Why Being Bored Is Stimulating IELTS Reading Answers
Why Being Bored Is Stimulating IELTS Reading Answers: IELTS Reading passage practice questions for Why Being Bored Is Stimulating, sample answers, and tips.
Porishmita Paul11 Jan, 2025
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Why Being Bored Is Stimulating IELTS Reading Answers: In the IELTS Reading test, questions on “Why Being Bored Is Stimulating” are very common. The questions in the IELTS Reading Passage generally cover aspects of reasons “Why Being Bored Is Stimulating” and more. Therefore, preparing through the IELTS Reading practice test Why Being Bored Is Stimulating IELTS Reading Answers can help students get an idea of the actual question types for the IELTS Reading module .
The IELTS Reading practice test generally includes questions on IELTS Matching Headings, IELTS True/False/Not Given, and IELTS Matching Features. The article covers a sample reading passage along with their answers for IELTS exam 2025 aspirants.Free IELTS Reading Practice Tests, Cambridge Sample Test PDF
Why Being Bored Is Stimulating IELTS Reading Answers Passage
Spend around 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, depending on the “Why Being Bored Is Stimulating IELTS Reading Answers” Passage below.Why Being Bored is Stimulating Reading Passage
Paragraph A
We all know how it feels – it’s impossible to keep your mind on anything, time stretches out, and all the things you could do seem equally unlikely to make you feel better. But defining boredom so that it can be studied in the lab has proved difficult. For a start, it can include a lot of other mental states, such as frustration, apathy, depression and indifference. There isn’t even agreement over whether boredom is always a low-energy, flat kind of emotion or whether feeling agitated and restless counts as boredom, too. In his book, Boredom: A Lively History, Peter Toohey, at the University of Calgary, Canada, compares it to disgust – an emotion that motivates us to stay away from certain situations. ‘If disgust protects humans from infection, boredom may protect them from “infectious” social situations,’ he suggests.Paragraph B
By asking people about their experiences of boredom, Thomas Goetz and his team at the University of Konstanz in Germany have recently identified five distinct types: indifferent, calibrating, searching, reactant and apathetic. These can be plotted on two axes – one running left to right, which measures low to high arousal, and the other from top to bottom, which measures how positive or negative the feeling is. Intriguingly, Goetz has found that while people experience all kinds of boredom, they tend to specialise in one. Of the five types, the most damaging is ‘reactant’ boredom, with its explosive combination of high arousal and negative emotion. The most useful is what Goetz calls ‘indifferent’ boredom: someone isn’t engaged in anything satisfying but still feels relaxed and calm. However, it remains to be seen whether there are any character traits that predict the kind of boredom each of us might be prone to.Paragraph C
Psychologist Sandi Mann at the University of Central Lancashire, UK, goes further. ‘All emotions are there for a reason, including boredom,’ she says. Mann has found that being bored makes us more creative. ‘We’re all afraid of being bored, but in actual fact, it can lead to all kinds of amazing things,’ she says. In experiments published last year, Mann found that people who had been made to feel bored by copying numbers out of the phone book for 15 minutes came up with more creative ideas about how to use a polystyrene cup than a control group. Mann concluded that a passive, boring activity is best for creativity because it allows the mind to wander. In fact, she goes so far as to suggest that we should seek out more boredom in our lives.Paragraph D
Psychologist John Eastwood at York University in Toronto, Canada, isn’t convinced. ‘If you are in a state of mind-wandering, you are not bored,’ he says. ‘In my view, by definition, boredom is an undesirable state.’ That doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t adaptive, he adds. ‘Pain is adaptive – if we didn’t have physical pain, bad things would happen to us. Does that mean that we should actively cause pain? No. But even if boredom has evolved to help us survive, it can still be toxic if allowed to fester.’ For Eastwood, the central feature of boredom is a failure to put our ‘attention system’ into gear. This causes an inability to focus on anything, which makes time seem to go painfully slowly. What’s more, your efforts to improve the situation can end up making you feel worse. ‘People try to connect with the world, and if they are not successful, they experience frustration and irritability,’ he says. Perhaps most worryingly, says Eastwood, repeatedly failing to engage attention can lead to a state where we don’t know what to do any more and no longer care.Paragraph E
Eastwood’s team is now trying to explore why the attention system fails. It’s early days but they think that at least some of it comes down to personality. Boredom proneness has been linked with a variety of traits. People who are motivated by pleasure seem to suffer particularly badly. Other personality traits, such as curiosity, are associated with a high boredom threshold. More evidence that boredom has detrimental effects comes from studies of people who are more or less prone to boredom. It seems those who bore easily face poorer prospects in education, their career and even life in general. But of course, boredom itself cannot kill – it’s the things we do to deal with it that may put us in danger. What can we do to alleviate it before it comes to that? Goetz’s group has one suggestion. Working with teenagers, they found that those who ‘approach’ a boring situation – in other words, see that it’s boring and get stuck in any way – report less boredom than those who try to avoid it by using snacks, TV or social media for distraction.Paragraph F
Psychologist Francoise Wemelsfelder speculates that our over-connected lifestyles might even be a new source of boredom. ‘In modern human society, there is a lot of overstimulation but still many problems finding meaning,’ she says. So, instead of seeking yet more mental stimulation, perhaps we should leave our phones alone and use boredom to motivate us to engage with the world in a more meaningful way.Why Being Bored Is Stimulating IELTS Reading Answers Sample Questions
Why Being Bored Is Stimulating IELTS Reading Answers: Matching Headings (Q. 1-6):Questions:
- Paragraph A
- Paragraph B
- Paragraph C
- Paragraph D
- Paragraph E
- Paragraph F
Why Being Bored Is Stimulating IELTS Reading Answers: Matching People to Ideas (Q. 7-10):Questions: 7. Thomas Goetz 8. Sandi Mann 9. John Eastwood 10. Francoise Wemelsfelder List of Ideas: A. Boredom can inspire creative thinking. B. Boredom results from an attention system malfunction. C. Some people experience specific types of boredom more than others. D. Modern technology and overstimulation may increase boredom. E. Boredom can protect us from harmful social situations.
Why Being Bored Is Stimulating IELTS Reading Answers: Complete the Summary (Q. 11-13):Summary: Boredom has been linked to both positive and negative outcomes. While (11) __________ believes that boredom can spark creativity, others such as John Eastwood view it as an (12) __________ state caused by a failure of attention. Some studies suggest that modern life filled with (13) __________ may intensify feelings of boredom, leaving people searching for deeper meaning.Complete the summary below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage.
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Why Being Bored Is Stimulating IELTS Reading Answers with Explanations
1. Answer: Paragraph A : Heading: iv. Defining boredom and its complexity Explanation : In paragraph A, the difficulty of defining boredom is discussed. It also mentioned the association of boredom with various other mental states. It also introduces Peter Toohey’s comparison of boredom to disgust. 2. Answer: Paragraph B : Heading: i. Different types of boredom and their effects Explanation : Paragraph B discusses five distinct types of boredom identified by Thomas Goetz. These categories include indifferent, calibrating, searching, reactant, and apathetic boredom. The paragraph also mentions how these types are related to emotional arousal and feelings. 3. Answer: Paragraph C : Heading: iii. Boredom as a trigger for creativity Explanation : In paragraph C, Sandi Mann explains that boredom can actually lead to creativity. She used the example of people who were bored by copying phone numbers and came up with more creative ideas. 4. Answer: Paragraph D : Heading: vi. The negative impacts of boredom on mental focus Explanation : In paragraph D, John Eastwood mentions boredom as an undesirable state caused by a malfunction in the attention system. According to him, boredom can lead to difficulty focusing and negative emotions like frustration, irritation, and an inability to engage in anything. 5. Answer: Paragraph E : Heading: ii. The role of personality in boredom levels Explanation : The paragraph H mentions how personality traits can influence one’s susceptibility to boredom such as motivation can be influenced by pleasure. 6. Answer: Paragraph F : Heading: v. How modern life may contribute to boredom Explanation : In paragraph F, Francoise Wemelsfelder mentions, “our over-connected lifestyles might even be a new source of boredom”. She also suggested that stepping away from overstimulation (like phones) might help engage with the world meaningfully. 7. Thomas Goetz Answer: C. Some people experience specific types of boredom more than others. Explanation : In paragraph B, Thomas Goetz and his team identified five different types of boredom such as indifferent, calibrating, searching, reactant, and apathetic boredom. They also found that people tend to specialize in one type. 8. Sandi Mann Answer: A. Boredom can inspire creative thinking. Explanation : Paragraph C states, “Mann has found that being bored makes us more creative.” 9. John Eastwood Answer: B. Boredom results from an attention system malfunction. Explanation : According to John Eastwood, boredom is a result of a failure in our attention system. Boredom can cause difficulty to focus on anything and leads to feelings of frustration and irritability. 10. Francoise Wemelsfelder Answer: D. Modern technology and overstimulation may increase boredom. Explanation : Francoise Wemelsfelder discusses how modern human society is overstimulated but still lacks meaning leading to boredom. 11. Answer: Sandi Mann Explanation : Paragraph C states, “Mann has found that being bored makes us more creative.” 12. Answer: Undesirable Explanation : In Paragraph D, John Eastwood mentions, “In my view, by definition, boredom is an undesirable state.” 13. Answer: Overstimulation Explanation : In Paragraph F, Francoise Wemelsfelder mentions, “our over-connected lifestyles might even be a new source of boredom.” Also Read:- Should You Use All Capital Letters in the IELTS Listening and Reading Tests
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Why Being Bored Is Stimulating IELTS Reading Answers FAQs
Q. What causes boredom?
Ans. Boredom is caused by a failure to engage our attention system. Boredom can often lead to frustration and irritability. It can also result from overstimulation in modern society.
Q. Can boredom lead to creativity?
Ans. Yes, boredom can lead to creativity. Passive boredom allows the mind to wander, leading to more creative ideas.
Q. Are there different types of boredom?
Ans. Yes, there are five types of boredom: indifferent, calibrating, searching, reactant, and apathetic.
Q. How can we reduce boredom?
Ans. We can reduce boredom by facing it directly and engaging with it, rather than distracting ourselves with activities like TV or social media, can reduce feelings of boredom.
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