MINI TEST 3
READING: TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN
Read the passage and answer the questions
A. Humans start developing a sense of humour as early as six weeks old, when babies begin
to laugh and smile in response to stimuli. Laughter is universal across all human cultures and
even exists in some form in rats, chimps, and bonobos. Like other human emotions and
expressions, laughter and humour provide psychological scientists with rich resources for
studying human psychology, ranging from the development of language to the neuroscience
of social perception.
B. Theories focusing on the evolution of laughter point to it as an important adaptation for
social communication. Take, for example, the recorded laughter in TV comedy shows. Back in
1950, US sound engineer Charley Douglass hated dealing with the unpredictable laughter of
live audiences, so started recording his own “laugh tracks”. These were intended to help
people at home feel like they were in a social situation, such as a crowded theatre. Douglass
even recorded various types of laughter, as well as mixtures of laughter from men, women,
and children. In doing so, he picked up on a quality of laughter that is now interesting
researchers: a simple ‘haha’ communicates a remarkable amount of socially relevant
information.
C. In one study conducted in 2016, samples of laughter from pairs of English-speaking
students were recorded at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A team made up of more
than 30 psychological scientists, anthropologists, and biologists then played these recordings
to listeners from 24 diverse societies, from indigenous tribes in New Guinea to city-dwellers
in India and Europe. Participants were asked whether they thought the people laughing were
friends or strangers. On average, the results were remarkably consistent: worldwide, people’s
guesses were correct approximately 60% of the time.
D. Researchers have also found that different types of laughter serve as codes to complex
human social hierarchies. A team led by Christopher Oveis from the University of California,
VOCABULARY TEST – IELTS FOUNDATION| 1
San Diego, found that high-status individuals had different laughs from low-status individuals,
and that strangers’ judgements of an individual’s social status were influenced by the
dominant or submissive quality of their laughter. In their study, 48 male college students were
randomly assigned to groups of four, with each group composed of two low-status members,
who had just joined their college fraternity group, and two high-status members, older
students who had been active in the fraternity for at least two years. Laughter was recorded
as each student took a turn at being teased by the others, involving the use of mildly insulting
nicknames. Analysis revealed that, as expected, high-status individuals produced more
dominant laughs and fewer submissive laughs relative to the low-status individuals.
Meanwhile, low-status individuals were more likely to change their laughter based on their
position of power; that is, the newcomers produced more dominant laughs when they were
in the powerful role of teasers. Dominant laughter was higher in pitch, louder, and more
variable in tone than submissive laughter.
E. A random group of volunteers then listened to an equal number of dominant and
submissive laughs from both the high- and low-status individuals, and were asked to estimate
the social status of the laugher. In line with predictions, laughers producing dominant laughs
were perceived to be significantly higher in status than laughers producing submissive laughs.
“This was particularly true for low-status individuals, who were rated as significantly higher in
status when displaying a dominant versus submissive laugh,’ Oveis and colleagues note.
“Thus, by strategically displaying more dominant laughter when the context allows, low-
status individuals may achieve higher status in the eyes of others.’ However, high-status
individuals were rated as high-status whether they produced their natural dominant laugh or
tried to do a submissive one.
F. Another study, conducted by David Cheng and Lu Wang of Australian National University,
was based on the hypothesis that humour might provide a respite from tedious situations in
the workplace. This ‘mental break’ might facilitate the replenishment of mental resources. To
test this theory, the researchers recruited 74 business students, ostensibly for an experiment
on perception. First, the students performed a tedious task in which they had to cross out
every instance of the letter ‘e’ over two pages of text. The students then were randomly
assigned to watch a video clip eliciting either humour, contentment, or neutral feelings. Some
VOCABULARY TEST – IELTS FOUNDATION| 2
watched a clip of the BBC comedy Mr. Bean, others a relaxing scene with dolphins swimming
in the ocean, and others a factual video about the management profession.
G. The students then completed a task requiring persistence in which they were asked to
guess the potential performance of employees based on provided profiles, and were told that
making 10 correct assessments in a row would lead to a win. However, the software was
programmed such that is was nearly impossible to achieve 10 consecutive correct answers.
Participants were allowed to quit the task at any point. Students who had watched the Mr.
Bean video ended up spending significantly more time working on the task, making twice as
many predictions as the other two groups.
H. Cheng and Wang then replicated these results in a second study, during which they had
participants complete long multiplication questions by hand. Again, participants who watched
the humorous video spent significantly more time working on this tedious task and completed
more questions correctly than did the students in either of the other groups. ‘Although
humour has been found to help relieve stress and facilitate social relationships, traditional
view of task performance implies that individuals should avoid things such as humour that
may distract them from the accomplishment of task goals,’ Cheng and Wang conclude. ‘We
suggest that humour is not only enjoyable but more importantly, energising.’
VOCABULARY TEST – IELTS FOUNDATION| 3
Questions 1 - 7: Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading
Passage? Then write:
TRUE if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
FALSE if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
1. Participants in the Santa Cruz study were more accurate at identifying the laughs of friends
than those of strangers.
2. The researchers in the San Diego study were correct in their predictions regarding the
behaviour of the high-status individuals.
3. The participants in the Australian National University study were given a fixed amount of
time to complete the task focusing on employee profiles.
4. Cheng and Wang’s conclusions were in line with established notions regarding task
performance.
5. Charley Douglass, a show producer, invented “laugh tracks” due to his grudge against
unchoreographed laughter.
6. Dominant laughter were preferable in social conversation since the owners of these sounds
tended to be high-status individuals.
7. It is proved in Oveis’ experiment that high-status individuals can always be identified by
their way of laughing.
1. ………………. 2. ………………. 3. ………………. 4. ……………….
5. ………………. 6. ………………. 7. ……………….
VOCABULARY TEST – IELTS FOUNDATION| 4
