IELTS Reading: Pulling strings to build pyramids

1 It is generally believed that large numbers of people were needed to build the pyramids. True

The pyramids of Egypt were built more than three thousand years ago, and no one knows how. The conventional picture is that tens of thousands of slaves dragged stones on sledges. But there is no evidence to back this up.

(conventional = what everyone accepts/understands/believes to be true)

2 Clemmons found a strange hieroglyph on the wall of an Egyptian monument. False

Now a Californian software consultant called Maureen Clemmons has suggested that kites might have been involved. While perusing a book on the monuments of Egypt, she noticed a hieroglyph that showed a row of men standing in odd postures.

(she found the hieroglyph while reading a book about the monuments of Egypt – she did not see the hieroglyph on the monument itself)

3 Gharib had previously done experiments on bird flight. Not given

Intrigued, Clemmons contacted Morteza Gharib, aeronautics professor at the California Institute of Technology. He was fascinated by the idea. ‘Coming from Iran, I have a keen interest in Middle Eastern science’ he says. He too was puzzled by the picture that had sparked Clemmons’s interest.

(Did Gharib do any experiments on bird flight before this experiment? We cannot answer this Yes or No from the text, so it is NOT GIVEN)

4 Gharib and Graff tested their theory before applying it. True

Gharib and Graff set themselves the task of raising a 4.5-metre stone column from horizontal to vertical, using no source of energy except the wind. Their initial calculations and scale-model wind-tunnel experiments convinced them they wouldn’t need a strong wind to lift the 33.5-tonne column.

5 The success of the actual experiment was due to the high speed of the wind. False

Earlier this year, the team put Clemmons’s unlikely theory to the test, using a 40-square-meter rectangular nylon sail. The kite lifted the column clean off the ground. ‘We were absolutely stunned’ Gharib says. The instant the sail opened into the wind, a huge force was generated and the column was raised to the vertical in a mere 40 seconds.’

The wind was blowing at a gentle 16 to 20 kilometers an hour, little more than half what they thought would be needed.

(the wind speed was NOT high – it was gentle).

6 They found that, as the kite flew higher, the wind force got stronger. Not Given

What they had failed to reckon with was what happened when the kite was opened. There was a huge initial force – five times larger than the steady state force’ Gharib says. This jerk meant that kites could lift huge weights, Gharib realised.

(The initial (first) force was huge. What happened as the kite flew higher? We don’t know).

7 The team decided that it was possible to use kites to raise very heavy stones. True

Even a 300-tonne column could have been lifted to the vertical with 40 or so men and four or five sails. So Clemmons was right: the pyramid builders could have used kites to lift massive stones into place. ‘Whether they actually did is another matter,’ Gharib says. There are no pictures showing the construction of the pyramids, so there is no way to tell what really happened. The evidence for using kites to move large stones is no better or worse than the evidence for the brute force method’ Gharib says.