout spread to computing because early terminals borrowed the design typists already knew. Although the machine has largely disappeared from offices, its layout remains, and the concept of typing has shaped interactions with computers and mobile devices.

Permafrost is ground that remains at or below zero degrees Celsius for at least two consecutive years. It underlies vast areas of the Northern Hemisphere, including much of Siberia, Alaska and northern Canada, and it can be hundreds of metres deep. In many places the upper layer thaws briefly each summer, but the deeper ground remains permanently frozen. This frozen ground acts as a lid over enormous stores of organic matter, and its stability is now threatened by rising air temperatures. Scientists have been measuring permafrost temperatures for decades, and in many regions the ground is warming more quickly than the air above it.

The Arctic is often described as experiencing the fastest warming of any region on Earth. As air temperatures rise, the active layer—the part of the ground that thaws and refreezes each year—becomes deeper. This process may sound gradual, but its effects are already visible. In some northern villages and towns, the ground is subsiding beneath houses, and roads that were once solid have developed cracks and depressions. Engineers have had to redesign foundations, and in a few cases entire communities have considered moving to more stable ground. The problem is not limited to remote settlements; pipelines and communication cables also cross fragile permafrost.

One of the most dramatic signs of thawing permafrost is the formation of thermokarst lakes. When ice-rich ground melts, the land surface collapses, leaving behind depressions that fill with water. The new lakes are not simply a change to the landscape; they also accelerate further thawing because water is darker than the surrounding ground and absorbs more of the sun's energy. As the edges of these lakes slump, they can release organic material that has been frozen for thousands of years. Scientists studying such lakes have observed rapid changes over periods as short as a few years.

Why does this matter for the global climate? During cold periods, plant and animal remains accumulated in frozen soils because low temperatures slowed decomposition to a near standstill. As a result, permafrost holds a large fraction of the world's soil carbon—far more than is currently stored in the atmosphere. When the ground thaws, microbes begin to break down this organic matter, releasing carbon dioxide. In waterlogged conditions, where oxygen is scarce, the microbes may instead release methane, a gas that traps heat far more effectively than carbon dioxide over a shorter time scale. The amount of carbon involved is so large that even a small release from permafrost could have significant consequences.

Researchers monitor permafrost sites across the Arctic to understand how fast these changes are occurring. They drill boreholes to measure ground temperatures at different depths, collect samples of soil and gas, and use aircraft and satellites to track changes in the land surface. Remote sensing has revealed that lakes are draining in some areas while new ones are forming in others. Field measurements show that methane is escaping from thawing soils at many locations, and the gas sometimes bubbles up through lakes. Long-term data are essential because permafrost responds slowly, and a single warm summer does not necessarily indicate a permanent change.

The greatest concern is a positive feedback loop. Warming thaws permafrost, which releases greenhouse gases, and those gases contribute to further warming, which thaws more permafrost. This cycle could continue even if human emissions were reduced, because the thawing itself becomes a source of heat-trapping gases. Climate models that include permafrost carbon suggest that its release could add substantially to atmospheric concentrations over the coming century, although the exact amount remains uncertain. Some scientists worry that the models may underestimate the speed of abrupt thaw, where ground ice melts rapidly and the surface collapses, because such processes are difficult to simulate.

The physical effects of thaw are already costly. In Alaska, sections of roads have had to be repaired each year because the underlying ground has lost its strength. Airports built on permafrost require constant maintenance, and some runways have become dangerously uneven. In Siberia, industrial infrastructure has been damaged as the ground shifts beneath it. The expense of adapting to these changes is enormous, and it falls unevenly on northern communities, many of which are Indigenous and have limited financial resources. Local knowledge is valuable here, because people who have lived on permafrost for generations understand how the land behaves and where it is safest to build.

Reducing the severity of permafrost thaw depends above all on limiting global greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, local adaptation can reduce damage. Engineers can use thermosyphons and other techniques to keep the ground cold beneath buildings and roads. Monitoring networks can provide early warning of hazardous subsidence, giving communities time to move vulnerable equipment or people. International cooperation has strengthened Arctic research, but the scale of the problem means that no single measure will be sufficient. Ultimately, the fate of permafrost is linked to the success of efforts to slow climate change as a whole.

When microfinance first attracted international attention in the 1990s and early 2000s, it was presented as a revolutionary way to fight poverty. The idea was simple: poor people, especially women, could be given very small loans to start or expand tiny businesses, and the income from those businesses would lift their families out of poverty. The most famous pioneer was Muhammad Yunus, whose Grameen Bank in Bangladesh made millions of tiny loans without requiring collateral. Yunus and the bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, and microfinance became a fashionable cause for donors and governments. Many early reports told inspiring stories of borrowers who had transformed their lives.

The logical appeal of microcredit was strong. Traditional banks often refused to serve the poor because they had no assets to offer as security and because the cost of processing tiny loans was high. Microfinance institutions overcame these obstacles by lending to groups of borrowers who guaranteed each other's repayments, and by charging interest rates that, while higher than those paid by wealthier borrowers, were lower than the rates charged by informal moneylenders. In this way, the argument ran, credit could unlock the entrepreneurial energy of the poor. The hope was that a small amount of capital, combined with hard work, would produce a sustainable improvement in living standards.

As microfinance expanded, however, researchers began to test these claims more carefully. A number of randomised evaluations, in which some households were offered loans and others were not, found that the average impact on poverty was much smaller than had been expected. Households that received loans sometimes increased their business activity, but the effect on total income, consumption, health and education was modest and often not statistically significant. In some cases, borrowers used the money not to start businesses but to pay for food, school fees or medical treatment. Credit, it seemed, was not the simple tool for poverty reduction that its advocates had claimed.

There are several reasons why microcredit may not work as a cure for poverty. Many microbusinesses are very small and produce very low returns; the borrower's main constraint is not always lack of capital but lack of skills, markets or reliable infrastructure. High interest rates can create serious debt stress, especially when borrowers take loans from more than one institution. In some countries, aggressive competition among lenders led to overindebtedness, with borrowers juggling multiple loans and facing repayment problems. The group-lending model, which was designed to reduce risk, could also put pressure on members to repay loans even when their businesses failed. For these reasons, the success of microcredit depends heavily on the circumstances of the borrower and the local economy.

A more modest but perhaps more useful insight from recent research is that poor households need a range of financial services, not just credit. Many people with irregular incomes value a safe place to save even more than a loan. Microsavings accounts allow them to set aside small amounts for emergencies, school fees or future investment. Microinsurance, which protects against illness, crop failure or natural disasters, can prevent vulnerable households from falling into poverty. These services are less glamorous than the image of the poor entrepreneur, but they may do more to stabilise incomes. Microfinance, in other words, should be understood as one financial service among several, rather than as a single solution to poverty.

The commercialisation of microfinance has also raised concerns. Once microfinance became profitable, large investors were attracted to the sector, and some institutions grew rapidly by selling loans to clients who could not afford them. Critics argue that this mission drift—from serving the poor to pursuing profit—led to abuses such as coercive collection practices and excessive interest rates. In India, a major microfinance crisis in 2010 was linked to overindebtedness and suicides among borrowers, prompting the government to impose stricter regulations. Similar problems emerged in other countries, including Nicaragua and Bosnia. These events showed that microfinance, like any financial service, can be harmful if it is not properly supervised.

The problem is not that poor people are incapable of using credit wisely. The problem is that poverty is a complex condition, and no single financial product can solve it. Unemployment, ill health, poor education and a lack of infrastructure all constrain what a small business can achieve. Microcredit may provide a useful bridge during difficult times, but it cannot create jobs, build roads or train workers. To expect a tiny loan to overcome all these obstacles is to misunderstand both the causes of poverty and the nature of finance.

In my judgement, microfinance has a legitimate role, but its value has often been overstated. The key is to match the service to the need: credit for those who can use it productively, savings for those who need security, and insurance for those who face unpredictable risks. Regulation must protect borrowers from overindebtedness and abusive practices, and institutions must be judged not by the number of loans they make but by the outcomes they produce. Microfinance can help some poor households to manage their money more effectively, but it is not a shortcut to prosperity.