The Secrets of Persuasion Reading Answers with IELTS Passage

The Secrets of Persuasion Reading Answers: IELTS reading test includes passages based on various topics. To strengthen exam preparation, aspirants must aim to solve questions from multiple passages. Additionally, they should understand and follow the tips to approach reading passages in the actual exam.

To strengthen exam preparation, this guide provides the IELTS reading passage on the secrets of persuasion. This passage also includes answers to a set of passage based questions so that aspirants can evaluate their performance after solving them.

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The Secrets of Persuasion Reading Answers IELTS Passage

The IELTS reading passage on the secrets of persuasion is provided here. Candidates must carefully go through the passage to understand IELTS reading explanation for psychology of influence. 

The Secrets of Persuasion Reading Passage

A Our mother may have told you the secret to getting what you ask for was to say please. The reality is rather more surprising. Adam Dudding talks to a psychologist who has made a life's work from the science of persuasion. Some scientists peer at things through high-powered microscopes. Others goad rats through mazes or mix bubbling fluids in glass beakers. Robert Cialdini, for his part, does curious things with towels and believes that by doing so he is discovering important insights into how society works.

B Cialdini's towel experiments (more of them later), are part of his research into how we persuade others to say yes. He wants to know why some people have a knack for bending the will of others, be it a telephone cold-caller talking to you about timeshares, or a parent whose children are compliant even without threats of extreme violence. While he's anxious not to be seen as the man who's written the bible for snake-oil salesmen, for decades the Arizona State University social psychology professor has been creating systems for the principles and methods of persuasion and writing bestsellers about them. Some people seem to be born with the skills; Cialdini's claim is that by applying a little science, even those of us who aren't should be able to get our own way more often. "All my life I've been an easy mark for the blandishment of salespeople and fundraisers and I'd always wondered why they could get me to buy things I didn't want and give to causes I hadn't heard of," says Cialdini on the phone from London, where his is plugging his latest book.

C He found that laboratory experiments on the psychology of persuasion were telling only part of the story, so he began to research influence in the real world, enrolling in sales-training programmes: "I learnt how to sell automobiles from a lot, how to sell insurance from an office, how to sell encyclopedias door to door." He concluded there were six general "principles of influence" and has since put them to the test under slightly more scientific conditions. Most recently, that has meant messing about with towels. Many hotels leave a little card in each bathroom asking guests to reuse towels and thus conserve water and electricity and reduce pollution. Cialdini and his colleagues wanted to test the relative effectiveness of different words on those cards. Would guests be motivated to co-operate simply because it would help save the planet, or were other factors more compelling? To test this, the researchers changed the card's message from an environmental one to the simple (and truthful) statement that the majority of guests at the hotel had reused their towel at least once. Guests given this message were 26% more likely to reuse their towels than those given the old message. In Cialdini's book "Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion", co-written with another social scientist and a business consultant, he explains that guests were responding to the persuasive force of "social proof", the idea that our decisions are strongly influenced by what we believe other people like us are doing.

D So much for towels. Cialdini has also learnt a lot from confectionery. Yes! Cites the work of New Jersey behavioural scientist David Strohmetz, who wanted to see how restaurant patrons would respond to ridiculously small favour from their food server, in the form of after-dinner chocolate for each diner. The secret, it seems, is in how you give the chocolate. When the chocolates arrived in a heap with the bill, tips went up a miserly 3% compared to when no chocolate was given. But when the chocolates were dropped individually in front of each diner, tips went up 14%. The scientific breakthrough, though, came when the waitress gave each diner one chocolate, headed away from the table then doubled back to give them one more each as if such generosity had only just occurred to her. Tips went up 23%. This is "reciprocity" in action: we want to return favours done to us, often without bothering to calculate the relative value of what is being received and given.

E Geeling Ng, operations manager at Auckland's Soul Bar, says she's never heard of Kiwi waiting staff using such a cynical trick, not least because New Zealand's tipping culture is so different from that of the US: "If you did that in New Zealand, as diners were leaving they'd say 'can we have some more?'" But she certainly understands the general principle of reciprocity. The way to a diner's heart is "to give them something they're not expecting in the way of service. It might be something as small as leaving a mint on their plate, or it might be remembering that last time they were in they wanted their water with no ice and no lemon." "In America, it would translate into an instant tip. In New Zealand, it translates into a huge smile and thanks to you." And no doubt, return visits.

The Secrets of Persuasion Reading Answers Practice Questions

Here is the set of practice questions based on the secret of persuasion reading passage. Candidates must read each question carefully to find the accurate answers.

Questions 1-5: Multiple Choice

Question 1: According to paragraph A, Robert Cialdini's research methods are: 

A) Similar to traditional scientific approaches 

B) Focused on laboratory-based experiments 

C) Unconventional but insightful 

D) Based primarily on theoretical studies

Question 2: In paragraph B, Cialdini's motivation for studying persuasion came from: 

A) His desire to help salespeople 

B) His academic background in psychology 

C) His personal experiences as a consumer 

D) His interest in writing bestsellers

Question 3: According to paragraph C, Cialdini's approach to studying influence involved:

 A) Only conducting laboratory experiments 

B) Focusing solely on environmental psychology 

C) Learning real-world sales techniques 

D) Studying hotel management practices

Question 4: The towel experiment in paragraph C demonstrated that: 

A) Environmental messages are most effective 

B) Social proof influences behavior more than environmental appeals 

C) Hotel guests don't care about conservation 

D) Most guests ignore bathroom cards entirely

Question 5: In the chocolate experiment described in paragraph D, the highest tip increase (23%) occurred when: 

A) Chocolates were given with the bill 

B) Chocolates were distributed individually 

C) The waitress gave one chocolate, left, then returned with another 

D) Multiple chocolates were given at once

Questions 6-10: True/False/Not Given

Question 6: Cialdini identified exactly six principles of influence through his research. 

Question 7: The towel experiment showed that environmental messages are the most effective form of persuasion. 

Question 8: David Strohmetz conducted his chocolate experiments in restaurants across multiple states. 

Question 9: Geeling Ng believes that the chocolate-giving technique would be effective in New Zealand restaurants. 

Question 10: According to the passage, people always calculate the relative value of favors before deciding to reciprocate.

Questions 11-13: Short Answer Questions

Question 11: What percentage increase in tips occurred when chocolates were given individually to each diner? (Maximum 2 words) 

Question 12: Which persuasion principle is demonstrated by the chocolate experiment?

Question 13: According to Geeling Ng, what do New Zealand diners typically do when given unexpected service? 

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