IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test 95

Long before the first cinemas, people were fascinated by the illusion of motion in still images. In the early nineteenth century, inventors built simple optical toys that made drawings appear to move. The phenakistoscope and the zoetrope used spinning discs and slotted drums to create a brief loop of animation. These devices relied on a property of human vision often called persistence of vision, in which the eye briefly retains an image after it has disappeared. They were popular in parlours and at fairs, showing that the public already had an appetite for moving pictures.

The scientific study of motion advanced significantly in the 1870s, when the English photographer Eadweard Muybridge settled a bet about whether a trotting horse ever has all four hooves off the ground. He set up a row of cameras with tripwires, and the resulting series of photographs proved that the animal did briefly become airborne. Muybridge later developed a device called the zoopraxiscope to project his images in rapid succession, recreating the horse's motion on a screen. Around the same time, the French physiologist Étienne-Jules Marey invented a photographic gun that could capture twelve images per second, a technique he called chronophotography.

The next major step came from the inventor Thomas Edison and his assistant William Kennedy Laurie Dickson. Working in Edison's laboratory, they produced the kinetoscope in 1891, a peepshow device that showed short films to a single viewer through a small window. The films were made in a specially built studio called the Black Maria, which had a retractable roof to let in sunlight. Subjects included dancers, acrobats and comic scenes, and the device quickly became a commercial success in amusement arcades.

The kinetoscope, however, allowed only one person at a time to watch. It was the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, who turned moving pictures into a public spectacle. Their cinematograph, patented in 1895, was lightweight enough to be carried outside and could record, print and project films. On 28 December 1895, in the Grand Café in Paris, they held what is often regarded as the first commercial film screening for a paying audience. The programme included Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, and within weeks the brothers were also showing a short scene of a train arriving at a station.

These early films were simple actualities, brief recordings of everyday events. According to popular accounts, audiences at the train film ducked or screamed, believing the locomotive would burst through the screen, though some historians doubt the story. Nevertheless, the realism of these moving photographs astonished viewers who had never seen anything like them. Travel scenes, street views and family moments soon became standard subjects, and cameramen were sent around the world to bring back exotic images.

The idea that film could tell stories was developed most famously by the French showman Georges Méliès. A former stage magician, he began by filming his own conjuring acts and then discovered that tricks such as stop-motion and double exposure could create magical transformations on screen. His 1902 film A Trip to the Moon, loosely based on Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, used painted sets and fantastical costumes to depict a rocket landing in the eye of the Man in the Moon. It became one of the most widely seen films of the era.

At first, films were shown in fairgrounds and music halls, but from around 1905 dedicated cinemas began to appear. In the United States, small storefront theatres called nickelodeons charged five cents for admission, making moving pictures accessible to working-class audiences. As demand grew, films became longer and more complex. Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery (1903) introduced techniques such as cross-cutting between different locations, and its success encouraged producers to invest in narrative storytelling rather than simple actualities.

Technical and artistic conventions developed rapidly in the following years. Filmmakers began to move the camera, to cut between close-ups and wide shots, and to build scenes through editing rather than presenting a single continuous view. The American director D. W. Griffith, though later criticised for the racial content of some of his work, was influential in establishing many of these techniques. By 1910, film was recognised as a distinct art form with its own grammar of visual storytelling.

The industry also became increasingly international. French, Italian and Danish companies were initially dominant, and the First World War severely disrupted European production. Hollywood, with its reliable weather and cheap land, then rose to global prominence. The journey from the zoetrope to the feature film had taken barely two decades, but the basic principle remained the same: a rapid succession of still images creating the illusion of movement, now transformed into one of the most powerful media of the modern world.

Pain is an essential warning system. Without it, people would fail to notice injuries that require rest or treatment, and they might damage their bodies irreparably. The detection of painful events begins with specialised nerve endings called nociceptors, which respond to potentially harmful stimuli such as extreme heat, intense pressure or tissue-damaging chemicals. Nociceptors are found in the skin, muscles, joints and internal organs, and their nerve endings are free, meaning they are not enclosed in specialised capsules. Two types of nerve fibres carry pain signals: fast-conducting A-delta fibres produce a sharp, immediate sensation, while slower C fibres produce a dull, aching pain that can last longer. The experience of pain is therefore not a single sensation but a complex interaction between sensory input and the brain's interpretation.

Nociceptors have high thresholds, meaning they fire only when a stimulus is strong enough to threaten tissue. After an injury, however, the area becomes more sensitive. Chemicals released by damaged cells lower the threshold of nearby nociceptors, so that even a light touch may be felt as pain, a process called peripheral sensitisation. These chemicals include prostaglandins, bradykinin and substance P, which together create an inflammatory environment. This is why sunburnt skin hurts when touched, and why anti-inflammatory drugs that block prostaglandin production, such as ibuprofen, can reduce pain. Sensitisation is a protective response, encouraging the injured part to be protected from further harm, but it can also become persistent and contribute to chronic pain.

From the site of injury, pain signals travel along nerves to the spinal cord, where they enter the dorsal horn. Here they synapse with second-order neurons that cross to the opposite side and ascend to the brain, mainly via the spinothalamic tract. Other pathways carry information to the brainstem and to regions involved in arousal and emotional response. The spinal cord is not a passive relay, however. It contains networks of interneurons that can amplify or suppress incoming signals before they reach the brain. Some interneurons release inhibitory neurotransmitters such as gamma-aminobutyric acid and glycine, which dampen transmission, while others release excitatory substances that enhance it.

In the brain, pain information reaches the thalamus, which acts as a relay station and directs signals to several areas. The somatosensory cortex processes the location and intensity of pain, while the anterior cingulate cortex and the insula are associated with its unpleasant emotional qualities. The prefrontal cortex, which is involved in attention and decision-making, also becomes active, and the brainstem modulates the experience. Brain imaging studies show that these regions are not activated in isolation; instead, pain produces a widespread pattern of activity often referred to as the pain matrix. This distributed processing helps explain why pain is so strongly influenced by attention, expectation and mood.

The gate control theory, proposed by Ronald Melzack and Patrick Wall in 1965, suggested that the spinal cord contains a neural gate that can open or close to modulate pain signals. The theory was based on the observation that rubbing a painful area or applying a mild electrical stimulus to the skin can relieve pain. Activity in large-diameter fibres that carry touch or vibration can close the gate and reduce pain transmission, which is why rubbing a bumped elbow brings relief. Descending signals from the brain can also close the gate, so that distraction or positive expectations may diminish pain. The theory was a major step towards understanding pain as a dynamic process rather than a fixed response to injury, and it stimulated decades of research into pain modulation.

The discovery that the brain can send signals down to the spinal cord to suppress pain led to the identification of natural pain-relieving substances called endorphins. Endorphins are peptides produced in the pituitary gland and hypothalamus; they bind to opioid receptors and reduce the release of substance P from sensory neurons. These chemicals are released during stress, exercise and social bonding, and they act on the same receptors as opioid drugs such as morphine. The placebo effect, in which an inactive treatment reduces pain, is partly explained by the release of endorphins, showing that belief and context can have genuine physiological effects.

Sometimes pain persists long after an injury has healed. Chronic pain can result from damage to the nervous system itself, as in neuropathic pain, or from changes in the central nervous system that amplify pain signals, a condition called central sensitisation. Conditions such as fibromyalgia and phantom limb pain are examples of chronic pain that may involve central sensitisation. Researchers now know that glial cells, once thought to be mere support cells, play an active role in maintaining chronic pain by releasing inflammatory signals. This insight has opened new avenues for treatment, because chronic pain is no longer seen as a symptom of ongoing tissue damage but as a disease in its own right.

Understanding the biology of pain has important implications for medicine. Because pain is influenced by so many factors, two people with the same injury may report very different levels of pain, and neither is simply exaggerating. Clinicians are increasingly encouraged to treat pain as a biopsychosocial phenomenon, addressing not only the physical cause but also psychological and social factors. Cognitive behavioural therapy, graded exercise and mindfulness are sometimes used alongside medication. This approach, while more complex than simply prescribing painkillers, often leads to better outcomes for patients with long-term pain.

For most of the twentieth century, scientific research was published in journals owned by commercial publishers or learned societies. Libraries paid annual subscriptions to give their users access. In the 1990s, however, this system began to strain as journal prices rose far faster than library budgets, a problem known as the serials crisis. Journal subscription costs rose several times faster than inflation, and some libraries were forced to cancel hundreds of titles. Even wealthy universities found themselves cancelling subscriptions, while researchers in poorer countries often had no access at all to the latest findings. The internet made it technically easy to share articles widely, yet most remained behind paywalls.

The term 'open access' emerged to describe a simple idea: the results of publicly funded research should be freely available to anyone, anywhere, without subscription barriers. In 2002, a meeting in Budapest produced the Budapest Open Access Initiative, which declared that an old tradition and a new technology had converged to make an unprecedented public good possible. The initiative defined two main routes. The first, often called gold open access, involves publishing in journals that make articles freely available immediately, usually funded by article processing charges paid by authors or their institutions. Some open-access journals do not charge authors, relying instead on institutional subsidies or volunteer labour, a model sometimes called diamond open access.

The second route, green open access, does not require authors to pay. Instead, a version of the article is deposited in an institutional or subject repository after publication in a subscription journal, sometimes after an embargo period. Many funders specify a maximum embargo of six or twelve months after publication. This approach allows authors to comply with funder mandates without changing where they publish. Many universities now maintain repositories, and major funding bodies, including the Wellcome Trust and the US National Institutes of Health, require researchers to deposit their work. Green open access is therefore seen by many as a pragmatic way to increase access without disrupting the existing publishing ecosystem.

Gold open access has grown rapidly, but it has also attracted criticism. The most common objection concerns cost shifting: instead of paying to read, authors now pay to publish. Article processing charges can be thousands of pounds, and they vary widely from a few hundred to several thousand pounds. Many funders cover these fees, and some publishers offer fee waivers, but the system is not consistent. Researchers in low-income countries or those without grants may be unable to afford them. Critics argue that open access has simply replaced one financial barrier with another, moving the burden from libraries to individual researchers.

Another concern is quality. The rise of 'predatory' journals, which charge authors fees but do not provide genuine peer review, has tarnished the reputation of open access. Such journals exploit the author-pays model and publish almost anything for money. Estimates suggest that thousands of predatory journals exist, but precise numbers are difficult to determine. However, it would be wrong to equate predatory publishing with open access itself; many respected open-access journals, including those published by major scientific societies, maintain rigorous review standards. The problem is not the model but the lack of oversight and the pressure on researchers to publish in any venue that will accept their work.

Some critics also claim that open access undermines the sustainability of scholarly societies, which often rely on income from their subscription journals to fund conferences, grants and other activities. If libraries stop subscribing because content is freely available, societies may lose a vital revenue stream. Proponents respond that societies can adapt by charging reasonable article processing fees, offering membership benefits, or renegotiating their publishing contracts. Some learned societies have launched open-access journals alongside their subscription titles, while others have flipped established journals to open access after careful financial planning. A few societies have indeed converted their flagship journals to open access without financial collapse, though the transition remains difficult for smaller organisations.

My own view is that the principle behind open access is correct. Research that is funded by public money, or that has implications for human health and welfare, should not be locked away from those who need it. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the value of rapid, open sharing: preprint servers and open-access journals allowed scientists to exchange findings within days, accelerating vaccine and treatment research. Preprint servers such as arXiv and bioRxiv allow researchers to share early versions of papers before peer review, and their use grew sharply during the pandemic. Yet I also recognise that the current gold model is inequitable in its own way, and that a mixed system with strong repositories, transparent pricing and funder support for publication fees is the most realistic path forward.

The transition will not be straightforward. Universities, publishers, funders and governments all have different interests, and some commercial publishers are highly profitable and will resist change. Nevertheless, pressure from funders is growing. In 2018, a group of European research funders announced Plan S, which requires that, from 2021, research they fund must be published in open-access venues or made available immediately through repositories.

Plan S is supported by many European funders and some charities, but it has faced opposition from some researchers who fear it will limit their choice of journals. While Plan S has been criticised for its emphasis on gold open access and its potential to disadvantage certain fields, it has undeniably accelerated the shift towards a more open system. The question is no longer whether open access will happen, but how it can be implemented fairly.