IELTS Reading Practice Test 8 Printable

Reading Passage 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 29-40, based on Reading Passage 3.

Anaesthesiology

Since the beginning of time, man has sought natural remedies for pain. Between 40 and 60 A.D., Greek physician, Dioscorides travelled with the Roman armies, studying the medicinal properties of plants and minerals. His book, De materia medica, written in five volumes and translated into at least seven languages, was the primary reference source for physicians for over sixteen centuries. The field of anaesthesiology , which was once nothing more than a list of medicinal plants and makeshift medication, has grown into one of the most important fields in medicine.

Many of the early pain relievers were based on myth and did little to relieve the suffering of an ill or injured person. The mandragora (now known as the mandrake plant) was one of the first plants to be used as an anaesthetic. Due to the apparent screaming that the plant made as it was pulled from the ground, people in the Middle Ages believed that the person who removed the mandrake from the earth would either die or go insane. This superstition may have resulted because the split root of the mandrake resembled the human form. In order to pull the root from the ground, the plant collector would loosen it and tie the stem to an animal. It was believed that the safest time to uproot a mandrake was in the moonlight, and the best animal to use was a black dog. In his manual, Dioscorides suggested boiling the root with wine and having a man drink the potion to remove sensation before cutting his flesh or burning his skin. Opium and Indian hemp were later used to induce sleep before a painful procedure or to relieve the pain of an illness. Other substances such as cocaine did more harm to the patient than good as people died from their addictions. President Ulysses S. Grant became addicted to cocaine before he died of throat cancer in 1885.

The modern field of anaesthetics dates to the incident when nitrous oxide (more commonly known as laughing gas) was accidentally discovered. Humphrey Davy, the inventor of the miner’s lamp, discovered that inhaling the toxic compound caused a strange euphoria, followed by fits of laughter, tears, and sometimes unconsciousness. U.S. dentist, Horace Wells, was the first on record to experiment with laughing gas, which he used in 1844 to relieve pain during a tooth extraction. Two years later. Dr. William Morton created the first anaesthetic machine. This apparatus was a simple glass globe containing an ether-soaked sponge. Morton considered ether a good alternative to nitrous oxide because the numbing effect lasted considerably longer. His apparatus allowed the patient to inhale vapours whenever the pain became unbearable. In 1846, during a trial experiment in Boston, a tumor was successfully removed from a man’s jaw area while he was anaesthetised with Morton’s machine.

The first use of anaesthesia in the obstetrics field occurred in Scotland by Dr. James Simpson. Instead of ether, which he considered irritating to the eyes, Simpson administered chloroform to reduce the pain of childbirth. Simpson sprinkled chloroform on a handkerchief and allowed labouring women to inhale the fumes at their own discretion. In 1853, Queen Victoria agreed to use chloroform during the birth of her eighth child. Soon the use of chloroform during childbirth was both acceptable and fashionable. However, as chloroform became a more popular anaesthetic, knowledge of its toxicity surfaced, and it was soon obsolete.

After World War II, numerous developments were made in the field of anaesthetics. Surgical procedures that had been unthinkable were being performed with little or no pain felt by the patient. Rather than physicians or nurses who administered pain relief as part of their profession, anaesthesiologists became specialists in suppressing consciousness and alleviating pain. Anaesthesiologists today are classified as perioperative physicians, meaning they take care of a patient before, during, and after surgical procedures. It takes over eight years of schooling and four years of residency until an anaesthesiologist is prepared to practice in the United States. These experts are trained to administer three different types of anaesthetics: general, local, and regional. General anaesthetic is used to put a patient into a temporary state of unconsciousness. Local anaesthetic is used only at the affected site and causes a loss of sensation. Regional anaesthetic is used to block the sensation and possibly the movement of a larger portion of the body. As well as controlling the levels of pain for the patient before and throughout an operation, anaesthesiologists are responsible for monitoring and controlling the patient’s vital functions during the procedure and assessing the medical needs in the post-operative room.

The number of anaesthesiologists in the United States has more than doubled since the 1970s, as has the improvement and success of operative care. In addition, complications from anaesthesiology have declined dramatically. Over 40 million anaesthetics are administered in the United States each year, with only 1 in 250,000 causing death.

Questions 29-34
Do the following statements agree with the information in Passage 3? In boxes 29-34 on your Answer Sheet, write

TRUE if the statement is true according to the passage.
FALSE if the statement contradicts the passage.
NOT GIVEN inhere is no information about this in the passage.

29. Dioscorides’ book, De materia medica, fell out of use after 60 A.D.
30. Mandragora was used as an anaesthetic during the Middle Ages.
31. Nitrous oxide can cause the user to both laugh and cry.
32. During the second half of the 19th century, most dentists used anaesthesia .
33. Anaesthesiologists in the United States are required to have 12 years of education and training.
34. There are fewer anaesthesiologists in the United States now than in the past.

Questions 35-40

Match each fact about anaesthesia with the type of anaesthetic that it refers to. There are more types of anaesthetics listed than facts, so you won’t use them all. Write the correct letter, A-H in boxes 35-40 on your Answer Sheet.

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