The Placebo Effect
Read The Placebo Effect and check the IELTS Reading answers. Want to devise a new form of alternative medical treatment? No problem. Here’s the recipe. As a practitioner, be warm, sympathetic, reassuring and enthusiastic. Your treatment should involve physical contact, and each session with your pa…
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Want to devise a new form of alternative medical treatment? No problem. Here’s the recipe. As a practitioner, be warm, sympathetic, reassuring and enthusiastic. Your treatment should involve physical contact, and each session with your patients should take at least half an hour. Encourage your patients to take an active part in their treatment and understand how their disorders relate to the rest of their lives. Tell them that their own bodies possess the true power to heal. Get them to pay you well. Describe your treatment in familiar words, but embroidered with a hint of mysticism: energy fields, energy flows, energy blocks, meridians, forces, auras, rhythms and the like. Refer to the knowledge of an earlier age: wisdom carelessly swept aside by the rise of blind mechanistic science. Oh, come off it, you’re saying. Something like that couldn’t possibly work, could it?
Vocabulary from this passage
10 words worth learning before you sit the test, each with the sentence it appears in.
- ambivalent about adjective phrase
Having mixed feelings or being unable to decide whether something is good.
In the passage:
Q31: medicine "recognizes but remains oddly ambivalent about" the placebo effect, so it should give the effect more recognition.
Synonyms: uncertain about, undecided about
Opposites: enthusiastic about
- a very good living noun phrase
Enough money from work to live comfortably, rather than only to survive.
In the passage:
Q29 ending says "get a high income"; paragraph 2 says "a very good living if you are … convincing" and believe in your therapy.
Synonyms: high income, good salary
Opposites: low pay
- get the credit verb phrase
To be thanked or praised for a result, whether or not you caused it.
In the passage:
"Many illnesses get better on their own, so if you are lucky … you’ll get the credit": a healer is praised for natural recovery (Q30).
Synonyms: take the credit, receive the praise
- hardly surprising adjective phrase
Easy to expect, because it follows naturally from what has been said.
In the passage:
Q40: "It’s hardly surprising, then, that complementary practitioners are generally best at mobilising the placebo effect".
Synonyms: unsurprising, only to be expected
Opposites: astonishing
- lend itself to verb phrase
To be suitable for a particular use or treatment.
In the passage:
Pain "lends itself to experimental study": it is easy to test, which is why research focuses on it (paragraph 4).
Synonyms: be suited to, be well suited to
- mobilise verb
To bring something into use so that it works effectively.
In the passage:
Q40 says "likely to trigger the placebo effect"; the last paragraph says practitioners are "best at mobilising the placebo effect".
Synonyms: trigger, activate
- orthodox adjective
Following the usual, accepted methods and beliefs, especially in medicine.
In the passage:
Q32 option says "alternative and conventional medicine"; the writer says the placebo matters in "all medical care, orthodox or otherwise".
Synonyms: conventional, mainstream
Opposites: alternative
- scant adjective
Hardly any; too little to be enough.
In the passage:
"Most of the scant research to date has focused on the control of pain": little research has been done on placebos.
Synonyms: minimal, meagre
Opposites: abundant
- sensitive about adjective phrase
Easily upset or embarrassed when a topic is mentioned.
In the passage:
"Practitioners of alternative medicine are sensitive about any mention of the subject": they dislike the topic being raised. Not "aware of".
Synonyms: defensive about, touchy about
- turn up verb phrase
To find or reveal something that was not known before.
In the passage:
Q39: the Ernst survey "turned up one consistent finding", meaning it revealed a finding, not that someone arrived.
Synonyms: reveal, uncover
Opposites: hide
Answers with explanations
- 27. D
Look in the first paragraph, where the writer lists what a practitioner does. **An appointment** is a **session**, and the text says each one should take **at least half an hour**. **Ought to last a minimum length of time** is a paraphrase of that. The recipe also mentions money and physical contact, which do not fit the ending.
- 28. A
**Explanation of their treatment** matches **describe your treatment**. The writer says to use **familiar words**, only with a hint of mysticism added. **Familiar** becomes **easy to understand**, so the ending is about clarity. The mystic terms are a small addition, not the main point.
- 29. H
**Have faith in their treatment** matches **really believe in your therapy**. The text says that if you are convincing or truly believe, you can earn **a very good living**, which is the ending's **high income**. The practitioner is told to be paid well, but this sentence is the one about belief.
- 30. B
**Quite often** and **patient's illness** lead to **Many illnesses get better on their own**. **Can improve without treatment** is the same idea, and the writer adds that you may get the credit if you treat them at the right moment. Nothing here says the illness is serious.
- 31. G
**Conventional doctors** are **conventional medicine** in the text, which recognizes the placebo effect but is **oddly ambivalent about** it. The next paragraph adds that its role is **neglected and misunderstood**. That is why the ending is that they should give it **greater recognition**.
- 32. D
The question names the **third paragraph**, the one that defines placebos. The writer's own comment is that the placebo is **a powerful part of all medical care, orthodox or otherwise**. **Orthodox** means conventional, so the placebo matters in both conventional and alternative treatment. Tablets are only the most usual form.
- 33. A
Look for **anger and sadness** at the start of paragraph four. The writer gives them as examples of how **our state of mind can influence our physiology**: anger affects blood vessels, sadness the tear glands. **State of mind** is the question's personal feelings, and **physiology** its physical condition.
- 34. C
The text says research has mostly **focused on the control of pain**, then turns to **endorphins**, natural pain-controlling substances. Such chemicals **might also be involved in generating the placebo response**, which matches **pain-reducing agents might also be involved**. The fact that research is scant is true but is not the reason for the attention.
- 35. NO
The deciding word is **enough**. The question says scientists now understand how the placebo effect works, but the writer says **exactly how placebos work** is **still largely unknown**. These claims cannot both be true, so the answer is NO.
- 36. NOT GIVEN
Look for what the passage says about **painkillers**. It reports colour experiments with capsules, not any painkiller being **taken off the market**. Nothing is said about drugs being withdrawn, so the statement is NOT GIVEN. For YES or NO, the writer would have to mention banned drugs.
- 37. YES
**Individual preference** matches **what you like to take**, and **different brands** matches Aspro or Tylenol. The writer says **branding can make a difference**: the cheaper copies with identical chemicals **may be less effective**. So preference affects results, and the answer is YES.
- 38. YES
Look for **chlorpromazine** and the doctor in **Kansas**. He sorted his colleagues into three attitudes: **keen on it, openly sceptical**, and **let's-try-and-see**. Three attitudes is a **range of views**, so the writer agrees with the statement. The answer is YES.
- 39. NOT GIVEN
The deciding words are **big influence**. The writer reports the **Ernst** survey and its finding that warm doctors are more effective, but says nothing about the study changing how doctors treat patients. A finding is not an influence, so the answer is NOT GIVEN.
- 40. YES
**Likely to trigger the placebo effect** is paraphrased in the final paragraph as **generally best at mobilising the placebo effect**. The writer, quoting Kleinman, links this to the warmth and physical contact of alternative practitioners. The writer agrees, so the answer is YES.